BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

two of my kunnanurra line kimberley northerns

(scott freeloader) these two are siblings of the male u got from me,a year younger than your female

now before anyone jumps the gun and thinks its because i dont offer uv lighting or supplement there straight wetdogfood diet,let me continue the story of these 2,lol

the mbd symptoms are restricted to there tail bases and one towards the tip is kinky to,bodies and jaw alignment are spot on

Bummer, hope it doesn't impact their breeding potential.

first i should mention that i didnt raise these 2,i actually sold some to a petshop these being 2 of them,they were raised under uv lighting and there diet was being supplemented with cal/d3 and multi vitamins,but the petshop after asking me what i feed them told there customer not to feed them dogfood as its bad,and told them to mimick nature,crickets ,veg and fruit,on chatting to customer,apparently said petshops diet for them was bannanna and chopped iceberg lettuce,augmented with a handful of crickets everu now and then,yes dogfoods really bad,that sounds much betterer,lol

anyways thankfully customer offered more variety in veg and fruit content but still its obvious it wasnt kosher,they pretty much fed whatever the lizards accepted so diet was based on that,not the best wau of configuring diet

i found them on a facebook page and recognised my babies so got talking to them as they were quite concerned,understandably

anuways to cut a long story short i mentioned feeding them dogfood to stop ongoing issues,showed them pics of older and uounger ones from same parents that ive rasied soley on dogfood,talked about not just feeding what theu like but to look deeper,eg kids like eating macxas but its not a staple thats healthu for them,i offered them some non mbd babies if they wanted to start again and they jumped at that,so did the swap and told them to ask me anything if they have concerns,in short gave them some tips

plus im interested to see how these guys go back on dogfood,they seem to move around normally and behave like the rest so i reckon they will be fine

Really sad to hear that i hope it doesn't get any worse, i hate pet stores i have never seen one that actually knows how to look after a BTS except for 1 dedicated reptile store.

this isa baby thats a year younger,one from last season fathered by a male from same parents above to were produced from but thats a year older than them,its mum is a prince regent i raised from a new born,around 8 now,i think

heres the one year younger than mbd one with his one year older than mbd ones father,this males from the same parents that produced the mbd ones

nick these develop mbd along time after being at the pet store,so not entirely petstores fault,though probably not the best start for them

some of this seasons holdbacks from 1 year older male above


and another this season holdback from another litter that was actually from the sister of the one that produced the litter these two mbd ones came from

anywaus this thread isnt about how dogfoods better than mimmicking or trying to mimmick nature or whats best to feed or not to feed or any of that kind of caper

just think its interesting and i plan to post updates on how these two go ,they should be fine i reckon but thought some may be interested

what this will be about though is how trying to mimmick nature can turn out bad,how doing what the books say doesnt alwaus work and how easily u can stuff it up

these two have been under uv light since leaving me where they had none,they have also been supplemented with cal/d3 two to 3 times per week and multivitamins once per week since leaving me where they got none

yet look above at all the animals and tell me how they have fared ,those two mbd ones off of what books say,the rest on what books and vets say DONT do

one thong i do want to stipulate here is dogfood isnt the reasoning ,its more the simple fact of how alot of people mimmicking wild diet get it wrong,eg it only will eat certain veg or fruit plus ground turkey,with no thought put into the ratios,just going off of whats accepted or not

also of note and even more importantly as i see folk mention this alot in uv or no uv type debates is the fact that uv lighting and supplementation will not,ill repeat that it definatly will not cover you for poor diet

ive always said that but alot of folk think im mad,i am a little,lol,but seriously,its so very true

freeloader,for interests sakes can u post a pic of your male from me in this thread,i dont have any others from this litter so would make for a good comparison

so again,dont take this thread as a dogfoods the best thing to feed them thread,its more a its probably a better idea if u dont know what mixes to use type thread if your mimicking natural type diets

norm,as a feeder of a more natural type diet and with some gorgeous and very longterm feeders of such a diet perhaps you could help me explain about how to make a good healthy type mix and how its alot more involved then just a bit of ground turkey a piece of fruit or veg or 2 they may accept

there are lots of successful ways of doing it,but equally as many woeful ways to and i think this could be a great thread on this

feel free to share anu comments or thoughts,especially longterm keepers

Richard I am more than happy with mine and they are very healthy individuals. Both of them weigh around the 500g mark. I have only fed them wet dog food with a dry cat food mixed in. The male has a climbing injury, flat between the hips, due to the way I kept him. He was housed in a 4ft wooden glass fronted enclosure and sustained the injury in that enclosure. Just my opinion but I think he has thrived since being put in the rack. I kept bluies when I was a kid giving them uv, veggies and the like, when I started keeping again I decided to do something different food wise. Even at my age ( 50), I have learnt a lot more than when I did keeping bts as a kid.
A bit off the subject. I was in a petshop near my place on the weekend and overheard the shop assistant telling a customer that you could cause the death of your python
by feeding a non immunized mouse to it. I grabbed a mouse out of the freezer and asked the shop assistant if he could get the on site vet to immunize the mouse to feed to my python.
When approached by the vet and store manager and questioned who had given that advice to them I had to tell them it was one of their own employees. The customer who was given the advice was approached by the vet and the manager and received a most humble apology about the advice he had been given.
More education needed if you are going to give advice on any reptile.

My male from Richards line. Just weighed in at 500g.

haha,im not even going to mention some of the things ive heard pet shop employees suggest to customers,some really make me cringe though,lol

alot of petshops employ folk to sell there products though ,i know of a couple of employees that got the sack because they were offering customers good advice,but the advice wasnt helping sell the shops products,thankfully not all shops are like this
,as they fill out it becomes alot less noticable unless they clinb at walls still and lean back
hes looking good scott,i have a female with similar climbing kink,actually a sister of your female

apparently said petshops diet for them was bannanna and chopped iceberg lettuce,augmented with a handful of crickets everu now and then

Good grief those poor little skinks. With advice like that I'm surprised they look as good as they do.

Another good reason to buy from a breeder and not a pet store - to avoid TERRIBLE advice like this

I'm glad you recognized those two beautiful blueys as your bloodline and were able to get them back

Much more civilized discussion compared how it was on the Facebook page.

Hi Richard - I wouldn't mind getting into a discussion on natural feeding and my reasons so I'll probably get labelled a bit crazy too.

I have developed my blotchies diets from a lot of early information I received on this forum combined with a lot of reading from reliable sources. I have a bit of experience with diet diversity by also keeping rabbits and Eclectus parrots, so now I have omnivores, herbivores and a frugivore. For example, I consider metabolism speed as a guiding factor in determining some of the food fed together with sugary foods which can lead to gut floral imbalance (dysbiosis); this is particularly pertinent with the rabbits, but affects all species. Hence I don't feed a great deal of fruit to the blotchies. They don't get it every feed and when fed it is usually one grape (high sugar), a couple of blueberries (antioxidants), or papaya (beneficial digestive enzymes).

I fed the blotchies today but didn't see this until after all the munchies had disappeared.

I would like to see other contributions.

thanks norm,would love to hear more about your findings

greg,this is more how i wanted the facebook one to be but good old facebook,lol,i noticed it died afrer my last comments on there,lol

i didnt want it to be dogfood vs natural type diet debate,hence have tried to word it better here

end of the day theres lots of successful ways to cater to bluetongies needs,hopefully this thread can showcase some of those

but it will be interesting to also hear of problems folk have had to all for the benefit of learning

Good on you for taking them back, Richard. It probably would have killed me if I seen the babies I produced developing MBD. When Riley developed his kink (just one kink, but made the tail go in a completely different direction), I just offered my regular amount of calcium to him, and has gotten noticeably smaller. You have to actually look for it, or you don't see it. I cannot confirm, but I believe Debbie did feed a lot of chicken breast, but also dog food. I will check with her on that. I also recall she tried feeding them veggies, too.

Scott,this is the dad of your 2,solid 60 cm of kunnanurra just over a kilo in weight,oh bought a tub to experiment with today

thought i would see how the biggest skink i have fits

He looks good Richard.