BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

This young pair of vic alpines came from the female in my avatar,i unfortunatly lost the old girl during brumation,possably left them cooled to long and she developed an infection along with 3 of her older daughters ,thankfully i managed to get her daughter right

Any ways these were holdbacks i didnt intend breeding,thought the males were to small,females borderline,they dont turn 2 until early april

These 2 were my old girls last two babies,a small litter of two at age 29

There light blew in winter when the bigger blotchies indoors were in brumation,so i just let them have a cool down,to my suprise come wake up the male had hemipenal buldges,he shed,then started dropping sperm plugs like the big boys and like them in the other cages started mating females

I wasnt sure what to expect but girls have ballloned and now the girl above has just dropped a litter of 4

Again i was predicting xmas dropping times and again in way off the mark,lol

The parents of these and there parents are what i class the nicer colored vic alpines,these new babies look very colorful to

Will get some outdoor pics tomoz

All these females stopped being mated by august 23rd,im now starting to think that there all going to come shortly,except maybe the 3 lowlands females outdoors since late september

So these guys born november 11

Vic alpine bub



And a comparison with a born the day previously bluemountains/nsw southern highlands mix

These id have to say are by far the brightest baby vic alpines ive produced,not suprising as the young parents are both of the very colorful form like there mum was

From past experience,one litter produced of bluemountains and babies ive gotten from scott,even duller vic alpines are born brighter looking,but once they start shedding the bluemountains lose the duskyness and make most vic alpines look like a lowlands color wise in comparison

Not sure what the mixed litter will do yet,but i do think it will catch up and surpass the vics,time will tell

Christmas come early up at your place huh, nice look bubs what are your plans with the 8 of them?

Most probably keeping them,curious to see how they develop ,but a few to go still so see what happens

Only have pne pic of this pr mating,19/8 that i could find on phone but the lil fella tried a fair it as well up till 23/8 when all the mating action just stopped

So first mating till birth was 84 days

Last mating to birth 80 days

Those are some more nice ones Richard. It's nice to have short gestations when they all come out nice and healthy. My baby blotchies is growing ridiculously fast even though I have been feeding him slow. Do yours grow faster than your northerns when you keep them warm over the first winter?

There is s big difference between Highlands and lowlands. Lowlands grow at about held the rate. If kept on heat I find the highlands go from 15 cm to 45 cm before spring-march to September

Wow some little beauties right there. I wish blochies were available over here. Something about them sets them apart from other blueys.

Jeff,my northerns grow slow as,because most of the babies shut down on me the first winter for 5 months,tend to do most of there growing after the first winter,cool ambient is enough to shut mine down,sometimes i let it do like wize for the blotchies or even just shut them down but last couple of seasons i have kept them a bit warmer and had some good growth with them

Still they arent as big as others get theres though,the pr above turn two in early april,last march i got 4 yearlings from scott,my biggest was similar in size to his smallest,but from memory scott offers more ideal conditions warmth wise

I do have a couple of similar aged northerns that have grown at a similar rate,the male one even bred this season but still waiting to see if that took,somethings in her but what we will have to wait and see,lol

With right conditions i think all blueys are capable of rapid growth,im just typically not in any rush to grow them fast i guess,my typically kept blotchies for instance take 5 to 7 years to start breeding,females,males may try earlier but dominant males usually stop them trying

I generally keep babies with heat for the first winter - min about 23C or they stop eating. I also do this because I keep several young ones together and keeping them warm prevents - especially males from cycling (hence males fighting) until I work out which ones I want to keep.

Im usually keeping heat in first winter but cool ambients and no night heat,these guys though have followed pretty much what scott does,but with a shut down for 2nd winter,which did have the males bicker a little bit,couple of smaller males got picked on so were moved else where whilst they were mating