BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

On this forum we advocate dog food as a good, healthy staple.
If your feelings differ from what we recommend here, that is fine; we welcome everyone and respect whatever beliefs or opinions you may have. But, because the leadership of this site believes dog food to be a good and healthy staple in a BTS diet, we will not keep overlooking statements like: "dog food is bad" or "never feed dog food" unless you include the reason for your opinion. To throw a "blanket statement" out ("Dog food is bad") that goes against the group's stated beliefs without backing it up is not only annoying but can be dangerous --not everybody stays around long enough to get a grasp on the common consensus, or cares enough to keep reading other opinions. It makes for an increased work-load for those few we have here to oversee our site, as our #1 goal is to ensure that the info given here is as correct and easy to understand as possible.

And, I’ll point out that we are NOT saying you HAVE TO feed dog food. We’re not saying it’s the only correct way to feed your BTS. More power to all those who want to put in the love and the time and the effort to research, cook, cut, and put together great meals for their pets! Great! Tell us about it. But don't come here and say "Food in a can is bad". Because that's just as stupid as saying "Air is bad to breathe". IS air bad to breathe? SURE! Sometimes. Some places. For some people. But making the blanket statement that "Dog food is bad for skinks" is just as dumb as making the blanket statement "Air is bad to breathe".

Couldn't have said it better, Sue. I was seriously tiring of the Great Dog Food Debacle.

But what about cat food?

Susann wrote:On this forum we advocate dog food as a good, healthy staple.
If your feelings differ from what we recommend here, that is fine; we welcome everyone and respect whatever beliefs or opinions you may have. But, because the leadership of this site believes dog food to be a good and healthy staple in a BTS diet, we will not keep overlooking statements like: "dog food is bad" or "never feed dog food" unless you include the reason for your opinion. To throw a "blanket statement" out ("Dog food is bad") that goes against the group's stated beliefs without backing it up is not only annoying but can be dangerous --not everybody stays around long enough to get a grasp on the common consensus, or cares enough to keep reading other opinions. It makes for an increased work-load for those few we have here to oversee our site, as our #1 goal is to ensure that the info given here is as correct and easy to understand as possible.

And, I’ll point out that we are NOT saying you HAVE TO feed dog food. We’re not saying it’s the only correct way to feed your BTS. More power to all those who want to put in the love and the time and the effort to research, cook, cut, and put together great meals for their pets! Great! Tell us about it. But don't come here and say "Food in a can is bad". Because that's just as stupid as saying "Air is bad to breathe". IS air bad to breathe? SURE! Sometimes. Some places. For some people. But making the blanket statement that "Dog food is bad for skinks" is just as dumb as making the blanket statement "Air is bad to breathe".

Why is wet dog food favored of small very
High quality kibble? I’m curious on this.

cgenovese wrote:

Susann wrote:On this forum we advocate dog food as a good, healthy staple.
If your feelings differ from what we recommend here, that is fine; we welcome everyone and respect whatever beliefs or opinions you may have. But, because the leadership of this site believes dog food to be a good and healthy staple in a BTS diet, we will not keep overlooking statements like: "dog food is bad" or "never feed dog food" unless you include the reason for your opinion. To throw a "blanket statement" out ("Dog food is bad") that goes against the group's stated beliefs without backing it up is not only annoying but can be dangerous --not everybody stays around long enough to get a grasp on the common consensus, or cares enough to keep reading other opinions. It makes for an increased work-load for those few we have here to oversee our site, as our #1 goal is to ensure that the info given here is as correct and easy to understand as possible.

And, I’ll point out that we are NOT saying you HAVE TO feed dog food. We’re not saying it’s the only correct way to feed your BTS. More power to all those who want to put in the love and the time and the effort to research, cook, cut, and put together great meals for their pets! Great! Tell us about it. But don't come here and say "Food in a can is bad". Because that's just as stupid as saying "Air is bad to breathe". IS air bad to breathe? SURE! Sometimes. Some places. For some people. But making the blanket statement that "Dog food is bad for skinks" is just as dumb as making the blanket statement "Air is bad to breathe".

Why is wet dog food favored of small very
High quality kibble? I’m curious on this.

i would say a couple reasons for wet food over dry kibble is that its just easier to eat.. and smells much more enticing while being easier to mix in supplements and veggies

I offer both, but as mentioned the wet food is more enticing and also easier to digest. Feeding only dry food may result in digestive issues down the road, but by no means is it bad. 90 percent of my animals are adults and are fed their wet diet twice weekly, but I leave dry in there all the time. Some like it, some don't. I find their favorite dry food is not dog food at all, but fluker's bearded dragon buffet blend.

I've had mine for 5 days now. And the only thing he's been interested in. Is cat food. So I got the brand recommended here from a list of high quality grain free cat and dog foods. And picked the wet cat food variety because it was mentioned cat food is higher in protein which is what babies need.

If there's no toxins to any specific compounds, From biology differences (humans eat chocolate, dogs can't break down the theobromine in it) then ITS FOOD fortunately, carbon based life forms rely on the same sorts of molecules as each other. Proteins carbs fats, mostly the same essential vitamins and minerals. We're not going to get into decomposers or plants.

If cats don't require a vitamin or mineral in amounts that exceed a reptiles ability to utilize and metabolize it. Then there is literally nothing bad about it. Unless the calories/macros are wrong than you risk obesity.

But im not even considering that right now because I'm utilizing cat food as a consistent way to get him to eat and once I see established eating patterns ill start to make it more veggies mixed in and less cat food.

I'm a nurse. Foods food. For the most part.

It seems a lot of folks offer juveniles cat food for the higher protein and gradually work in dog food overtime for it's lower protein content (as the staple base). When I found the breeder I hoped to purchase from. I asked him about the diet he offered his BTSs and holy Hannah about 15 minutes later I received a care sheet via email of how, what, when and where he fed his BTSs. He has been like that from the first day I contacted him. Which I think is a good indicator of a reputable breeder. Just my opinion of course. Over the years anytime I have acquired or adopted a pet. My normal action is to follow the diet regime that the animal is currently on and if I think I can improve the diet or an ingredient is hard to get locally, I slowly work in whatever I choose to replace certain ingredients.

Let’s not forget too, that it’s good to vary the diet every so often. Any shortcomings of vitamins or minerals for a BTS in one dog food brand, may be balanced by feeding a different brand every now and then. Or just switching from beef to lamb, for example. Or, from dog food to cat food. I like to think that I’m better covering any, unknown to me, nutritional shortcomings by switching what I use as the staple base-food for my skinks.

The reason why dog food is advocated more than cat food as a staple food for skinks, is because dog food is better balanced for an omnivore than cat food is. The other reason is because of the added taurine in cat food. We just don’t know what risks there may be to reptiles from long term taurine consumption. There just aren’t, to my knowledge, any studies on how reptile digestion handles the taurine vs. how mammals digest it, or at what levels taurine consumption may become toxic to a reptile.
There are breeders out there who have fed their skinks cat food for many, many years “without any issues.” What we don’t know, however, is what their numbers of reptile loss are... Breeders don’t usually disclose those kinds of things.

Variation of the diet is definitely important in the diet. That being said part of what needs to be looked at though is wild vs captive animals. In the wild most will be getting this variation of foods right from day 1. In captivity many times a lot of the animals get very little variation. Therefore to start with I think it is usually best to start with what the animal is used to. Then work in more variation. (Speaking of healthy animals) This is of course just my opinion and I could be wrong.

As far as taurine. Reptiles that are carnivores or omnivores are ingesting taurine in the wild. I haven't seen any studies on this for reptiles either so far. So the question of how much is the right amount becomes a mystery. Even if studies were done you would need multiple studies done. Just to see if the results could be duplicated. Would also have to be done on multiple species as well. There is a lot of diversity when it comes to reptiles and what they eat ... carnivores, omnivores, insectivores etc. The body size would have to be figured in. Definitely not a simple task.

What I do think is very important Is folks whether they disagree or not are discussing the nutritional requirements and what to feed their pets these days. In the past it wasn't discussed nearly as much as now.

Hi, just a quick question I have found some grain fee dog food but there is something called slippery elm. Anyone know if this good or bad for BTS's.

Thanks

My understandings are that feeding wet and dry dog food seem to be good for BTS as you're all quite experienced. Do you feed this as a replacement of BTS formulated food or a supplement of it? Should you even feed BTS formulated food?

I'm not a fan of the formulated food and would not use as a staple. My BTS don't even like it. Variety is the key to success. Think about it. Would you want to eat spaghetti every day? (Well, maybe when I was 10...)

We have a resident BTS and several years ago she would regularly feed alongside our cat which didn't mind sharing. After the cat passed away we continued to place Kitten pellets out for her and as she lives in our Garage she also wanders the garden but always returns to keep warm under the Hot Water tank. Just in the past two week another Skink has appeared and we believe they have mated so we wait in anticipation. We don't consider he ras a pet as we have always thought that living free is best for them.

That's pretty awesome. If I had them in my backyard I wouldn't keep them in cages either. (I probably would never leave my property!)

That is so cool

How often should a 5 month Halmahera old be fed wet dog food given the fact he already stuffs his face with salad and some Locusts and the occasional crickets which are gut loaded??

For a 5 month old skink about 1 TBS of dog food daily or every other day is fine.

I have never tried dog food. I will try.

Hello fellow BTS owners,

i got my first BTS about a month ago (it is about 2 1/2 months old). I feed a mix of canned cat food (wet), veggies, insects, and snails.
I got one small problem though, the sink usually wont eat a whole can of cat food in a few days.
I took the cat food out of the can and keep it in sealed plastic boxes in my fridge.
When i google this for cats, most german sites state that once opened the cat food should be used within a maximum of 3 days after opening.

So i was wondering how long do you keep your opened cat or dog food until you throw it away?

Thanks in advance