Is My Blue Tongue Skink Captive Born and Bred (CBB), Captive Bred or Captive Born (CB), Farm bred, or Wild Caught (WC)?

[mb606587]

So as the popularity of Blue Tongue Skinks has surged in recent years, I thought this would be an appropriate topic to discuss. And what exactly is the difference between a CBB skink, a CB skink, and a WC skink? Be advised, some of the points made here are meant only for the U.S. market.

A Captive Born and Bred (CBB) skink is by far the most ideal choice for a pet and what everybody should strive to purchase. Captive born and bred skinks are produced in captivity by parent skinks, who are either CBB skinks themselves, or are long term captives. The actual mating of the skinks and breeding is all facilitated in a captive setting. CBB skinks are typically the healthiest animals and most suited towards captivity. The best place to find a CBB blue tongue skink is directly through a reputable breeder or SOMETIMES at reptile expos. As a rule of thumb, all Northern Blue Tongue Skinks (and the other rarer Australian species) will be CBB as it has been illegal to export animals from Australia for quite some time. CBB skinks are almost never sold in pet stores and certainly not the larger chain varieties. I have seen Northern Blue Tongue Skinks offered in family owned pet shops, or ones that actually breed their own animals, but rarely and for the ones I have, the prices are usually extraordinarily high (the last Northern I saw for sale in a pet shop was $800). Most pet shops will sell unspecified Blue Tongue Skinks, which are almost always an Indonesian species and imported. The current market for CBB Blue Tongue Skinks is usually starting at $400 directly from the breeder and can be higher for different color variants and are mostly available over the spring (Indonesian) and summer months (Northern). Breeders who produce these skinks will often times advertise the fact that the animal is CBB without you even having to ask and will gladly produce photographs, video evidence, and lineage history for all of their animals. For a further note, the only CBB Indonesian skinks you will likely find will be Merauke and Irian Jaya, and even those types are rarely bred in captivity. Halmaheras seem to be the most commonly imported species recently, and to my knowledge, nobody has had sustained success breeding them. It is safe to assume that if the skink is not obviously labeled as CBB, it probably isn't.

Captive Bred (CB) skinks often confuse buyers and is a tool that importers and reptile dealers use to their advantage to make a sale, especially with Indonesian species of Blue Tongue Skinks, which are legally imported in massive numbers annually. There is a huge difference between a CBB and a CB skink and I will explain. A CB skink is most often obtained through two different scenarios. Scenario 1 is that an importer receives a wild caught female skink, which is already gravid (pregnant). Importers typically prefer to receive skinks during the breeding season, when babies are commonly produced, so this scenario does happen frequently. The female skink will then be kept long enough to obtain the babies, and then the babies and mother will be sold into the pet trade. I have even seen gravid skinks unknowingly being sold at reptile expos. Scenario 2 refers to "farm bred babies." There is much debate about farm produced babies, but in most circumstances, a large number of wild caught skinks are housed together in outdoor enclosures in their native environment and left to reproduce on their own. Some facilities are actually pretty advanced and provide excellent care to both babies and adults, but those are few and far between, and unfortunately you will not know exactly what type yours will have come from. Babies are then "field collected" and sold off to American importers who will provide your local pet shops and reptile dealers at excellent prices. Most skinks sold at reptile expos, especially during the non summer months, and almost all of the baby skinks you'll find in pet stores will fall into these categories. And while these skinks are technically born in "captivity," they are still susceptible to illnesses and parasites that can be passed down through a wild caught mother skink. Furthermore, the importation process is very stressful to these skinks and many die while being shipped. The ones that do survive are oftentimes kept in overcrowded conditions with other baby and adult skinks, so injuries from fighting are common and internal/external parasites are spread. All CB skinks should be properly quarantined and vet visits are usually recommended. You may see these skinks for sale anywhere between $150 to $300. Be advised, many reptile dealers at expos will either intentionally or unintentionally pass off CB Indonesian skinks as CBB Northerns. The best way to combat falling victim is to research and be able to visually distinguish the differences between Northerns and other species, and to know that Northern babies are typically only sold during the summer months. Most reptile expos post a vendor list on their website. It would be a good practice to research all vendors selling BTS prior to attending to determine which ones are reputable and actually breed their own. Most breeders will be active on social media or known to the community. Realize that attending early in the morning will increase your chances of obtaining one as these guys do sell fast.

Lastly, we have wild caught (WC) or sometimes referred to as Field Collected (FC). You should just avoid purchasing these skinks. Many of these skinks will take significantly longer to tame than CBB or CB skinks (some cannot ever be tamed) and they will most likely require medical treatment to survive for very long. They only should be used for breeding projects where CBB skinks are not available. Realize that although your CB or WC skink may be cheaper to purchase in the short term, when the vet bills are all said and done, some end up costing significantly more than a CBB skink.

[kingofnobbys]

Please keep in mind too that
>> it is strictly illegal to take bluetongues from the wild in Australia in all states (only exceptions are rescues (injured / sick)
>> it' is strictly illegal to exports bluetongue into or out of Australia (no exceptions !!) , permits are required to move live reptiles across state borders in Australia,

that said only Northern and Eastern and Blotchie Bluetongues and Pink Tongues or Shinglebacks available LEGITIMATELY in any country other than Australia are captively bred from breeding stock who themselves are the off spring of captively bred breeding stock who's decendents arrived overseas in the 1970s.
Expect to pay BIG DOLLARS for a single aussie BT or PT skinks in the USA as a result (hence the VERY STRONG incentive to lie and claim indo BTs are Australian BTs). .

So beware of claims of the skink being an Eastern or Northern BT. As already stated by the OP , unless it's offered for sale by a LEGITIMATE breeder , it's been poached from the wild and trafficked or is an Indonesian who likely was poached from the wild and trafficked .

My advise is unless the seller is willing to show you their breeding facility, the skink's parents and siblings , in person , walk away , and make sure you do your indepth homework BEFORE looking for the skink of your dreams , at the very least learn everything you can about it's husbandry and care needs, dietary needs, and be able to recognize the traits of the species .
if you are a NOOB and never kept the species you want to keep, tee up to have an keeper you know and trust accompany you when you are ready to buy or adopt the skink , you are less likely to be conned and ripped off.
And ASK lots of very detailed questions BEFORE parting with your dollars , it is usually easy to catch crooks out with inconsistancies in their sales spin.

[Susann]

Thank you, what an excellent post! Perfect.

Pretty much all of the imports coming to the US from Indonesia will say (due to legal reasons) that their skinks are all long term captives and bred and born in captivity on a breeding farm. I've seen videos of some impressive breeding farms that look clean and well maintained. But even if every single breeding farm was just like the pristine-looking ones, not for one second do I believe that all the animals they export are born on that farm --nor do I think many pristine ones exist. There is no oversight and no regulations for these farms to document any production, and with babies being born only once a year, it's not a grand stretch of the imagination to know that every single villager within walking distance of a BTS farm will be out during the day, year round, catching skinks, bringing them to the farm for a small payment for each animal.
Do I KNOW any of this? Nope. These are all assumptions that I alone made. But knowing a little bit about Indonesia and Indonesian culture, I would bet quite a bit on my assumption being correct.

Any gigas species skink labeled "just" CB I would treat exactly like I would buying a recently imported WC one.

[kingofnobbys]

Hence my standing advise to everyone is " find a local small time hobbyist / enthusiast keeper who happens to have a breeding pair or small breeding colony " and buy the baby or juvenile from them , don't go to petshops , and don't buy at sales fairs.
The small time breeder will care for their babies much better, and will likely have some emotional attachment to them ( reluctant sales ).

[Susann]

The problem there is that, unlike in Australia where everything is CBB or picked up in your own backyards, it is rare to find CBB gigas here --most of them are imports. While I bred Meraukes, I was the only one in the US producing them. I had 3 females at most; as you can imagine, that barely put a dent in the demand out there for gigas species.

[kingofnobbys]

The problem there is that, unlike in Australia where everything is CBB or picked up in your own backyards, it is rare to find CBB gigas here --most of them are imports. While I bred Meraukes, I was the only one in the US producing them. I had 3 females at most; as you can imagine, that barely put a dent in the demand out there for gigas species.

With such strong demand for gigas there (in the USA) that is a very good incentive for more keepers to breed them , surely the demand is high enough to make it worth their while , and if there is much strong demand , they can essentially set their own price per baby or juvenile. Basic law of Supply & Demand.
Why are so few breeding and selling the offspring ?

[splashy07]

There are more than enough Meraukes here to start breeding programs. Thing is, they do not breed as readily as Northerns, and most breeders or would-be breeders of this type assume they cycle the same as Northerns. They do not, their season can run from October to mid December rather than late January early march for our northerns. I have a friend here in the northeast who bred Irian Jayas entirely by accident. He had no idea the female was even gravid or that the pair had copulated, as it was totally 'off season', but obviously not for them. Australian species here in the US have been here a very long time for the most part and have adapted to our times, daylight cycles and seasons. There is an extremely prolific breeder of northerns and easterns in south Florida, where brumation is nearly impossible. Newly imported skinks would have to go through an adjustment period, and many are not willing to wait. Anyone willing to try?
Susann will tell you all you need to know. As of three years ago, I have gone all Aussie.

[splashy07]

And mb, I must say I have never read such a long post all the way through with captivated interest. Absolutely awesome and beneficial to all who have read! I have stated same many times when asked, but never actually took the time to write it all down the way you did. Kudos, mb. I hope every prospective buyer out there reads.

[mb606587]

Thank you splashy, I have noticed recently that many people are falling victim to some of the old tricks at these reptile shows. They got me in 2001, and I still see its going on today. So hopefully my post will give prospective BTS buyers the knowledge they need to avoid such pitfalls, or if anything else, to alert people that have already fallen victim not to assume that they received the species they were sold, so they can correct any husbandry issues if necessary before it's too late. Reptile expos are definitely fun and I still enjoy going. There are a lot of great and knowledgeable people there and I once assumed that every vendor had excellent intentions and was the most reliable place to buy. But there are a lot of awful people that frequent these places too. Scammers and thieves, which is why vendors keep reptiles on lock and key. The healthiest animals often times are not found at shows, so its important not to go in naive.

[splashy07]

Yes, being in the hobby 40+ years I've seen and heard it all. Many of us at the expos are one hundred percent captive bred animals at our tables, but just as many are one hundred percent imported. You also have to be careful what you handle, as one rogue mite can hitch a ride home and spell disaster. I'd like to have a dollar for every time someone has come to me about advice for their 'northern' which turns out to be an IJ or Merauke. Blue tongue skink has become a generic term for the dealers, and their recent surge in popularity has everyone trying to make a fast buck. Disconcerting to say the least. Impulse buying is rampant, as the low prices of imports look better to parents buying their son/daughter their first reptile. Many are reluctant to pay the price of a cbb thinking their children will lose interest shortly, as kids often do. On a happier note, a few teens came to me with their moms or dads during baby season, and it was refreshing to see the youngsters starting up in the hobby the right way.

[Susann]

While I bred Meraukes, I was the only one in the US producing them.

Why are so few breeding and selling the offspring ?

I was the only one producing them; I was far from the only one trying to produce them --lots of people out there with groups of Meraukes getting matings, but no babies followed.
Prior to me discovering that they mate in the fall without any cooling at all, before or after, it was assumed that they mate and gestate the same as AU species --because that's how people had success with producing Irian Jayas.
Even Glenn Shea stated in the only comprehensive BTS book written (the so called "Bluey Bible") that: "[In the wild] the interval between the inferred time of mating and the usual time of birth is about three months." It says "inferred time of mating" because, obviously they hadn't witnessed any matings in the wild. Even scientists make assumptions based on what they know.

I don't know exactly what people were doing, or how they were doing it, prior to my "fluke" success. But I do know that a couple of the big breeders of AU species, after I'd made my discoveries and had continued yearly success, put their Meraukes through a cooling period after mating them in the fall. They never produced offspring. Both now have; I'm not sure of one of them if he continued cooling his and had success anyway (I doubt it), but I do know for a fact that the other breeder only had success after I basically made him keep the temps the same after mating.

Now there are finally more people out there producing Meraukes, and even a few producing Indonesians.
I have always been completely open and transparent with my methods that led to success, because my ultimate goal was and is lessening the demand in the US and the EU for wild caught imports. I am so pleased that I happened to be the one making these discoveries, because at the same time as I got started, there were two other "would be" breeders working very hard to succeed, and I am fairly certain that, had they made the discoveries, they would not have shared their methods or mating times. I know their goals were to be "known" in the skink community, and the importance of being the "only one" producing would have likely been more enticing than getting others to succeed as well.

Those are obviously just my thoughts and guesses based on knowing them, and I really hate to sound like I'm patting myself on the back, but why I'm bringing this up is that, while this thread is meant to educate new owners on how to get what they want and avoid bad experiences with animals that may be or get sick, I also want to bring up another aspect.

There are many breeders out there breeding quality animals, keeping species pure, and ensuring happy healthy babies that lead to pleased new owners. The flip-side of that coin are the breeders out there to make a name for themselves, who are out to produce a line, a look, a morph that they get to create and name. The process to creating a genetic trait that is predictably passed on to offspring takes YEARS. Maybe decades. It has been done. In the US there is a line of Northerns called Caramel --they are easy to recognize through their hypomelanistic coloring and blue eyes, and from what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) it has been proven out as a genetic trait.
Very few of these breeders out to become known, have the patience to do it the "right way". The quicker and easier way to get an unusual coloring not normally seen in a species, is to take a different species (or subspecies) that DOES have the coloring you're after, and breed it in to the species you want to add the coloring to. And obviously never say a word about it as they would quickly become "ousted" in the community.

So, for those of you keepers out there, new or experienced, who are looking for something "different" to build a breeding program with (absolutely NOTHING wrong with that!), you must be vigilant and become trained enough to be able to spot the animals who, not only have different coloring, but who also have traits that generally are only seen in other species... I'm NOT saying if you see an animal with traits of a different species that you have discovered dishonesty! Not at all. We all know that so many of the common species out there look similar to others and can be hard to tell apart. That's why they are categorized as subspecies --they carry similar traits. I am only bringing this up so that you can be aware of some of the practices being employed out there.

I actually very recently heard of a big-time breeder/dealer out there telling others that, for me to get so much orange into the Meraukes I produced, I had bred Northerns into my line of Meraukes. I had to laugh; my first breeding (documented with pictures) produced some very highly orange babies --orange all over, not just in spots on the sides, and none of the black markings carried by Northerns. It is clear to me how ridiculous the idea is, but I'm the only one (along with my family) who knows for sure. I bred with those orange babies a couple years later and was successful in creating many animals with traits that came to be recognized as "Sue Bee" Meraukes.
My Meraukes carry no genetically passed on traits that can be "proven out" --they are simply polygenic animals who sometimes produce offspring with a lot of one of the colors Meraukes come in, and I chose to line breed (i.e. breed animals with similar coloring to each other --sometimes offspring back to parent, sometimes non-related but with the same traits) in order to hopefully increase the number of offspring with the color and striping I like.

Wow. As per my usual style, I wrote a book... Sorry

[splashy07]

Great book, Sue!
And I hope your line of gorgeous Meraukes are being carried on! Had I been still keeping Indos I'd have bought a bunch from you!. Orange is my favorite color, and it sure looks good on reptiles.

[mb606587]

With such strong demand for gigas there (in the USA) that is a very good incentive for more keepers to breed them , surely the demand is high enough to make it worth their while , and if there is much strong demand , they can essentially set their own price per baby or juvenile. Basic law of Supply & Demand.Why are so few breeding and selling the offspring ?

I think it can be more challenging to sell CBB Gigas. There will always be a level of distrust because again, not many people have success breeding them. Because of that, the first bit of advice most inexperienced prospective buyers will get is "Save your money and buy a Northern." It's the safer route. So when most people go to a show to buy a skink, they are looking for a "Northern" but I'm not so sure some of them necessarily know why they are or even what the differences are, just that that's what they were advised to look for. Which is why so many people walk out of these shows thinking they have that Northern, but have an Irian Jaya instead. So in a way, I think its much easier to sell Northerns because that's what everybody is told to buy to ensure CBB. I mean, in my earlier post, I pretty much advised the same thing in so many words.

To add to that challenge, many people simply are unaware that reptiles in general are even imported. A response you sometimes get from somebody who just learned that they were duped into buying an imported animal is "Is that even legal to sell?" Even if they are aware that imported reptiles are sold, the dealer is going to assure that person that their animals are "Captive born" or "Captive bred" to alleviate all concerns. I already went over what that really means. So as a prospective buyer, you're seeing a $200 baby "Merauke" Blue Tongue Skink that you are now totally confident is "captive born" or the $450 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink that says "CBB," and as far as you know that means the same thing. Which one do you think most people end up buying? And then when they get rid of the animal because it wasn't tame, it needed vet treatment, they didn't realize the care is a bit more challenging than for a Northern's, etc., what do you think they end up telling everybody else? Don't buy Indonesian Blue Tongue Skinks.

[mb606587]

And yes those orange Sue Bee Meraukes are beautiful. If you have not seen them yet, I highly recommend you do. I definitely wouldn't mind getting my hands on one some day in the future!

[Susann]

Had I been still keeping Indos I'd have bought a bunch from you!

And yes those orange Sue Bee Meraukes are beautiful. I definitely wouldn't mind getting my hands on one some day in the future!

[Janella]

Lots of great info. Thanks guys

[kingofnobbys]

That was interesting , I didn't know there was a difference in the mating / gestation behaviours / needs between Australian and Indo BTs , I had assumed they would be very similar at least to Northerns and maybe to Easterns (the range if Easterns is essentially from bottom of Victoria all the way to the tip of Cape York (so from sub-temporate to tropical climates , with the Easterns in the bottom end of their range brumating and those in the tropics never getting cold enough to bromate (so in some cases breeding twice per year).

Perhaps Instructions for successfully breeding the Indo BT skink subspecies needs to put up in the Advanced Subforum so people can take advantage of the knowledge and perhaps take some pressure off the wild skink populations by some hobbyists in those countries where these have been allowed to be imported can set up SUCCESSFUL breeding colonies .

Many herpers are at heart "greenies" / ecologists and passionate about preserving wild popuations in their natural ranges , I know I am , and I can not see any real minuses from disseminating this knowledge and perhaps killing off the international trade in these wonderful creatures , I believe there should be sufficient genetic diversity in the Indo BTs already available in places like the USA for successful domestic breeding of these.