BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

I got baby Guts at the pet store and he was super sweet -- letting me and the pet store employee hold him without making a fuss at all. I brought him home to his 4'x18" enclosure with 3 hides, fake plants with plenty of hiding, 4" of substrate, and temperatures ranging from 100-79 degrees F, and he usually chilled under hides for the first day/night (which I know is completely normal). He ate the wet cat food I got him just fine. The second day he drank a lot of water. About halfway through day 2 (yesterday), he started burrowing on the cold side and has stayed there since yesterday evening.

I have noticed he has barely spent any time on his hot side and am wondering if he is intelligent (?) enough to properly regulate his own temperature in this large enclosure as a baby/juvenile and when (if ever) should I intrude on his burrowing to make sure he's okay? I understand he's most likely okay, but I'm just wondering if I should intrude on him to check myself or if there's anything I should be doing to ensure his health.

I'm by no means an expert, but I'll tell you about my personal experience with my skink. We've had her about 9 months, she was a juvenile when we first got her. She's extremely lazy. She will burrow and sleep for days at a time, including in the cold area. If the cold side of your tank is still within the acceptable temperature range for a skink, it should be fine. If I haven't seen my skink in like two days, I'll go find her buried, uncover her and wake her up a little (she usually gets a little hissy until she sees its me pushing the dirt off of her head). I don't pull her out of the dirt, but just wake her up, and usually within an hour I'll see her up and walking around and eating etc. As long as your skink is eating, you shouldn't have much to worry about.

Hi there, depending on how long ago you got your baby/juvenile skink this is all completely normal behavior. I would post pictures of your skink, because almost all skinks in pet stores are imported. I also would recommend a health check by a reptile vet asap as most carry internal parasites. With all babies it is recommend to leaving them alone for at least a week to two weeks to get used to it's surroundings. Just talk to it when feeding and doing any cleaning.

Does your skink still eat? maybe it's about time for it to shed. In that case it often hides.