BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

so i read in the care sheet that for cooking chicken i should use a crock pot which i did. what i needed to know is if all i needed to do was cook the chicken in the crock, cook for 8 hours or so and then just pull the chicken off the bone and freeze what i dont need.

I run mine through a little food chopper then you can make portion size balls and freeze each one. That way you just need to pull however many you need out of the freezer.

I haven't tried whole chickens yet. With ground lean turkey i put it into balls, boiled them until fully grey, and froze what i didn't make in the food chopper for that week. I imagine you would just want to take it off the bones, and grind it then freeze.

ok sounds like a plan

how often can you REALLY feed them chicken? on both diet sheets they list chicken differently as a daily food and an occasional food. ive been told that it should be a rare food too due to the high phosphorous level, which is it?

meraukebts83 wrote:so i read in the care sheet that for cooking chicken i should use a crock pot which i did. what i needed to know is if all i needed to do was cook the chicken in the crock, cook for 8 hours or so and then just pull the chicken off the bone and freeze what i dont need.

Sounds good.

thesilverbeast wrote:how often can you REALLY feed them chicken? on both diet sheets they list chicken differently as a daily food and an occasional food. ive been told that it should be a rare food too due to the high phosphorous level, which is it?

I know, I know. It's something I need to fix on the sheets but haven't gotten to it yet. Chicken shouldn't really be fed daily becase of the high phosporous, but also because the best protein source for your blueys are the more 'natural' options: various worms, roaches, snails, etc.

Okay, I changed the 'shopping chart' with regards to chicken, canned dog/cat food, moved snails in the daily category and added phoenix worms. I emailed the corrected chart to Zach to update on the caresheet.

aah fair enough then, my yoshi eats chicken like nothing else. he loves it!

Shellyjean wrote:I run mine through a little food chopper then you can make portion size balls and freeze each one. That way you just need to pull however many you need out of the freezer.

Sweet avatar!!

Zach wrote:Sweet avatar!!

Thanks! I thought it turned out kinda cool.

Now tell Omega to stop yelling at me for changing it.

Tigergenesis wrote:Okay, I changed the 'shopping chart' with regards to chicken, canned dog/cat food, moved snails in the daily category and added phoenix worms. I emailed the corrected chart to Zach to update on the caresheet.

so there would be no bad effect of snails being a daily staple meat source?

Omega wrote:

Tigergenesis wrote:Okay, I changed the 'shopping chart' with regards to chicken, canned dog/cat food, moved snails in the daily category and added phoenix worms. I emailed the corrected chart to Zach to update on the caresheet.

so there would be no bad effect of snails being a daily staple meat source?

Snails are one of the best if not the best food for your blueys.

Tigergenesis wrote:

Omega wrote:

Tigergenesis wrote:Okay, I changed the 'shopping chart' with regards to chicken, canned dog/cat food, moved snails in the daily category and added phoenix worms. I emailed the corrected chart to Zach to update on the caresheet.

so there would be no bad effect of snails being a daily staple meat source?

Snails are one of the best if not the best food for your blueys.

bwaa ha ha, good thing I just got 2 more mystery snail egg clutches over night then! =) My pond snail section in the 10 gallon is also doing very well, I can see blobs of eggs all over the glass... Marley is gonna eat well!

I just bought Spot's Stew (original chicken) in preparation for my new baby and the "babies" that already eat it occasionally. Should this be an occasional feeding, as well? It is full of veggies and not a lot of chicken... well, that I can see (it really looks "regurged" )


Omega, where did you get your pond snails? Are they the big ones that look similar to Mystery/Apple snails? or those cone (sort of) shaped ones? I need to get my snail population back up for the little tyke, too.

I knew I should've kept on Snail Ranchin'

AneesasMuse wrote:I just bought Spot's Stew (original chicken) in preparation for my new baby and the "babies" that already eat it occasionally. Should this be an occasional feeding, as well? It is full of veggies and not a lot of chicken... well, that I can see (it really looks "regurged" )


Omega, where did you get your pond snails? Are they the big ones that look similar to Mystery/Apple snails? or those cone (sort of) shaped ones? I need to get my snail population back up for the little tyke, too.

I knew I should've kept on Snail Ranchin'

Yes as a varied, fresh and as close to natural diet is best. I personally only feed canned in a pinch or when I need someone else to care for my lizards. I keep a can or 2 of the Original Chicken Spots Stew on hand.

AneesasMuse wrote:I just bought Spot's Stew (original chicken) in preparation for my new baby and the "babies" that already eat it occasionally. Should this be an occasional feeding, as well? It is full of veggies and not a lot of chicken... well, that I can see (it really looks "regurged" )


Omega, where did you get your pond snails? Are they the big ones that look similar to Mystery/Apple snails? or those cone (sort of) shaped ones? I need to get my snail population back up for the little tyke, too.

I knew I should've kept on Snail Ranchin'

I got my golden mystery snails from ebay, and the little pond snails are just the "common pond snail" type- not the ramshorn(although there are a couple of those in there too). Both petsmarts and petsupermarket bagged me up some of the snails that had gotten in their tanks by accident and didn't charge me for them. Now i've got them in a divided section of my 10g, and little jelly egg masses are all over the place in about 2 days. I also realized that it seems the weekend feeder white blocks are good for snails. The number 1 ingredient is calcium, and they were swarming to it in the store, and now are in my aquarium.

Also had 2 more mystery snail clutches this morning... gonna have to make another shelf for them to sit on in the snail tank! hehe. I believe they take about 4 months to be old enough to reproduce though, so the pond snails will be the majority of the diet.

I can honestly say that I feed primarily Spot's Stew to my guys. I mix in squash, greens and berries, but for the protein, they mostly get Spot's Stew. For me, this is just the easiest thing to do since both my husband and I are vegetarians so we don't buy things like chicken and other meat. (although I make an exception and buy chicken for the babies when we have them)

I do offer various worms on occasion, but I have never offered snails since I'm worried about parasites. If I could find people-grade snails for sale, I'd buy them or if I could find some land snails around I'd try those as well.

If these mystery snail eggs do well and I have enough, I would be happy to send some of those or just pond snails that would be sure to be pesticide free to anyone who is interested in starting a snail tank and willing to cover the shipping. I have heard that snail parasites are not something that could harm BTS's, but someone correct me if that is not the case.

Also, once I have a steady population, I could just send new egg clutches to anyone who wants golden mysteries in their aquarium(they are amazing snails, I was vacuuming the top of my sand off twice a week in my 58 gallon cichlid tank, and have not had to do it once since I put 8 of them(about 1 inch diameter size) in). With some bubblewrap in padded envelope it would be cheap and easy tank cleaners and/or future skink food!

Where do ya'll find this Spots stew? I've never seen it around here before.


Kyle, if my snails don't "do" anything in the next month or so I might take ya up on the offer of snail eggs. So don't rush out and buy the snail condoms yet!