BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hey all, my skink is carving up my hand when he tries to crawl up my arm when i'm holding him. I went to cut his nails today but they really aren't unusually long, they just look really sharp. Right now I use shredded aspen as substrate, but i also have a bag of coconut bedding in my closet.

1. Is it normal that they have sharp nails?

2. Would the coconut substrate grind/dull them at all?

3. What are your collective experiences/suggestions?

If it's nice in your area, take him outside on the cement. You should have a basking rock in there to provide him with some grit. You can also trim off that sharp tip too, that might help.

Mr. Booger has short nails but are very sharp, like kitten nails. He scraches me to pieces too. I've tried cutting the shart point off, but it doesn't help. Chunka on the other hand has thick nails that stay pretty blunt. I guess it just depends on the skink. Cement walking may help but I've not really found anything to help with Booger's nails. I just have to be careful when handling him, and I can't wear a tanktop when I do or he REALLY does a number on my chest neck and shoulders! Good luck!

I have suggested before, and it seemed well recieved, lightly abrade the tips away with a fine grit sand paper and it might help.

you could always cut off his toes.


heh - sorry I was only serious!

get an emery board and give him a pedicure!

I don't think the type of substrate has a huge bearing on keeping their nails short. What does is use. And they don't get to use them all that much in a tank! So get him out and about as much as you can, even if just around the house. They have to walk on them to wear them down, and a couple of laps of a 4x2 doesn't really cut it, no matter if you have fluffy substrate or sandpaper.

And yes, some have thin sharp ones and some have thick blunt ones. They get thicker and blunter as they get older. (Like men, how they get more and more ear and nose hair as they get older )

Lisa wrote:
And yes, some have thin sharp ones and some have thick blunt ones. They get thicker and blunter as they get older. (Like men, how they get more and more ear and nose hair as they get older )

Thats too true, I recon gravity pulls it down out of your head to fall out your nose, Bloody hurts pulling more than five at a time brings tears to my eyes thinking about it

Nose hair trimmers for the win. Tried tweezers once and it hurt like an absolute b*stard.

Lilly's nails scratch the hell out of me as well - she has little kitten claws by the looks of them, and if I were to clip them they'd probably grow back just the same. I imagine they're designed like that to allow climbing on stuff maybe?

Either way I'm planning on letting Lilly have sharp claws if she wants - I imagine picking her up is uncomfortable to her, so I have to suffer a bit if I want to have that privilege!

Wear long sleeves ,dont let someone put them around your neck{my girl did it to me and it hurt}he slid down my back under the Tshirt, all you need is the nails on chalkboard noise to complete the picture