BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

So my wife purchased a maruke skink about 2 or so months ago named it Rise and its been a blast learning to care for him and I a bit bothered by the trouble getting it made me want to breed them since I have been hearing that blue tongues make great starters for people... well my point is we needed to find out Rise's gender (which we have covered) the issue is a partner for Rise and our options are a northern blue tongue. I have not been able to tell if it's a bad idea to cross breed maruke with northern btw. If I were to do this would it make it so I could not sell the hybrids. For the record I take great care of Rise and have cared for a ball pyton and a green iguana I'm the past so as far as breed goes I'm most familiar with dogs which generally is no problem.

It is definitely a bad idea to breed a Merauke Blue tongue skink to a Northern. One huge issue is care requirements. They each have very different needs for the habitat set up so you would be creating something difficult to care for. Two there are a limited # of Northers in this country, they cannot be imported from Australia. So the bloodlines we currently have here are all we have. We do not want to be compromising those lines. If breeding is really something you wish to pursue, please educate yourself more on the care and breeding of Meraukes....more than 2 months. It is good practice to keep these skinks for a year or 2 before trying to breed.

To ReiDaPanda In Colorado Springs,

Great idea to breed blue-tongue skinks -- very rewarding, educational, and fun! Good luck with your project.

However, as Stacey mentioned -- really not a good idea to cross them. Hybridization will create confusion and dilute both species here in the U.S. Also, I think you will find yourself facing a lot of of reluctance to acquire them, at least from serious keepers. I noticed someone on FaunaClassifieds selling Northern/Merauke hybrids about a year ago. They said it was an accidental breeding but they were having a lot of trouble finding buyers for them -- even though they were selling them at dirt cheap prices.

I have had good success with Northern BTs down here in Tucson. I started working with Merauke but so far they seem more challenging. They are also more sensitive to health issues from low humidity, etc. You might want to try Northern BTs first if you can acquire a pair, but please skip the hybridization idea.

Here are some of my currently gravid Northern BTs:

https://www.lizard.cafe/blog/2021/05/14/gravid-females-may-10th-2021/

Thanks for the input. I was curious about the prospect and learned some things.

Agreed with everything stated. I encourage you to work with and eventually breed Indonesian Blue Tongue Skinks. We do not have enough people doing so. Take some time and learn everything you can about the species. This is a great place to start. When you are ready, my best advice is to acquire as many skinks as you can, ensuring you obtain the correct species. Many sellers will both knowingly and unknowingly misrepresent what they are selling so the onus is on you to know. With a large group, you can begin determining not only genders, but compatibility. Unfortunately, attempting to start with just a single pair will severely minimize your chance of success.

so its been a bit since i asked around here but i was curious if there were any owners of maruke skinks looking to hopefully breed their skinks because me an my wife are searching for a mate for rise our female maruke and were looking to see if anyone would be able to assist in that regard.
also a for rise's health she is currently doing quite well, she is about a year old as the information i had from the place i purchased her said she was born about october of 2020.
as for whether or not she was captive bread i don't know but i assume she is given i got her in Aroura Colorado .
also the gender should be female as i have taken her to a vet where she was ether younger than we thought or was just a bigger female. and i keep a close eye on her and her cage during cleaning and havent seen any clues stating she is male.


and to clarify she is a maruke skink so i don't acidently have the problem i was asking before hand, had a guy ask to breed her with a halmahera i think was what it was called. (he was new to skinks and made sure he knew what i did)