I movied my blue tongue skink into a new enclosure last saturday (4 x 3 x 2). It's now thursday and she's refused to eat anything,i did give her a chopped boiled egg,but she only ate about 3 small peices and went to sleep again. I haven't introduced pinkies or fuzzies yet,i've only given her crickets,mealworms,egg,ground turkey,wet dogfood,and fruits and veggies. But this past week she hasent eaten anything but some egg. any advice?
Welcome to the Boards Diego! = ) It sounds like you really care about your BTS, and it's good to see that she has a nice sized enclosure to roam around in. I'm going to ask just a few basic questions to help us become aquantied with your husbandry and your pet, and we'll see if there is anything we can do to help you out. 1) How long have you had your BTS? Other than a size increase in her new enclosure, have you changed anything else significantly (i.e new substrate, new hides, etc)? 2)How are you measuring temperatures? What are the temperatures in the enclosure? What is your heat source? 3) Are you using a UVB producing bulb? If so, what kind? 4) What is your substrate? 5) What kind of supplementation are you using and at what freqeuncy is she getting it? 6) How is her behavior? Other than feeding, does she still appear active and healthy, alert and responsive? 7) What is the frequency of her bowel movements? Are they normal looking? If all of these check out, its very possible that she still needs more time to acclimate to her new home. She may just need a little bit more time to settle in, its easy for us to become concerned when the pets we love go off food or their behavior changes, and sometimes with good reason... but stress from a move can keep them fasting for some time as well.
Hey, Diego, and welcome to the forums! I still wouldn't worry about your BTS's lack of appetite yet. It can be a week or sometimes more before a reptile becomes acclimated to new surroundings. There are some things to you can do to increase your skink's feeling of security though. First, make sure you have three sides covered if you have a glass setup. Open spaces tend to make smaller animals fearful and stressed. Putting walls around them helps them feel less exposed. Second, make sure there are plenty of hides inside the enclosure. Again, you want to negate any feeling of openness. Ironically, the more hiding opportunities your skink has, the more apt it is to come out from its hiding phase. Finally, keep offering food regularly. Try to maintain a strict schedule so as not to throw off your lizard any more than you've already had to. Again, as long as your skink is still alert and there is no visible weight loss, it's completely normal for her to not eat when moved to a new enclosure. Most reptiles can go for quite a while without suffering any negative side affects from fasting. Honestly, her not eating is probably more stressful for you than it is for her. Hang in there and just give her some time.
jeff- your probably right,all of the enclousure is good and shes acting and looking perfect.i just thought it wouldnt take so long,but knowing how she was in a much smaller enclosure before,it makes sense.thank you cammy- thanks for the info.i feel better now,and i will offer her food to see daily to see when she decides to eat.
