BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

My female is starting to get abrasions on her neck from the breeding, and is losing a few scales in that area. When should I be concerned and stop pairing? I realize experienced females usually have scars on their necks from breeding so I know there is going to be some damage.

Pretty normal,northern males can be rough buggers,plus they stuff around abit alot before copulating,usually heals up pretty good after a shed or 2,but some will still show signs

I've also had the same concerns as I hate when beautiful looking females get roughed up. It's been a yr since they last mated but you can clearly see the damage on a couple of them from last yr. Of course you can always try what I did. It may sound stupid, but I cut up some cloth about 2 inches by an inch and taped it on the nape of the neck. It does work sometimes as it does not seem to bother the males though sometimes it will fall off when the female is moving too much while mating.

KL

Oh, good I'm glad she'll recover fairly quickly. Could I use neosporin with no painrelief on her abrasions after the season is over to help recovery?

This happened with my female, Calypso this year also (1st year breeding) By the 4th go round she had a scrap that was bleeding a little, so that was the last time I put them together.
She had other scraps as well, but the one by the shoulder was the worst. I washed the area with warm water and witch hazel, and then treated with poly-sporin. I did this for 4-5 days, and you can barely see it now. It is so hard to sit by and watch them get scraped up!

My girls get some scratched up spots on their necks, and the big female (who is a B*tch with a capital B, to be fair) often gets beat up on her sides and base of her tail as well while they have their pre-mating "discussion". By the end of the year before brumation they are pretty much entirely healed up and smooth again, with only the tiniest of scars on anyone.

You might want to give them a week or two off to cool down and make sure there aren't any actual wounds or anything, but some beating-up is pretty normal.

I can update this thread now that I've started trying to pair up animals. It is a bit concerning when you see all the damage on these poor animals. Blotched especially show the damage because of the glossy black background color. I've been applying Neosporin. I did try taping one female's mouth today and at least it worked in stopping the female from ripping apart the male though she still did not allow mating and sustained more damage. 4 days of unsuccessful mating attempts with a willing male does a lot of damage to those females. The way I look at it, superficial scraping will eventually shed out but the deeper damage would take a ton of sheds to eventually get to the deeper levels of damage over time.



Kim

Shes healing quite well, thankfully, so I'm glad I treated her

ist and 3rd show damage scales on 2 different females. Last pic is the longest breeding female as she has endured 5 yrs of breeding. 2nd picture is of a female that's refused all breeding since she was born 3 yrs ago. Her scales remain smooth. How do the other 2 compare with what others see for damage on your females. Will this improve at all?

Kim

Blotches in America? Awesome, I have never bred, so not answering question. Just admiring the blotches ^-^

Let please read the rules for this forum BEFORE posting. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17330 We are getting a lot of comments and chatty type stuff rather than the discussions that this forum is intended for. Comments, one liners, compliments and other posts that do not add value to the discussion should not be posted here.

this lass of mine was very roughed up this season,probably one of the worst ive ever seen,early in gravidity youu could barely see her color on her back ,and as u can see even behind her front legs was bad,the back looks not so bad now after a couple of sheds,the sides of her still look very red,but look alot better than earlier in the piece,first time ive seen the flanks get knocked around so much,hopefully in another shed or 2 it clears up for her,but shes likely to have scarring for good,her sister in comparison doesnt even look to have been touched by males

males often get good scarring on there heads when kept together outdoors,the odd female probably gets fed up and for that mating period and abit either side the males can get a tad testosteroney and let others know whos boss

why is it always MY threads that get hijacked?! (I must have some good topics LOL)

Richard, she didnt bruise this year, but last year she had a similar bruise to the top girl. She mainly lost some scales on her upper neck and had some abrasions more than bruising. Shes healing well now though since I put some reptile safe neosporin on her scales. The abrasions are all gone and I'm sure that the scales will shed out and be fine

I did not mean to hijack the thread. I was just showing examples of what they tend to look like with my females as a comparison as as I'm also concerned about it. Sorry.

KL

I just re-read this whole thread. I don't see any hint of hi-jacking. Not sure what the reference is to there. One irrelevant post, but other than that, every post is 100% related to the original question.

nortjerns are pretty rough,they seem to get scale damage quite easily,my 3 had it right down there backs,but especially neck shoulder region,male stuffs around before attempting to mate,the remarkable thing with northerns is they heel quite well,the pics i showed are all the 1 female,one afternoon i saw her get mated 4 times in 2 hours ny one male,i have a u tube vid of the 4th time,other males were also chasing her so probably why she got knocked around a bit

alot of wild ones cop pretty bad scarring to,i hate to see it,especially as some females dont seem to get a scale out of place,but it unfortunatly doesnt aleays go that way

Some scarring is a fact of life if breeding, some get beaten around more, some recover better.

lol it was kinda a joke, I was referring to the omg there are blotchies in america post
KL, wasnt talking about your post, its good to see what other blueys have recovered from visually (well, not good to see they've been "hurt" but you know what I mean)