BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

I wanted to know...Is cat food more for the younger bluey's as it has more protein in it? I read somewhere that the protein content in cat food is too high for adult bluey's and you should switch to dog food or a low protein cat food as they get older. Something about it affecting one of their organs... The kidneys maybe??

My vet said that cat food tends to be a little rich for adult Blueys, so he reccommended dog food. The organ affected is probably the liver which has to break down fatty acids (from rich foods) then the kidneys have to expel it all from the body. Moderation should be ok, however Chuffers didn't like Spot's Stew dogfood.
He gets the Wellness chicken cat food in moderation, say once or 2x/week amd mixed with greens and healthy stuff.
His other proteins are egg, cooked chicken, and turkey burger.

I wouldnt mind to use dog food the only problem is the make those in huge cans and its like so big. Plus my dog hates mushy food.

Cat food is fine in my opinion, but again, I wouldn't recommend feeding heaping amounts of cat food. We use it as a base with our other vegetables and greens to add some meat/protein.

Anything in moderation. Also even though the caresheet says to feed every second day, if you were to ask most of the aussies on this site how often they feed their blueys, I reckon it'd be less than every 2nd day. Maybe once or twice a week is fine, and cat and dog food are also fine. You don't even NEED to do the vegies, but it helps to break it up. Normally cat and dog food are packed with the nutrients needed anyway - maybe bar the calcium, so a light sprinkling of calcium powder could be added on the odd occasion. Just watch out for salt levels.

Remember - bigger is not always better - so Don't over feed your bluey!

i always stuff the cat food with veggies and handfeed him or else he gives me this nasty skink look of his and eats nuthing.

Blotch wrote:Anything in moderation. Also even though the caresheet says to feed every second day, if you were to ask most of the aussies on this site how often they feed their blueys, I reckon it'd be less than every 2nd day. Maybe once or twice a week is fine

I will agree with you. I think most of the skinks on this forum are way to fat. I look at fat skinks like i see skinny skinks. Fat animals are my biggest pet peeve. Being fat is worse than being skinny. Now, being full bodied, etc is one thing. A few grams overweight is nothing either, but I see a lot of FAT skinks here.

NomadOfTheHills wrote:

Blotch wrote:Anything in moderation. Also even though the caresheet says to feed every second day, if you were to ask most of the aussies on this site how often they feed their blueys, I reckon it'd be less than every 2nd day. Maybe once or twice a week is fine

I will agree with you. I think most of the skinks on this forum are way to fat. I look at fat skinks like i see skinny skinks. Fat animals are my biggest pet peeve. Being fat is worse than being skinny. Now, being full bodied, etc is one thing. A few grams overweight is nothing either, but I see a lot of FAT skinks here.

Really? Like who??

Personally, I'm good with babies being fat. I love Wocket's baby picture on Andrews site. She's a butterball. Generally, all babies seem to be fatter. After a year though they should start getting back to normal skink size. I think people just get used to seeing the baby sizes, and not realize their skinks shouldn't be that size. Now it's just normal for skinks to be overweight... same with people I guess.

NomadOfTheHills wrote:

Blotch wrote:Anything in moderation. Also even though the caresheet says to feed every second day, if you were to ask most of the aussies on this site how often they feed their blueys, I reckon it'd be less than every 2nd day. Maybe once or twice a week is fine

I will agree with you. I think most of the skinks on this forum are way to fat. I look at fat skinks like i see skinny skinks. Fat animals are my biggest pet peeve. Being fat is worse than being skinny. Now, being full bodied, etc is one thing. A few grams overweight is nothing either, but I see a lot of FAT skinks here.

I'm glad other people are coming around to this.
Blotch, I'm getting this weird feeling of deja vu

Fatal_S wrote:Personally, I'm good with babies being fat. I love Wocket's baby picture on Andrews site. She's a butterball. Generally, all babies seem to be fatter. After a year though they should start getting back to normal skink size. I think people just get used to seeing the baby sizes, and not realize their skinks shouldn't be that size. Now it's just normal for skinks to be overweight... same with people I guess.

I'm not ok with fat babies. Overfeeding in the first year of their life is the worst time as this is when they do alot of their growing. Excess feeding at this time while they are growing can lead to poor/weak bone formation and structure, fat buildup around the liver and flow on kidney problems. You'd want to be spot on with a balanced diet and supplementation if you like fatties. I don't think it should ever be considered or condoned as normal. It's not necessary to have a full grown skink in anything less than two years old.

It's always been one of my pet peeves on this site. Skinks not eating at certain times of the year (eg in winter and summer or newly arrived home), or not eating alot, should be considered normal instead (provided no other symptoms exist), before suggestiions of stuffing other (so called tastier) food items into them just to ease the mind of an over anxious owner. They aren't stupid, they won't starve themselves, they don't need to eat every day or even every week. They are foragers and scavengers and that means some days or weeks you eat and some days or weeks you don't. They're designed to deal with this eating pattern from the day they are born.

Pet obesity is animal cruelty

BTW, that wasn't meant as an attack on you personally, Fatal.
I just have a different opinion to you on fat babies (and fat adults). It's a subject, along with a few other bits of advice and comment on here recently that will keep me away. I'll just end up snapping otherwise and offend people.

I'm with you Lisa, I was worried about Baloo for a while because he's so small compared to others his age, but he isn't a big eater so I don't worry too much. Baloo will turn 2 in June of next year and I figure that he'll just be a little small, and on the leaner side.

Sebastian on the other hand, I could feed him nothing for a month and he'd still be a fattie. I don't know what to make of him, other than that he's a northern and hopefully looking to get big like his daddy....

MartinsPerson wrote:I'm with you Lisa, I was worried about Baloo for a while because he's so small compared to others his age, but he isn't a big eater so I don't worry too much. Baloo will turn 2 in June of next year and I figure that he'll just be a little small, and on the leaner side.

Sebastian on the other hand, I could feed him nothing for a month and he'd still be a fattie. I don't know what to make of him, other than that he's a northern and hopefully looking to get big like his daddy....

Don't worry, in 5-10 years time, Baloo will be just as big as the next IJ. There's no prize for getting big first! He's got 20+ years to get there!

One thing I didn't mention but probably should of, although it's pretty obvious, is that different sub species of blue tongue have different body types and shapes. For instance, easterns are long and lean, blotches are too although they're tail can remain as thick as their body, northerns are naturally big all over (the biggest aus species), centralians and tannies are compact etc. People need to take that into account and compare apples with apples not apples with oranges, so to speak.

Don't look at someone's same age northern and wonder why your tanny is so tiny in comparison

Lisa, I think that says it all. I went from feeding Sammy every day to once every 2-3 days and she's still growing and seems healthy and happy. I am willing to give her the time she needs to get to be whatever size she's going to be.

I tend to refer to the caresheet to check to see if she's getting to chubba.

Over pampered pets,its not a good thing,if they WONT eat healthy,then dont feed them until they will,just my 2p worth

Lisa wrote:I'm not ok with fat babies. Overfeeding in the first year of their life is the worst time as this is when they do alot of their growing. Excess feeding at this time while they are growing can lead to poor/weak bone formation and structure, fat buildup around the liver and flow on kidney problems. You'd want to be spot on with a balanced diet and supplementation if you like fatties. I don't think it should ever be considered or condoned as normal. It's not necessary to have a full grown skink in anything less than two years old.

It's always been one of my pet peeves on this site. Skinks not eating at certain times of the year (eg in winter and summer or newly arrived home), or not eating alot, should be considered normal instead (provided no other symptoms exist), before suggestiions of stuffing other (so called tastier) food items into them just to ease the mind of an over anxious owner. They aren't stupid, they won't starve themselves, they don't need to eat every day or even every week. They are foragers and scavengers and that means some days or weeks you eat and some days or weeks you don't. They're designed to deal with this eating pattern from the day they are born.

Pet obesity is animal cruelty

I am really interested to know more about this. I kept reading that daily feedings until the age of one year (as long as they are accepting of the food) is the thing to do. And some people even offered only meat. But I wondered if the rapid growth of my skink was somehow harmful to his health, because at the same time every Aussie is saying they eat their birth sac and nothing more until they wake up from their first winter. I have offered veggies from the beginning, but a couple months ago it really hit me that he's looking like an adult, so I cut down on the meat percentage and started offering leaner stuff more in line with the adult diet on the care sheet (more buggies and snails (canned, sorry dudes)). It was just a wild guess.

This post gave me a nightmare last night! I dreamt he died at age 5, but the vet offered to clone him from a piece of shed for $10000.

It might be hard to do without calling anybody out, but I think it would be really helpful to see pictures of "normal" skinks on this forum that are actually too fat. I offer Ping up for sacrifice. Is this too pudgy? 7 months, 19", 517 grams. I can recall only ONE day when he refused food.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkCv_cQfIK4
(I think video shows more than pictures)

I think not only the food aspect of obesity should be talked about, but also, exercise! I take Chuff out every day he's not sleeping and let him wander the house. He limbs into shelves, up onto boxes, behind bookcases, and over my weights on the floor. He tries to move them, etc. In summer, he gets outside for sunshine and exercise all over the yard.
Personally, I think Ping looks fine, he's long-bodied, I wouldn't call him a chunk-a-Blubber by any stretch.
Chuff looks wide from the top because his spine was crushed and he had ribs broken. from the side though, he looks pretty slender. I've stopped worrying about his eating every other day, to his eating once or twice a week, depending on his mood. He's pretty good at regulating himself, and I figure he knows his body better than I do, so I accept him and leave him be.
Fat babies, eeeeeew! I mean, c'mon, this is so NOT even remotely cute!

Hijinks wrote:
I am really interested to know more about this. I kept reading that daily feedings until the age of one year (as long as they are accepting of the food) is the thing to do. And some people even offered only meat. But I wondered if the rapid growth of my skink was somehow harmful to his health, because at the same time every Aussie is saying they eat their birth sac and nothing more until they wake up from their first winter. I have offered veggies from the beginning, but a couple months ago it really hit me that he's looking like an adult, so I cut down on the meat percentage and started offering leaner stuff more in line with the adult diet on the care sheet (more buggies and snails (canned, sorry dudes)). It was just a wild guess.

This post gave me a nightmare last night! I dreamt he died at age 5, but the vet offered to clone him from a piece of shed for $10000.

It might be hard to do without calling anybody out, but I think it would be really helpful to see pictures of "normal" skinks on this forum that are actually too fat. I offer Ping up for sacrifice. Is this too pudgy? 7 months, 19", 517 grams. I can recall only ONE day when he refused food.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkCv_cQfIK4
(I think video shows more than pictures)

I don't think there is a definitive answer. I mean, you read caresheets, books, you speak to people, you get opinions. But at the end of the day, who or what's right and who or what's wrong?

You have to take it all in, apply a bit of your own common sense and thought process, and not take any one piece of advice as the WORD. Well, that's what I do anyway! One thing I do know though, from observing the ones in my yard, is that a two or three year old blue tongue can be about the size of what Jubby was at 6 months. And I've only once found one bigger than Jubby is now at nearly 4 years old and the wildlife carer that took it (it got mauled) reckoned it would've been about 15 years old.

I try to stick as close as possible to what they face in the wild. That means that some days they eat and some days they don't. There's no regiment to it. Like, they don't only eat on Tuesdays and Sundays for example in the wild. Some days I feed them, maybe even two days in a row, sometimes I don't. It's 'whenever'. If I feel like it they get a nice mix of fruit & veg, other days they just get dog food. So I guess it's whenever and whatever! This time of year I hardly prepare food at all, it's all down to the bugs and grubs they or I find.

Same as in regard to their heat and light. Some days I don't turn their lights on at all, some days less or more than others. It's not sunny everyday!

Don't have nightmares, don't panic, don't ever take only one piece of advice as the law. Just remember that they do live a long time and they do continue to grow over their life, it's just they grow slower as they age. Remember that they are designed to go periods without food, and that when days are bountiful then they will gorge since they don't know when the next meal will be.

If I thought I saw a skink that I thought was dangerously overweight, I would say so and have done so in the past. The point I was trying to make is that people obssess too much over food and growth rate. 20 years they live for!! No need to get there in less than one!

"It might be hard to do without calling anybody out, but I think it would be really helpful to see pictures of "normal" skinks on this forum that are actually too fat."

-I agree, i dont have much experience yet, so will post some pictures of my boy jak when i can and you guys can help me with whether he's getting a little chubby. It sounds like i feed him a little too often

constructive critisiscm welcome

When I got Pryce, I felt he was quite chubby. Now he's gaining weight, but growing, and looking more trim.