four month old blue tongue not eating

[oespatoi]

i got a four month old blue tongue two weeks ago and my partner and i have had trouble getting him to eat on his own. if we put food in his mouth he will usually eat it but otherwise from what we've noticed he won't go over and eat himself. the breeder we got him from had him on dog food; we decided that we wanted to feed him fruit and veg, meal worms and crickets for protein. after about a week we thought we'd get some dog food as we thought that maybe he wasn't used to this diet so we've been adding some to the food we give him. he gets fresh food every day but doesn't seem to touch it unless we feed him. i've noticed he really likes kiwi fruit and oranges and does enjoy the dog food (it's just a chicken and vegie puppy wet food mix), but i really don't want to have to continue to have to feed him. any suggestions would be great! thanks in advance

 

[ingie]

He may be too cold. It is normal at this time of year for wild blueys to Brumate. In captivity you would need to make sure the temperatures mimicked warmer times of year, for his appetite to remain.

 

[dragonlover1]

a few people have said they feed their blueys on crickets etc.but I have never been able to get mine to eat them ,I don't like tinned dog food but you can try things like chicken mince or raw meat but cut off all fat and don't feed any fish ,a little bit of banana is okay,strawberry,cherry and blueberry are all good food,but the most natural food of all is snails just make sure you don't use snail bait.
My garden is totally chemical free

 

[lizardwhisperer]

What is the basking temp ?
What is the cool zone temp ?
Do you warm the enclosure overnight ?
Do you provide UVB (5%) ?

Do you leave shredded, chopped, grated fruiit, greens and veg (peas and beans etc) in for it to graze during the day ? Worth sneeking some dampened VetFarm lizard pellets or Repcal Juvenile Bearded Dragon pellets into the mix if they are eating some of it (contain vitamins).

Crickets are good (make you dust them daily with Ca, + Vits a couple times a week). I disable the crickets so my bluetongues can catch them.
Woodies are good.
Silkworms are fabulous for growing lizards, but hard to get.
Mealworms have very high fat content and bad Ca/P.

 

[lizardwhisperer]

Is it coming up to a shed ? My little ones regularly go off their food for a while before they start shedding.

Might be that you'll have to hand feed for a while to make sure it's getting enough food to develop and grow properly. A benefit is that this helps develop a very strong bond between the skink and you.

I don't know what others do with their juvenile bluetongues, but mine get fed live food 2 times daily at about 4 months.

A visit to the local reptile might be beneficial to be sure there are no health issues.

 

[2.3casper]

A visit to local reptile dr,,I think that's a good idea lizardwhisperer

 

[ingie]

I don't really know what a reptile vet is going to be able to tell you by looking at him, if he isn't visibly sick, unless you want to pay for expensive tests that would possibly tell you nothing. I would start with perfecting the temperatures, and see if that helps. Night time temperature will be important for letting him know if it is brumating time or not, so he still may not feed if it is warm in the day and freezing at night. If you perfect temperatures and basking spots etc, and he still does not want to feed, then I would think about worrying about something else being the cause.

Keep in mind that dog food is a balanced diet with calcium and vitamins etc, meant to sustain a dog. Mince is just protein and some fat, and doesn't have the extra additives that would be beneficial to the lizard. Feeding mince should be in small amounts, in conjunction with a variety of other things so the little fella can get everything he needs. I know no one recommended just mince, but just in case anyone is reading and goes nuts with the mince and not much else A lot of successful blue tongue breeders use dog or cat food as a main part of the diet, with some veggies, and have great success.

 

[lizardwhisperer]

I don't really know what a reptile vet is going to be able to tell you by looking at him, if he isn't visibly sick, unless you want to pay for expensive tests that would possibly tell you nothing. I would start with perfecting the temperatures, and see if that helps. Night time temperature will be important for letting him know if it is brumating time or not, so he still may not feed if it is warm in the day and freezing at night. If you perfect temperatures and basking spots etc, and he still does not want to feed, then I would think about worrying about something else being the cause.

Keep in mind that dog food is a balanced diet with calcium and vitamins etc, meant to sustain a dog. Mince is just protein and some fat, and doesn't have the extra additives that would be beneficial to the lizard. Feeding mince should be in small amounts, in conjunction with a variety of other things so the little fella can get everything he needs. I know no one recommended just mince, but just in case anyone is reading and goes nuts with the mince and not much else A lot of successful blue tongue breeders use dog or cat food as a main part of the diet, with some veggies, and have great success.

The vet may , if the skink is undersized for age or of poor physical condition put her in on a specially made food suppliment , it may need some oral calcium solution if it's not eating much or getting enough dietary calcium..

I never give my bluetongues cat or dog food , they do get mushrooms and snails as treats, be careful with wild caught garden snails .

 

[oespatoi]

thanks for all your advice people, we live in quite a cold area and i think it has just been too cold for him. the heated side of his tank usually sat at night just under 20 degrees and during the day around 20-25 degrees. yes we keep heat on at night because it gets so cold. not sure about the temp of cool end as we don't have a thermometer at that end, just heated end. no uv lamp but will soon be getting one in the coming days. we got an extra heat lamp (25w) and put it in the heated end and it feels much more pleasant! this turned out to be a success because we caught him feeding! so happy food is just finely chopped which he gets daily, don't have pellets but intend on getting some soon. will try and get some silkworms. a vet suggested to me to get liquid calcium supplement to put on his food so I'm going to try that too. when we got him he was just finishing his shed thanks for all your help guys, i really appreciate it!

 

[riotgirlckb]

I have two easterns and the person I got them from copies how they would be in the wild so at night gives them no heat and during the day the heat goes on and instead of UVB they get put outside a few hours a week with calcium dust in their diet, I continued on this and they have never had any issues, active little buggers always eating, the smaller one who is around 6 months old would never eat any fruit or vegies though, only mealworms, and they have both gone off their food and have become a lot less active and I'm sure they are brumating due to the colder temps at night, also I use dog food as part of their diet regularly it is a great source of calcium and protein and I've never had any issues with it