We've been adopted by an adult female eastern water skink who lives in our house with us and I've taken the time to befriend. She's been with us for 12 months (as far as we know) and was very shy of us initially.
Only took a few months to get her to feel confortable in close company with me and to just calmly get out our way when she saw or heard my wife and I coming rather than running away and hiding from us because she was scared of us. Now she is so relaxed with me that she is happy to accept live medium mealworms, live crickets (that I've recently started buying for her) and cockroachs (that I sometimes catch and keep for her) from me as handfed treats - I really enjoy giving her live insect food treats one at time by hand and having her come up and very gently accept them and stay nearby to eat them.
She even allows me to tickle her under her chin when she's eating partularly yummy treat, and sometimes she crawls completely onto my open hand to take a dead insect or a live meal worm and I hand surf her ( she seems to enjoy it and calmly crawls off when taken the hand with her on to a landing).....
She has freedom of the house - she has no restrictions and regularly visits every room in the house - hunting for insects hiding under the furnature, but her fav haunts are the laundry, the kitchen and the lounge room.
She comes and goes as she pleases and chooses to spend long periods most days inside with us (we are a retired couple) and is often seen basking on the modem's transformer , and on the top of the head of the lounge - she gets into some funky floppy relaxed contented lizard positions (many of which look very funny or very precarious or uncomfortable but they work for her).
I really enjoy having our house lizard (Lizzy) around and I'm sure she gets as much pleasure out of our great relationship and knows she's onto a good thing.
She also seeks me out when I'm in the yard or on the front patio when she's outside and studies what I'm doing intently.
She's so cute and inquisitive and she's pretty cleavour too.
I invite you read my threads - you can find out about Lizzy .
Beauty of having a resident water skink is she eats all the cockroachs that come inside and all the spiders (if she spots them on teh carpet or under the furnature) and so she earns her keep, we no longer need insect spray, surface spray or roach baits.
She also seems to have dealt with the mice we used have in the kitchen - she's the right size to follow them where ever they go and probably ate their babies and scared them off.
I yet to try handling her other than chin tickles and hand surfs. She might never become tame enough to tolerate that , that's OK.
I think lizards are fantastic pets, my preference is for Lizzy to remain free since she is a wild skink who has never been kept in an enclosure. She's no bother, she even seems to go to the toilet outside and rarely has an accident inside. (Lizzy's poos are like pidgeon poos and are real easy to clean up and remove when they dry).
I would like one day to have some dragons (beardies or jackies are my favs) and some geckos (my favs are knottails and velvets).
I think my relationship with Lizzy the water skink is pretty special and I treasure it and interacting with her, I like watching her sleep on the transformer and head of the lounge too, and she gets very animated when she's had a treat or found a really nice bug of her own accord. (happy excited lizard mode ?)
I think lizards respond very well to kindness, regularly being quietly spoken to, and being allowed to build their trust in you at their own pace.
If you want something small you can handle often you should get pygmy bearded dragons. They have lots of personality and they're adorable! They are a bit spikey but it's more the claws that are sharp when they get older and they don't hurt. Nowhere near as much as a cockatoo bite! Geckos get stressed pretty easily but they're great to have if you want something to study and look at. I'm not too sure if all geckos species get stressed but friends of mine have them and you can't hold them too often.
Oh and with reptiles they don't bury their poo like other animals and it's more like a bird dropping. Easily scooped up with a tissue and substrate should be changed at least every 6 months. I've found you can get clean substrate for about $3 at bunnings warehouse instead of paying $15 for the stuff at pet stores. Also it depends on the species when it comes to feeding because they have slow digestive systems. You don't want to overfeed your reptile.
It's also fine to keep the tanks in your room and the crickets don't usually make noise until they're matured and your lizards (if you get small ones) won't be ready to eat those untill they're adults. You can occasionally also feed them meal worms and woodie roaches. Some lizards/geckos like company and others don't. It all depends on the species you choose.
My remaining crickets are churping right now - it's not that loud and I find their churping very
nice and restful.
(They also study you and seem to very curious too, but don't be lulled into thinking they like you as they are masters at the quick escape when you have their lid partly off and they'll quickly crawl and hop away - good fun for your lizards to find when they have the opportunity to explore and hunt about the room).Keep a clear plastic disposal cup handy to place over top of them when they are making a bid for freedom.
I'm replacing the slices and chunks or carrot I give my mealworms to chew on and drink from every few days (before it goes mouldy - I think mouldy carrot killed most of my first batch of worms) and I also give slces of apple to the crickets and they are replaced every couple of days.
Any dead worms, or pupa I find I remove immediately ( I keep the dead worms as treate for Lizzy and her boyfriend Scrapper (who lives outside and has been hanging about a lot lately) and the pupa I save and get beetles from. I'm hoping eventually to have baby mealworm lavae.
Any dead crickets I find either get frozen for later or get offered to Lizzy as treats. She likes them so long as they smell fresh. Scrapper is not so fussy - he'll take them even when they are starting smell off.
I also freeze a lot of the mature crickets (when they get wings) and I've also got some frozen medium mealworms from when I bought a 100g tub (froze half of them).
You could try catching and keeping some brown garden skinks, they are very gregarious and very cute little guys. To try out lizards initially. I think shop bought and breeder raised lizards can be expensive (from $50 and the skies the limit depending on the species and the demand).
