Need Help ! Gold Skink Care....

hey,

I walked into petco today to get crickets

and I ended up buying a gold skink

I never had a skink before

and then I went back to petco to get a UVB light for the skink

this is obviously a burrower cuase as soon as I put him in the tank he went down into the dirt. disappeared ! lol

okay so I have about 3 1/2 inches of moist coco fiber substrate

with a water dish, bark, and flat rocks

I have a UVB light that will be on during the day on a timer

a 40watt blue bulb heat light that will also be on during the day

and at night there will be a 50 watt infared heat light on

am I doing anything wrong ?

now I know certain skinks can eat vegtables I think but they told me this one just eats crickets

but its petco so they could be wrong

what do gold skinks eat and how often ?

thanks

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omg you have a golden skink? is this the same as mine?

sorry i'm just excited to see someone out of my country who currently keeps one lol.. we have different care requirements but there are certain things that i'm sure:

- Yes, they will dig if you give them the opportunity (but they also tend to become wild or skittish if they do so)
- Yes, they love water and will take occasional dips, so you might as well give it a huge water bowl (wide but not so deep at least 1.5 inch level)
- They absolutely love to climb on anything.
- They are opportunistic feeders by nature. They will all kinds (yes, all kinds!) of insects, dead or alive. They will also feed on small fish, small snails, cooked then shredded pieces of meat (fish & chicken) and they will eat pieces of soaked dog or cat food (Yes, believe me lol)
- It is an active basker but high temps is not necessary except during winter or if temps drop below 20 degrees Celsius.
- Moisture is crucial by using water bowls but high humidity is not usually necessary as they can tolerate a wide range of conditions and set-ups (believe me, i did an all-terrain setup experiment lol)
- Males can be bullies during breeding season (but i found a solution to stop this bullying!!)

Here are my babies:

The gang drinking on a water dish (this was taken during colder weather)




one of the month-old babies




this is my first and favorite of 4 adults, Ursula, a dominant and an Alpha female




My 1st batch of babies




2nd batch of babies




My 3rd batch so far




Me being gang-raped by my babies LOL (this pic was taken during my general enclosure cleaning)



Ursula and Felix eating some soaked cat food tidbits




Ursula when i got her last year hehe





Hope you'll be inspired (and addicted) by these hahahaha!! Ask away if you got things on your mind

I have questions......

I thought they needed high humidity so I dampened the substrate and I mist everyday

should I let the substrate dry out before pouring water on it again or should I keep it moist

I don't wanna kill the skink with too much humidity

mine is always in the dirt I never see it , I hope its still alive but ill find out cuase today I feed it

and mine is not tame at all

my main question was dry or moist

cuase the information handouts on skinks says arid skink are the burrowers

and this is a burrower

very cool pictures by the way

I didn't think anybody was gona respond to my post

I think im doing every correct

I read 5 caresheets and they all said to mist everyday and some said they like moist substrate

but the caressheets said bark chips and I used cocofibersubstrate.

and I think my gold skink is female because it said males have a stripe on there side

sorry just read your posts hehe.. back home in the Philippines where these skinks are plentiful, they are found in a wide variety of dry environments such as sandy beaches, dry grasslands, coconut plantations, near trashy areas, riverbanks but they are nearly absent in the forests.

i understand our countries have different humidity levels so you can probably make one side out of dirt, gravel, dry garden soil and sand then the other half made of moist coco fiber. they readily enter water but from what i've observed in the wild and my captive-breds, they avoid wet substrates. or another substrate suggestion would be a 50/50 cocofiber and sand mix topped with dry leaves. i would recommend placing a big rock for basking and just set the heat lamp there as they easily react to hot air and will die of heat exhaustion.

you can mist lightly in the morning to raise humidity without wetting the substrate too much or you can provide multiple water bowls so there's no need to mist.

well i have 2 adult females, 1 adult male and 1 ungendered. one of my female has stripes on the side. also for a weird reason, i have no two golden skink that looks alike in terms of coloration and markings.

their feeding routine can be daily, every 2 days up to a maximum of 4 days feeding interval. yours still look thin but a couple of superworms daily could do the trick. i also forgot to mention that they eat boiled eggs that are chopped into small chunks.

they can be easily tamed by handling. unlike most lizards, they don't jump off your hand if they feel nervous but their tiny claw marks on my arms can sometimes be itchy.

what is heat exhaustion ?

if I don't have my AC on in my bedroom where is tank is, SomeTimes the temp in the tank goes up to 96 degrees...... is that bad ? maybe those days I should shut off the heat light and just keep the UVB on.

I might be able to get a big water dish that would take up almost half the tank, the entrance goes down on a slant so the skink will be able to walk rite out if it chooses too, I just gota check to make sure it will fit in the tank, I seen the big water dishes at petco

ive been misting so it dampens the soil but I guess I don't need to do that

ill just mist to keep the humidity up a little

and when I get the money I can mix sand and pebbles for one half of the tank with some peat moss

oh and ive only been feeding it 5 crickets Tuesday and 5 crickets Friday im going to feed it more so it gets fatter

I offered it a bowl of mixed vegtables but it never came out to eat them

I feel horrible about what just happened

I was trying to get the skink out to feed it a superworm and it was slithiering through through the dirt

so I grabed its tail

and about 3 inches of its tail just came off  

will it grow back ?

heat exhaustion = reptile fatigue caused by too much heat or hot air temp. you must maintain a dry substrate to humid air balance.

okay, i think you're getting where i'm thinking hehe. if you wanna see it out more you should have a dark side and a bright side to the tank.

well yeah it doesn't eat veggies or fruits. it will eat baby food, cooked rice or cooked oatmeal though. but if you wanna watch its funny hunting skills then try feeding it mouth-sized feeder fish placed in the water bowl. don't be afraid to feed it superworms or mealworms to fatten it up, unlike "normally" captive-bred lizards (i.e. bts, LG, etc.) they are active enough to burn down fats.

the trick to keeping golden skinks is to not get them bored. i can personally say that they are the smartest skink (or lizard). it'll learn to eat out of your hand after a few months, bob its head while watching you exercise and are very caring parents to their young.

don't worry, they are among the fastest tail-regenerating lizard hehe. they maneuver around good but they dont run very fast out in the open hehe.

okay wow cool, they sound like they are smart lizards from what u are saying

I think mine might be so skittish cuase its most likely a wild caught import

I felt bad that part of its tail came off, but good to know it will grow back

im going to give it more crickets more often than what ive been feeding it

and when I get more money ill try other feeders

thanks  

yes, they are. they tend to learn and memorize things quickly like what their usual prey looks like by its shape, what time of the day they are usually fed and how their homes are set-up. most lizards will run away or climb on your arm if you return them in their enclos but golden skinks will voluntary go down on their own (given that the setup stays the same without adding/removing stuff), they are also very curious and will observe anything you put in the enclosure with eager anticipation.

well, 2 of my golden skinks are also wild-caught but seeing that the other skinks respond to me nicely, after time they also behaved well. you can feed it as much as it wants til it stops, then withold feeding then feed again after 3-4 days. this way you can build a feeding routine.

the tail is usually back to normal after a full 2 weeks. just keep it sanitized with iodine solution or hydrogen peroxide while still fresh. you won't notice the cut between the original and the regrown tail unlike in geckos.

a word warning, they are great escape artists and keep them away from your scorp's enclosure as they also eat scorpions and centipedes and are highly resistant to scorpion envenomations. (forgive me but yes, i tried in a research regarding asian skinks)

ok thanks for all the information  

yup, sure thing! anything for a fellow skink keeper

how's your skink now? still in hiding?