# Lizards > General Lizards >  Blue Tongue Skink concern

## Snake_Tooth

I have had my BTS for a while now and have noticed his belly is a reddish color even after shedding. I put a thermostat in his cage to control the temps and i changed his bedding from cypress to aspen because i felt cypress was too rough on him. Could the red just be stained from the dark cypress color or is red just normal in BTS's? And he has a slight whistle. I know sneezing and heavy breathing are common and wheezing is bad, but i am not sure what to make of this in-between noise. Any thoughts?

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## jclaiborne

What type of BTS is it?  Do you have pictures of the belly?

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## Rhasputin

My BT skink has a red belly. It's just the colour she is. It's also pretty normal for them to huff and make whistling sounds, what you wanna watch out for is excessive mucus in the nose and mouth, uris can be hard to distinguish in skinks, from my experience with them.

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Snake_Tooth (01-26-2014)

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## Snake_Tooth

Thank you for the responses :Smile:  Here are a few pictures of him. I believe he is an Irian Jaya. I did use a Q-tip to open his mouth and do not notice any mucus, so I'm guessing it might have been heavy breathing from stress or just sneezing from burrowing.
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

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## jclaiborne

I have two IJs...their belly is supposed to be red...mine are bright red up until about a week before they shed. Mine do sneeze from time to time...they also do the huff and puff in the mornings.  

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

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Snake_Tooth (01-26-2014)

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## Snake_Tooth

okay that's good to know, thank you! :Smile:

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## jclaiborne

> okay that's good to know, thank you!


No problem, nice looking IJ you have there by the way!

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Snake_Tooth (01-27-2014)

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## Snake_Tooth

> No problem, nice looking IJ you have there by the way!


Thank you :Smile:

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