Quote Originally Posted by artgecko View Post
yeah, I will definitely confirm them being CBB with him first... He breeds northerns and westerns, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were CBB. I've seen several farmed IJ or other indonesian skinks for sale online and just don't want to deal with treating for parasites, etc. If I can't find a CBB of the variety I want (or at least CB), then I will just go with a dark colored northern CBB baby.

Apparently this breeder has over 120 skinks and uses racks for all of them with good results (I think he's been breeding for 25 years). I'd love to do a 4' x 2' setup for this one, but may need to build a cage. It is tempting to use a rack because I can get a 3 shelf cb70 (AP economy) open sided rack for $180 including shipping, whereas that won't even buy one basic AP 4'x2' cage... I much prefer the look of the AP cages, but money may be a factor. I am also not very handy, so am a little intimidated about building my own cage... My biggest issue would be what materials to use and how to seal it so that it is water tight.

From my reading, you can use quality dog food if you add fresh veggies and supplements... Many people actually have issues trying to do a no-dog-food diet if they don't supplement correctly.

I am planning on doing a 50/50 mix of quality dog food and ground turkey (or other meat), then do 50% fresh veggies and 10% fruit and grind it all up in a food processor.

I've been told that you can freeze their food in ice cube trays, then thaw out each cube before feeding... I will probably do that and add vitamin / cal+D supplements before each meal. With only 1 skink to feed, I'm sure a batch of food will last me a long time.

Thanks for your advice!

He breeds westerns too?! I love westerns, but I am pretty sure they are way out of my price range! In my experience in building cages has come out to cost the same as buying off the shelf, however none of the cages available have a lip to offer a deep layer of substrate for burrowing etc, so I have had to modify the current cages I have now (visions) to allow for it. So building my own cages didn't save me any money, but I have gotten the exact cage I want for the same cost as an off the shelf that I would have to modify. All that being said I know that the "critter cam" guys in Australia use racks with success, it is just my personal preference to not use them. I just am not a fan because I see how active my guys can be.

I had to go through all the treatments for parasites for my female, but my male was a long term captive from a breeding program before we got him. You most definately can freeze the food. I make about a months batch at a time to share between my 2 blueys and tegu. As adults the blueys eat twice a week and I dose with Cal+D3 on one of those servings, but like I said I also provide the UVB. When I mix my food I used snails, ground turkey, gizards, liver, kidney, and eggs for the protein, then I mix in a variety of fruits, veggies and greens. Have you browsed through the food chart on the BTS site? There was a lot of really good info on there, and LLL actually made a really good 20 min video and posted it on youtube of how they make their food for their breeders. I used that as a baseline and build off of it. It took me quite a while to get them dialed in because a lot of the info out there for the Blueys is based on Northerns or other Aussie species. Luckily LLL's program was focusing on Indos and the girl that used to run it provided me with a lot of help along the way. Good luck finding one and be sure to post up pictures of the lil one when you get it!

Let me know if you have any questions along the way!