Thin substrate for baby BTS?

KarenSoCal

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Hello, mentors!

I have the substrate all ready for my baby when he arrives, but a question...
I was reading about babies in the very detailed care sheet from http://bluetongueskinks.net/care.htm. The author (Luke?) stated that for babies, along with a smaller enclosure (thanks @Tom!) he recommends leaving them on paper towels even after the umbilicals fall off. His reason is that they learn that they can't dive underground and disappear to avoid capture by the huge monster that is chasing them. He believes the stress from not being able to dig is less than the stress of being chased. Here's how he writes it:

"One more tip: do you have a baby who just doesn't seem to calm down? People often give a baby many hiding places and deep substrate to burrow in. This can be good and bad when trying to interact with a baby skink. The problem is if he's a little hissy, he might learn that he can just hide in there all day and never come out. If he's "forced" to be out a little bit, I think this helps acclimate them better and faster, because in the long run, if they're scared all the time, that causes more stress than the initial stress of not having immediate substrate to burrow in."

I thought maybe a thin layer of substrate, and a pile under the humid hide for dampening.

Good or bad? How difficult is it to catch one in substrate?
What do you all think? I've never caught a lizard, so I'm thinking I may need to stack the deck in my favor any way I can!

Thoughts?

TIA, Wise Ones
 

GBtortoises

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I can't speak for lizard care and I don't think it should be used as a base or a comparison to tortoise care. They are two very different animals as newborns and should be treated differently too.
With baby tortoises, once out the egg, I move hatchlings from the incubator to a brooder set up and keep them on paper towels, misting them twice daily. Once their yolk sac is absorbed and the seam closed, usually 3-4 days on average after hatching, They are placed on a soil substrate. Many of them will bury themselves in the substrate. This is a very strong survivability instinct that they have. I do not believe that they should be "forced" to remain out in the open, including being pulled out of hides regularly. Quite often when that is done they will almost always scramble for a place to hide and/or immediately bury themselves in the substrate. Not allowing them to bury themselves and constantly pulling them out of hiding increases their stress, instinct to keep themselves safe and inhibit acclimation.
 

Chubbs the tegu

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U can make a lil box in the enclosure with some burrowing substrate such as leaf litter and also have a hide at the other end so he can choose if he wants to burrow or go in his hide. Northerns usually dont take long to settle in. Good luck!
 

Tom

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Hello, mentors!

I have the substrate all ready for my baby when he arrives, but a question...
I was reading about babies in the very detailed care sheet from http://bluetongueskinks.net/care.htm. The author (Luke?) stated that for babies, along with a smaller enclosure (thanks @Tom!) he recommends leaving them on paper towels even after the umbilicals fall off. His reason is that they learn that they can't dive underground and disappear to avoid capture by the huge monster that is chasing them. He believes the stress from not being able to dig is less than the stress of being chased. Here's how he writes it:

"One more tip: do you have a baby who just doesn't seem to calm down? People often give a baby many hiding places and deep substrate to burrow in. This can be good and bad when trying to interact with a baby skink. The problem is if he's a little hissy, he might learn that he can just hide in there all day and never come out. If he's "forced" to be out a little bit, I think this helps acclimate them better and faster, because in the long run, if they're scared all the time, that causes more stress than the initial stress of not having immediate substrate to burrow in."

I thought maybe a thin layer of substrate, and a pile under the humid hide for dampening.

Good or bad? How difficult is it to catch one in substrate?
What do you all think? I've never caught a lizard, so I'm thinking I may need to stack the deck in my favor any way I can!

Thoughts?

TIA, Wise Ones
This is a great question and I'll tell you right up front the answer is going to be: "It depends..." I'll share my thoughts on the matter.

That website is excellent. I think its the skink equivalent to TFO as far as current info end experienced members. Top breeders who have had years of success with multiple generations of BTS have told me that site is good and that I can trust the info there. I have trusted that info and its never steered me wrong.

That being said, I've never needed to do the paper towel thing. I've had seven Northern BTS, and raised three of those from babies. My experience level is MUCH more limited than some of the masters on the website, but at least I've done it a few times. I started my babies in the same 24x24x12" square reptile tank with a screen top. I offered about 2" of coco chips, a water bowl big enough for them to get into, a Tupperware style humid hide with damp coco chips and some long fibered sphagnum moss, a dry hide, a log, a basking rock, and a basking lamp on a timer. Their base diet was canned Pedigree Beef dog food and thawed mixed veggies all mixed together. For fun I would mix in other stuff and feed them occasional roaches too. Calcium with D3 was mixed in in small amounts twice a week. They get D3 from the dog food, so I didn't want to over do it. Like most people I really questioned the dog food thing, but I tell you, it is proven generation after generation year after year. I think telling people the best diet for their pet skink is cheap canned dog food gets about the same reaction as telling people to keep a "desert" sulcata in warm monsoon conditions. I understand the resistance, but after a decade of doing this with so many animals, I'm sold on it. If you want to spend lots of time and money and making up your own mixes from other stuff, go right ahead. Their diets are so varied and they are so adaptable that there are infinite ways to do it "right".

Back to the question at hand: I've raised a lot of lizards of soooo many species over the last 30+ years. All sorts of different Iguanid, Varanid, Agamid, Gekkonid, Chameleon, Tegu, Helodermata, and Tiliqua species. Some crocodilians too. I always try to set them up perfectly in large, well designed, naturalistic enclosures, and when ever I do that, they act like back-*** wild animals fleeing in terror and hiding all the time. Then I go to someone else house and they have the same species and its housed "all wrong" in a little enclosure, but its dog tame and appears to be healthy. This was never more apparent than with green iguanas. Back in the 90s I rehabbed so many of these of all sizes and ages. The better I housed and cared for them, the healthier they got, the meaner and less handleable they got. They'd come to me very friendly and tame out of a little aquarium with an inadequate heat source and a single branch to perch on, being fed the wrong foods, often with mild MBD starting, and I would get them healthy, but also un-handleable.

What I'm saying in a round about way, is that there is truth to what you read on that site. The writer knows what he's talking about. If the baby is really small and young, you might try it on the paper towels for the first few days, and then move to the recommended substrate if all seems good and it tames down quickly.
 

KarenSoCal

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I can't speak for lizard care and I don't think it should be used as a base or a comparison to tortoise care. They are two very different animals as newborns and should be treated differently too.
With baby tortoises, once out the egg, I move hatchlings from the incubator to a brooder set up and keep them on paper towels, misting them twice daily. Once their yolk sac is absorbed and the seam closed, usually 3-4 days on average after hatching, They are placed on a soil substrate. Many of them will bury themselves in the substrate. This is a very strong survivability instinct that they have. I do not believe that they should be "forced" to remain out in the open, including being pulled out of hides regularly. Quite often when that is done they will almost always scramble for a place to hide and/or immediately bury themselves in the substrate. Not allowing them to bury themselves and constantly pulling them out of hiding increases their stress, instinct to keep themselves safe and inhibit acclimation.
Thank you for your good advice! I agree with you completely, but...this is for a lizard, not a tortoise. I'm getting a baby Blue Tongue Skink in June-July.
 

KarenSoCal

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@Tom, thank you! And especially for the roundabout way! I not only get good, well thought out recommendations, but I always get a good laugh at the lead-ins.

So to summarize:
a gallon bucket,
a couple inches of water,
throw in some paper towels, sit the bucket under the nearest AC duct, slice up some fillet, lobster tail, and fresh artichokes, and encourage my cats to drink from the bucket.

Got it! ??????
 

Chubbs the tegu

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It all depends on the baby and breeder( if they were handled daily) obviously a large scale breeder they are not gonna be handled much. I had mine with substrate and naturalistic enclosure from day one and he was never skittish or even hissed at me ever. I let him settle in for a day.. spoon fed him cat food on day two( i switch to dog food after 6 months) and did that for a few days.. he was coming to the enclosure door when i came into the room by day 5. Now thats my way of doing things. Not everyone agrees w hand or tong feeding but i think it works great... not really needed for blueys coz they calm down so fast, but ive used it on all my larger lizards and just decided to so the same with slinky. Its always better to let them come to u on their own terms.
 
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