Northern Blue Tongue Skink, Tiliqua scincoides intermedia

NEVER HOUSE TWO SKINKS TOGETHER. Blue tongue skinks are territorial, and forcing two of them to share a cage generally ends in serious injury or a dead animal. One skink per enclosure, for life, with no exceptions for siblings, for pairs, or for a cage you think is large enough.

Floor space is more important than height for a northern. A 48” x 24” x 24” enclosure is the minimum for an adult and more floor is better. Give a juvenile the adult enclosure from the start and fill it with cover rather than buying up through a series of small cages. A young skink in a large bare cage will hide and stress. Add more clutter rather than moving it to a smaller cage. Provide a hide at the warm end and another at the cool end, a water bowl, and enough foliage, cork and flat rock that the animal can cross the cage without ever being fully exposed. These are strong, determined animals that push and dig, so the enclosure must latch and any screen top must be secured.

A mix of roughly 60% organic topsoil to 40% play sand, 4-6 inches deep, is the standard for Australian blue tongues and it holds a burrow. Depth matters as much as the mix. Do not use aspen, pine or cedar shavings, or paper-pulp rodent beddings. Aspen is correct for many of the snakes we keep and it is wrong here. It will not hold a burrow and it will not hold humidity. Spot clean daily and change the substrate completely on a regular schedule.

A northern blue tongue needs a basking surface of 95-105 degrees, measured at the surface itself rather than in the air above it, a warm side of 85-90 degrees and a cool end of 75-80 degrees. Nights should fall to 70-75. This is a much hotter basking spot than any of the snakes we keep, and getting it from an overhead source is the point. Use a thermostat, and confirm the basking surface with a separate infrared reading. Do not guess! Do not use only a thermometer.

UVB is not optional for this species. Provide a linear T5 HO UVB fixture producing a UV Index of 3.0-4.0 in the basking area, and replace the bulb every 12 months whether or not it still emits visible light. Zoo Med and Arcadia are the brands we recommend. A skink kept without UVB will develop metabolic bone disease, and by the time it is visible it has already done permanent damage. Give a 12 hour day.

Humidity should be maintained at 35-50%. Northerns sit between the arid Australian species and the Indonesian blue tongues in this respect, and both extremes cause problems. Place a good quality hygrometer in the enclosure. Provide a humid hide with damp sphagnum moss, and make sure it is available when the animal’s colours dull and the skin takes on a dusky appearance ahead of a shed. Kept too dry, a northern sheds in pieces and retains skin on the toes and tail tip. Kept too wet, it gets scale rot and respiratory infections.

Provide a non-porous water bowl large enough for the skink to climb into, and change it frequently. Blue tongues defecate in their water, so frequent disinfection is essential. We recommend F10 Veterinary Disinfectant, diluted according to the directions on the bottle.

Northern blue tongue skinks handle better than most lizards and they get there with consistency rather than force. Support the whole animal along your forearm, including the tail, and never pick a skink up by the tail or the legs. Start with about five minutes a day and add time as the animal settles, working up to fifteen minutes or so. Pet the neck, back and chin. Avoid the top of the head, which is sensitive to shadows passing over it and will make a settled skink flinch.

Read what the animal tells you. A short huff or snort is annoyance. Tail flicking is irritation. A long hiss with the body tilted and puffed up is a genuine warning, and an open mouth with the tongue out means back off. Put the animal down and try again another day. A skink that walks steadily and flicks its tongue is comfortable. One that moves in quick bursts and then freezes is not. Children should always be supervised when handling any reptile. Do not handle a skink while it is in shed or right after a meal.

Allow your new skink at least a week to adjust to its habitat before feeding. Northerns are omnivores and they are not fussy, which is exactly why they are so often fed badly. The diet has to be built rather than bought.

Hatchlings to 3 months: fed daily. Roughly 70-80% animal protein, 20-30% vegetables, and no more than 10% fruit.

3 to 8 months: fed three times per week, on the same ratios.

8 months and up: fed once or twice per week. Roughly 50-60% animal protein, 40-50% vegetables, and no more than 10% fruit.

For protein, use dubia and discoid roaches, black soldier fly larvae, snails, hornworms, silkworms, earthworms, grasshoppers and locusts, along with whole eggs, lean ground poultry, and appropriately sized rodents. Gut load feeder insects for two to three days before they are fed out. Never feed lightning bugs or scorpions. For vegetables, finely chop squash, bell pepper, parsnip, carrot, turnip greens, collard greens, dandelion greens, mustard greens, cilantro and hibiscus flowers. Never feed avocado, onion, eggplant, or buttercup and azalea flowers.

Dust with calcium without D3 two to three times weekly, and give a multivitamin once weekly. With strong UVB, D3 is only needed monthly.

The correct shape for a northern blue tongue is a solid, even-sided animal that sits flat and carries a thick but not bulbous tail base. You should be able to see where the legs meet the body. A skink whose sides spread out past its legs when it walks, or that has a fold of fat behind the front legs, is obese. Obesity is the most common health problem in captive blue tongues and it comes from feeding an adult on a juvenile's schedule.

Any new animal should be kept separate from the animals you already own. A different room is best, but the opposite end of the house will do. Feed and clean your quarantined animal last, and wash your hands thoroughly before you handle anything else.

Ninety days is a reasonable minimum, and your new skink should be feeding consistently before you consider it out of quarantine. Watch for mites, wheezing, regurgitation, and abnormal stool during this period, and consult your veterinarian if you see any of them.