Guide to Feeding Your Blue-Tongued Skink

Keeping Your Pet Reptile Healthy and Happy

The blue-tongued skink continues to be one of the most popular “beginner” pets for new reptile owners. It’s not hard to see why: Along with being colorful and fun to watch, the blue-tongued skink is easy-going and relatively low maintenance. His size will range between 18 and 24 inches as an adult. As long as you keep your pet healthy and happy with a balanced and nutritious diet, he could live 15 to 20 years or longer. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when preparing to feed your new blue-tongued skink:

The blue-tongued skink is an omnivore.

This means he eats plants as well as meat. We recommend a balanced diet that is 50 percent fresh vegetables, 40 percent protein, and 10 percent fresh fruit. Consider fruit like a garnish on his main entree of protein and vegetables.

The skink could live off of any diet.

This means he is likely to eat what you give him—to the point where it could negatively affect his weight and general health. It will be up to you to carefully monitor his food intake and make sure he is getting the variety he needs in his diet, as well as not overeating.

Consider the balance of phosphorus and calcium in food options.

When determining what to offer your skink, always look at the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, an essential mineral. The best foods for your blue-tongued skink will have a ratio of 2:1 calcium to phosphorus. When there is a high amount of phosphorus in a food, it can be harder to digest.

Prepare your grocery list.

These are just a few of our favorite vegetable and fruit options for blue-tongued skinks:

Vegetables:

• Collard, turnip, or mustard greens
• Butternut squash
• Peas
• Brussels sprouts
• Hibiscus flowers
• Dandelion greens

Fruits:

• Mango
• Figs
• Papaya
• Cantaloupe
• Apple
• Banana

We recommend avoiding feeding your skink any citrus fruits, avocado, and eggplant.

Provide protein with high-quality live insects.

Some reptile owners choose to feed their skinks canned dog or cat foods, but we caution you to avoid any high-sodium canned meats. Instead, give your pet the protein it needs with live feeder insects from ABDragons. Your blue-tongued skink can eat Dubia roaches as well as Black Soldier Fly Larvae. When he is young, he can be offered insects and a small portion of greens daily. As he gets older, you can generally offer a wider variety of vegetables and small tastes of fruit. An adult blue-tongued skink can feed up to 3 times a week.

We hope this information is helpful to you as you bring home your new pet skink. If you have any additional questions, feel free to reach out. In the meantime, ABDragons has all of the feeder insects you need to maintain your skink’s diet.

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