My order from Roy Stockwell arrived today!

[damzookeeper]

Well, first off, great skinks Boidkeeper!! I have 2 pairs of my own. Hoping to get some babies from my adult pair next year, my juvies wont breed till the year after.
I just love these little skinks, my adults are dalls but my new juvies are devils. lol, my female has bit me twice and hates to be handled. but my adult talerate it greatly, mostly only handled for cleaning and a few shows.
Anyway, for the info on the fruit. I have tried feeding my guys fruit along with dog food, cat food and insects. I have to say they seem to go for the insects most of all, they absolutely love butter worms! But they have eaten a bit of broken up grape and cantelope on occasion. They aren't big fruit eaters and don't eat it often but some will accept fruits as well as insects and my juvies wont eat the dog or cat food believe it or not! Little buggers! I think I spoiled them with bugs. lol.

This is an old book, published in 1994 and definately not the best skink book out there but hey, I only paid 5 bucks for it. lol.
'Skinks- Identification, care, and Breeding' by Jerry G. Walls. In this book it lists the chalcides ocellatus as a sand skink and although it doesn't talk much about them here is a quote "They feed well on crickets (gut-loaded or powdered with vitamins) and will take waxworms and mealworms as well as sometimes a bit of fruit. Also says that they can be kept like berber skinks but on a smaller scale.
hope that helps some. Good luck with the little devils. Ocellateds are great!! Just wish they wouldn't burrow so much. lol.

[TheRedDragon]

They're really cute. Congratulations on your new addtions, and good luck with them.

[Vanan]

Originally posted by damzookeeper

This is an old book, published in 1994 and definately not the best skink book out there but hey, I only paid 5 bucks for it. lol.
'Skinks- Identification, care, and Breeding' by Jerry G. Walls. In this book it lists the chalcides ocellatus as a sand skink and although it doesn't talk much about them here is a quote "They feed well on crickets (gut-loaded or powdered with vitamins) and will take waxworms and mealworms as well as sometimes a bit of fruit. Also says that they can be kept like berber skinks but on a smaller scale.
hope that helps some. Good luck with the little devils. Ocellateds are great!! Just wish they wouldn't burrow so much. lol.

I do own that same book myself and it has (as is common with alot of TFH's books) alot of info which is very generalised. Now I'm not saying that feeding fruit is harmful but I still don't see why these very fossorial skinks would be having fruit in their diet. Anyone with facts (not speculation) regarding their wild diets.

I am very interested in finding out more regarding this charming yet mostly unfamiliar species.

BTW, Ryan Sheltopusiks aren't even in the same family as occelateds. Just thought I'd let ya know. :P

[damzookeeper]

Vanon,
my ocellateds eat green grapes for fruits mostly, should I stop feeding them it until more is found out about fruits and these guys. I read a few care sheets on the net and they also said feed some fruits, this is why I offered it.. But I never actually looked up thier area of origin to see what vegetation is in that region that they would pos. eat. What do you think? could I possibly be putting them at any health risk. I love these little guys and want to make sure they don't die before their old age.

[BoidKeeper]

Where are those care sheets?
Thanks,
Trevor

[Scales Zoo]

Originally posted by Vanan


BTW, Ryan Sheltopusiks aren't even in the same family as occelateds. Just thought I'd let ya know. :P

I guess you missed my intended humour with that particular peice of wisdom.

Ryan

[BoidKeeper]

lol

[damzookeeper]

Originally posted by BoidKeeper
Where are those care sheets?
Thanks,
Trevor

Just go to google and do a search for ocellated skinks or eyed skinks.

[damzookeeper]

Here is one of the first ones I found and it also suggests fruits and veggies.

http://www.giveusahome.co.uk/allpets...latedskink.htm

[Kevin McRae]

Boid Keeper:

I read that in Lizard Care A to Z but it doesn't have much about them, and the book"Skinks"by Jerry Walls that Deb recommended

[Linds]

Congrats Trevor! They are soooooo tiny. Wish there were teachers like you when I was growing up! LOL... I like saying that... sounds like I'm all grown up, but I don't think I ever will be Anyways, best we had were kissing gouramis. Lucky for me I had my own exposure to animals!

I do have one question about the cat/dog food though. I know the d vitamins, as well as several of the other formulations involved in dog/cat diets, are way out of balance for reptiles, causing liver problems, etc. in many reptiles such as Tegus if fed frequently. Wouldn't this affect skinks as well? I don't know anything about them, so I can't comment in that respect, but regardless of the animals need, I would be concerned about feeding 99% of the dog and cat diets out there due to the ingredients.

[Stockwell]

Hi Gang! I've been breeding these guys for over a decade now and I've lost track of what generation CB I'm at but it would be more than F6.
The main reason I'm still working with them, is their near zero maintenance status, and the fact they survive and reproduce in 2 gallon tanks, with only cat food for their diet.
I have occasionally given mine insects but about a year ago, I completely got out of bug eating lizards but kept my ocellateds and schneiders simply because they eat canned food. So I can say with 100% confidence that those babies were produced from adults that haven't seen any bugs at all in over a year. Even in past years, and past generations, I might have tossed in a few crickets a few times a year, but not much more, as they used to jump out of the 2 gallon tanks which don't have lids on them.
In all the years I've bred ocellateds,I've never once tried fruit, so I can't comment on that. Books state that Schneiders skinks also eat fruit, but mine wont touch it and I've tried several types.
My schneiders skinks which I have also bred are also fed primarily cat food, although they do get mice especially after brumation in preparation for egg production.
Linds you might find it interesting that I once released a group of young ocellateds into my large cricket buckets when I was breeding crickets.
I figured I'd just let them free range in there.
I was quite surprised to find they developed rickets and a few died. This was with an exclusive cricket and lesser meal worm diet.
I'm not sure if the diet of only crickets caused the problem or the fact they were in near darkness.
Because of this I recommend lighting for this species, as they do bask, and I have had still born young from gravid females kept in darkness.
It is possible the light increases the temperature which is more the issue, but that wasn't the case in the cricket buckets with heated floors, so possibly light at close range helps slightly with the metabolization of calcium.
The lighting I use is simply 18" cool white fluorescents in those cheap under the counter lights from Walmart or can tire. I take them apart and put auto starters in them so I don't have to hold the switch to start them every day.

Nobody will retire on their proceeds from breeding Ocellated skinks, but they are fun, kinda cute and much easier than even Leopard geckos. My tanks contain only a thin layer of play sand, and a slab of ordinary bark. They do require water, but I rarely even provide water bowls, preferring to use a spray bottle on the glass sides once a week.
I just blop the cat food right on the sand. I used to use a shallow dish, but they drag it out of the dish anyway, so I don't even bother any more. Sand gets ingested and passes without incident.
Another thing I like about these skinks is that you can fully brumate them with colubrids, for 3 or 4 months at 55F.
So that makes them even closer to maintenance free, plus as a reward for not feeding them and keeping them cold for a few months, they give you 2 to 6 gorgeous live born babies, which are replicas of the adults. The babies eat cat food the same day they are born and are the easiest herps of all to raise.
Trev, I hope the kids enjoy them. They should be ready to breed by their second year, possibly sooner.
They are hard to sex, and can only be kept as sexual pairs as adults.. conditioned males will fight violently, and once pairs are established, even females will attack each other.
Males have slightly wider heads then females, and females have longer bodies and are slightly wider between the back legs.
The best way to sex them is to expose unknown genders to known males in the spring.
Males will attack and barrel roll other males,often biting the lower extremities,
but females will be followed , nipped at, usually on the neck and promptly mounted.

[Vanan]

I guess you missed my intended humour with that particular peice of wisdom.

Think you might have missed my intended humor too, Mr Know-All! lol.

damzookeeper, I cannot say that feeding fruits is gonna be harmful to your skinks. All I'm saying is their wild diet may not subsist of fruit or as much fruit. Then again, not everything in captivity is fed their wild diet and they're still healthy. I think of it more like, feed fruit if you'd like, but I doubt it's a necessity.

Roy, I've noticed with my ex-breeding pair and these new babies that it's fairly easy to sex them looking at the coloration around the head and neck. Male's have more disinct and constrasting markings compared to a faded look with the femmes. Did you ever notice your females being more placid than your males?

[dj_honeycuts]

Congrats on receiving those little guys! You have some pretty lucky students! I didn't have anything in any of my classrooms until I just recently went back to school and some of my labs have "exotic" critters in them. They're not so "exotic" to someone who has been keeping and breeding herps for 15 years!
Good luck with them!

Roy - Much respect is given for the amount of time you've been doing this, so I hope you don't take these comments as anything personal. There are a few things in your post that bother me a little though.

The main reason I'm still working with them, is their near zero maintenance status, and the fact they survive and reproduce in 2 gallon tanks, with only cat food for their diet.

I'm not a skink keeper by any stretch of the imagination, just geckos for the last 10 years or so, so I did a quick "google" on the species. 2 gallon tanks for a species that gets 10-12 inches? Hardly seems like nearly enough space even for a desert species that may not move around very much. I'm sure that I could "survive and reproduce" in a box, but I'd rather not!
I also agree with Linds on her questioning of a strictly cat food diet. Both vitamin A and D in their synthetic forms are fat soluable vitamins that accumulate in the liver. The effects of this are very well documented in humans, and quite well known (vit A) for causing problems with bearded dragons. Most cats get to be at least over 8 pounds, and when these manufacturers add vitamins to the formulation they base the dose on what will be safe for the minimum size of cat. Most adult occellated skinks get to probably 150-300g? Just guessing. That seems like a huge size difference, and considering the physiology of skinks is completely different then cats, who knows what the effects of this vitamin dose might have on the health of the skink. You may be cutting their lifespan in half by overdosing them on these vitamins and causing early liver failure. After reading a few care sheets, and some university papers on locale specifics, it would seem to me that insects would make up the majority of the wild diet of this species, but that is also going to be dependent on where they were originally collected as it seems they inhabit a wide variety of habitats that will include access to various wild fruits and possibly small rodents as well.

I'm not sure if the diet of only crickets caused the problem or the fact they were in near darkness.

This was probably a combination of the 2 factors. Unless you are gutloading strictly vit D3 to the crickets there is going to be little chance that any calcium present in the crickets will actually be absorbed during digestion. Without lighting any naturally occuring vit D will also not be converted to D3. End result of this would be what you observed.
Like I said before, this isn't meant as an attack, just merely a personal observation. It's good to see people staying with the hobby for so long, and not burning out and fading away.
Sorry for being such a windbag guys!
James

[Stockwell]

No offense taken. Believe me if I'd ever seen any 10-12 inchers they might me in 10 gallon tanks, but my largest adult would only be 8 inches if that, and half of that is tail. I've never weighed one but they are far lighter than Leos as they are quite slender and dont seem to put on much weight, at least not the way I feed them.
I have had some in 5 gallon tanks but they don't fit on the shelf as nicely and dont seem to really utilize the extra space.
They hide under the sand most of the time and seem to come up only to eat and breed or lay on their slab of bark. unless I dig them up I forget they're in the tanks as they rarely move or make their presence known when I'm in the herp room.
It's not the usual situation where you find animals going around and around in circles as you might with more active species like tegus or monitors. If this was the case, and they were rubbing their snouts, I certainly would put them in bigger housing.

I'm well aware of the possible ill effects of a one sided diet, but part of my keeping them has been a bit of an experiment to see just if any dire condition was detected and to date only a pure cricket diet in darkness has resulted in deformed spines and death.
So far no negative effect of a pure cat food diet has been observed and I have been keeping and breeding these for many years.
I think that successful captive reproduction over several generations is always a pretty decent yardstick for judging whether captive husbandry is suitable.
If the diet and housing combination I was using wasn't yielding offspring, I most likely would be doing things differently, but my feeling is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

I should however point out that I also don't feed them very often. Babies get food twice a week as a maximum, and adults only once a week, sometimes skipping a week, plus adults are hibernated for 3-4 months per annum, with no food.
They will most likely eat every day if it were offered, so if that was done there could be problems including obesity, but my lean feeding regimen might be why I have seen no liver , or other organ problems.
I'm not sure what the natural longetivety is, but I have had some specimens for probably close to a decade.
I keep no detailed records on this species, and tend to purge a bunch out every few years as they start to pile up, then I simply hold back fresh babies and start a new generation.
I have an article on this species which suggests they probably aren't simply on species but likely a complex given their large geographic range, and variation in size ,coloration, and social organizaton which varies alot across their range.
I have some greenish ones, and also some pretty gold ones which tend to get bigger. Both types can be produced from the same litters.
Here's a pic of the largest and nicest female I have produced.
She is about 4 years old in this shot and is one of the goldish females. She produced a record 6 babies this year