In this post, you will learn everything you need to know about blue tongue skink breeding, mating, pregnancy symptoms and timeframes. You will learn about best breeding age for blue tongue skinks, when blue tongue skinks reach sexual maturity, how to tell if your blue tongue skink is pregnant, how to breed blue tongue skinks and more!
To breed blue tongue skinks, you must make sure that female is at least 2 years old and male is 1 year old. To prepare blue tongue skinks for breeding, allow them to brumate and then introduce to each other to mate 1-4 times.
When do blue tongue skinks reach sexual maturity?
Male blue tongue skinks reach sexual maturity at around 12-14 months of age, while females – at around 24 months old. How fast they reach sexual maturity will also depend on living conditions and general husbandry.
When is a blue tongue skink breeding season?
When blue tongue skink breeding season starts will depend on where you live – in Northern Hemisphere (USA, Canada, Europe etc.) it is around March-April. In Southern Hemisphere (Australia, most of South America and southern countries in Africa) – it’s around September-November.
Blue tongue skink breeding age?
Blue tongue skinks must be at least 24 months old (females) to start breeding. Male blue tongue skinks should be at least 14-15 months old to be able to start breeding.
Do blue tongue skinks lay eggs?
No, blue tongue skinks don’t lay eggs. They develop babies in simple placentas, and give birth to live babies. The babies push out of the placenta and start living independently straight away.
How to tell if a blue tongue skink is pregnant?
The signs that your blue tongue skink is pregnant (gravid) is a round belly, refusing to eat, hiding more, not wanting to be handled, heavy breathing.
Most of these signs will appear towards the end of pregnancy, and sometimes it might be hard to tell that your blue tongue skink is gravid at all. Often 1-4 mating rounds will be enough to make a blue tongue skink gravid.
How long is a blue tongue skink pregnant for?
Generally, blue tongue skinks will be pregnant for 3-4, less commonly 5 months before giving birth to live babies. Most blue tongue skinks become pregnant after 1-3 mating sessions.
How to breed blue tongue skinks?
Breeding blue tongue skinks is not very easy, but not too hard either. This is because you must wait for your female to mature and be healthy, and the male to reach sexual maturity, to start breeding them.
Also, blue tongue skinks might not always choose to breed, and if the female is not receptive few times, you will need to wait for the next season. Male might also not be always interested from the first time. You need to be patient for sure. If one of them is not interested, wait for 3-4 days and try again.
If the female doesn’t want to mate after 4-6 introductions, there’s a high chance she won’t be interested in the same male during that season. And same goes with the male – if he is not interested, you might need to introduce another male that will potentially mate.
While with the female you might lift her tail up to help them breed, you can’t force the male to breed if it’s not interested at all. You will need to either introduce another male, or wait to try with the same male until next year.
Also, you should not keep male and female that you wish to breed together all the time, otherwise they might lose interest in each other.
Preparing blue tongue skinks for breeding
First of all, make sure that your blue tongue skinks are healthy and have reached sexual maturity (age). Also, your male and female need to be of similar size and weight (and of course species).
Start preparing in summer for the next spring – by feeding your blue tongue skinks nutritious foods and getting ready for brumation in winter.
If you truly want to succeed at blue tongue skink breeding, you need to let them brumate during winter, for around 2-3 months. In Northern Hemisphere countries such as USA, Canada and European countries – it will be within mid November-February. In Southern Hemisphere (Australia, most of South American countries and southern countries in Africa) – June to August.
However, if your blue tongue skinks have not brumated over the winter, you can still try breeding them. If the couple lives together normally, separate them for at least 1-2 months before re-introducing during breeding period.
Allowing blue tongue skinks to brumate to prepare for a breeding season
Once the brumation period approaches, you need to stop giving your blue tongue any food so that no food remains in the digestive system. Otherwise, it will rot at low temperatures.
Keep temperatures the same for around two weeks before brumation, so that your blue tongue can digest any remaining food. But make sure to have fresh water in the bowl at all times.
After two weeks, start gradually lowering temperatures and day/night cycle to imitate winter. From 12 hours of light and 12 of darkness, slowly reduce to 10 hours of light and 14 of darkness.
Drop ambient temperatures from 85-95 F (29.5-35 Celsius) to around 60 F (15.5 Celsius), but nothing lower than 50-55 F (10-12.7 C). Don’t drop temperatures suddenly, reduce by 5 degrees F (around 3 C) a week, so that you reach final temperatures in 2-3 weeks. You can leave the UVB light on or off, but no need to keep heat bulbs on.
Keep these conditions for around 1.5-2 months, then slowly start increasing the number of daylight hours, as well as temperatures. Let your blue tongue skinks come out of brumation for around 2-4 weeks, to start eating and warming up properly, before you decide to introduce them for breeding.
Introducing blue tongue skinks to each other for mating
2-4 weeks after brumation has ended, you can start thinking to introduce your male blue tongue to your female. Make sure that you are always present during this, as males can sometimes get too aggressive and cause injuries to the female. Females can also get aggressive towards males and cause injuries.
After you introduce female to the male, he will start following her to try and mate. She is very likely to be unwilling to mate at first, but he will continue trying and she is then likely to allow it.
When you introduce them together, male is likely to approach her and start sniffing her if he’s interested or ready to mate. She is likely to stay still or run away from him at first. If he then bites her to keep her in one place, there are likely to mate.
If she however doesn’t agree to mate, take him out and introduce again after few days. However, if she doesn’t submit after more than 5 tries with the same male, you will need to leave it until next season. You can also try bringing a different male and introducing him to her.
How do blue tongue skinks mate?
If female submits, male will grab the skin on her neck with his mouth and mount her from the top. He will then brush his tail under hers, as well as his back leg on top of her tail, asking her to lift the tail. He will then push himself in to get closer to her vent.
Mating can last anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes. They might not get into mating straight away, so make sure to be patient and stay there all the time. If after 20-25 minutes nothing happens, separate them to try again later.
However, if they mate, you will see them separating. You might also see male’s hemipene out, but then slowly retracting again.
If she submits and lifts the tail, he will insert his hemipene in her vent. During mating, male is very likely to bite on her neck, tail and even limbs. It’s likely to leave redness or some skin laceration.
This is natural, and you should not worry unless the bite is very deep or male is being overly aggressive. After mating, disinfect your female’s wound with a simple antibiotic and let it heal.
You can then let your blue tongue skinks mate 2-3 times more over a few week period before you are fully done. But if the female is too wounded, let her heal for few weeks first.
Blue tongue skink pregnancy and preparing for birth
As mentioned in the beginning, blue tongue skinks are pregnant for about 3-4 months (less commonly 5 months) before giving birth.
Make sure to feed your gravid blue tongue skink properly and supplement all her food. Sprinkle calcium on her food 2-3 times a week and multivitamin – 1-2 times a week. Don’t forget to also gut load all the feeder insects. You can find the supplementation guide in this post.
House your gravid blue tongue skink alone (strictly) and make sure she has hides and proper basking and cool temperatures. Do not include too many accessories, but do have hides with some paper or aspen for burrowing.
With time, she will gain weight and look rounder than before. Once she starts being more anxious, eating less and hiding more – you can sense that she is getting closer to giving birth.
Babies are born in a placenta that breaks out automatically. Don’t pull on their umbilical cord either, it will dry out and fall out by itself. By pulling it, you are risking to cause damage and affect their development.
How many babies do blue tongue skinks have?
Depending on species, blue tongue skinks give birth to around 5-20 babies. Australian blue tongue skinks (Northerns, Easterns, Tanimbars) often have the largest litter of 10-20 babies, also Irian Jaya – 5-15 babies, while Shinglebacks – the smallest often have the smaller litter of around 5.
Baby blue tongue skink sizes
Hatchling blue tongue skinks will measure at around 5-6 inches long (12.7-15.2 cm) and weigh around 15-20 grams.
How to care for baby blue tongue skinks?
Once baby blue tongue skinks are born, you need to house them separately from their mother and let her start eating properly again and gain any weight that she has lost over the months. She also needs to replenish her nutrients, so make sure to continue feeding nutritious foods.
Place baby blue tongue skinks in a small 10-15 gallon plastic container or a glass/wooden terrarium. For substrate, only use paper towels, to avoid any ingestion and to monitor poop.
You can keep babies together, but make sure to separate them in maximum 2 months. That’s because they will start fighting over food and space. This might cause injuries and hinder growth of other weaker babies.
Start feeding staple foods from the beginning. Babies should start eating after few days of being born. Make sure to supplement and gut-load greens and feeder bugs.
For feeder bugs, make sure to feed each skink separately, as more dominant babies will eat more and not leave anything for others. Feeding frenzy might also cause them to attack each other by mistake, resulting in injuries. You can find a full guide on foods and percentages here.
During daytime, keep ambient temperatures at around 85-95 degrees Fahrenheit (29.5-35 Celsius), and basking spot temperatures of 95-105 degrees Fahrenheit (35-40.5 Celsius).
At night, don’t drop the temperatures too low – around 80 F (26.6 C) is great. You might need to use a low wattage ceramic heat emitting bulb like this to bump up temperatures. Ceramic heat emitters are ideal bulbs that produce heat and no light, and won’t interfere with daylight cycles.
You can read all about lighting and heating for blue tongues in this post. You can also read about choosing a tank for your blue tongue skink and ideal sizes here.