Another rescue.

[kingofnobbys]

I always seem to have one lizard who is supercurious , a mischievous livewire, and wants to get into everything.

Fluffy makes up for being small by having a huge personality. I don't think it will be long before Peppa is armwaving at her and Fluffy decides she's boss lizard in this house.

 

[kingofnobbys]

My , oh my , never seen Fluffy so active as this afternoon, we had our Xmas goodies and seafood and drinks delivered from Woolworths this afternoon and the sound of the plastic shopping bags crackling & rustling very loudly really excited her .... she was standing up on her back lags and tub sides surfing like crazy to get a better look while my wife was getting the goodies out of the bags into the pantry, fridge and freezer.

She's also started using her shredded paper towels (hide lining) like a door, she pushes it up to the little opening in the side of modded cricket tub house to block the entry to make it private and maybe darker inside every afternoon at about 6pm , done the same thing every day for a week now.

Stays behind the closed "door" til about 8pm when she pokes her nose out for a while before making herself scarce.

9:30pm and she's poking her nose out and watching me with Peppa snuggling on my chest wrapped in my old TV .... I am convinced lizards learn by observation as I've seen the skinks do new behaviours and soon afterwards the dragons are doing the same , and visaversa.

Fluffy is satisfied with 3-5 pupae per day + her 0.2-0.3ml of Critta Care + about 0.1-0.2ml of manuka honey.
I've taken snipping the heads off the BSFL in the hope the smell of the lavae inards will make them more appetizing to her.

Fluffy is becoming pretty expressive with her regenerating tail , wriggles it like a puppy wriggles a docked tail .... looks funny when she is wriggling it, it's a nom nom nom thing with her when she's really enjoying something she's eating or licking (off her snout, off the nozzle on the end of the syringe full of concentrated manuka honey, and off my finger tips too.

She is a character....

Moving to one dilute honey treatment of her eyes and lacerations per day from now on.

 

[Gormagon]

All I can say is, she's one lucky little girl!

 

[kingofnobbys]

Going to see if Fluffy will try Repashi GrubPie. if she turns her nose up at it, not a big deal, Peppa and the two bluetongues will likely enjoy it as a treat.

 

[kingofnobbys]

So far Fluffy has stayed in her 10L tub , not climbed out to explore the 100L tub.

Maybe she hasn't noticed the larger area available to her, or perhaps she simply feels secure in her 10L tub and this is why she's staying in there.
I don't think there will be any residual Toothless scent in the tank , or on his fake rock grotto , or his old 7W heatslab's tiles, it has all been F10ed and aired.

Tonight I've simply lifted her in her hide (which has a clicked on base (was it's lid) into the 100L tub and deposited her and her hide ontop the 7W heatslab . I'll probably regret doing this tomorrow when I need to get her back into her 10L tub prior to feeding and treating her.

update : Fluffy has been in the big 100L tub for 30mins , she was curled up and asleep in her little hidey-house for 15min (I had the lights off and she only the laptop and TV on and she was off in the lad of Zed making zzzzz when I gently deposited her in her hide in there, now it's 12:35am (in the morning) and she's already been out and done a short explore and then went looking for a meal (I took the head off one the pupae) , didn't take her long to pick up the smell of mealworm pupae juzzards and goo as she made a D-line straight for the new feeder tub. ]

Explored for about 20 - 30mins and no sign of her now, so she's curled up somewhere snug and warm or gone back into her hide, my wife couldn't see her anywhere obvious with a torch just now.

Now she's having an explore, checking out all the narrow crawl spaces that she can find ( can't burrow so she simply squeezes her way through if it's a tight fit for her) .... anyone's guess where in the 100L tub I'll find her tomorrow.

 

[kingofnobbys]

My wife reports she saw Fluffy on top of her little hide basking ad looking all over the place at brekky .... I sleep in most days so missed this.

I found Fluffy curled up in her hide , made for very easy stress free ( for Fluffy ) transfer back to her 10L tub.

My oh my was she frisky and a handful this afternoon when I was feeding her the Critta Care and Honey .... LOL .... think the UVA is having an effect ...

Fluffy has her own agenda -- she wanted to crawl all over the place .... Talk about full of beans .... I think another week or two on the Critta Care and we'll swap her over to GrubPie and live worms & pupae .

She's eating 2 -3 pupae per day.

Softened up some RepCal Juvenile beardie pellets mixed with VetaFarm lizard pellets and offered these in a small petridish today, no interest shown yet , though I know she's eaten this "porrige" in the past --- leftovers from the pet beardies and bluetongues.

 

[AHBD]

That does sound like she's about ready for some real " big lizard " food. And hey, what lizard WOULDN'T make a D-line for some lizard juzzards. :lol:

She should have her own blog detailing the adventures of her " new life."

 

[kingofnobbys]

That does sound like she's about ready for some real " big lizard " food. And hey, what lizard WOULDN'T make a D-line for some lizard juzzards. :lol:

She should have her own blog detailing the adventures of her " new life."

She probably tells Cheakie who has been visiting inside frequently this week all about how her human slave training is coming along.

She's pretty smart , she actually climbed back into her 10L tub tonight and went straight into her hide when I'd finished applying some dilute honey to her eyes and some of her back lacerations. Wriggle's and Lucky used to put themselves back to bed like that too , all I had to do was place their 4.5L bed tub on the chair next to me or on the coffee table and make sure they could climb off me into it....

I was telling my wife today that I doubt a vet would ever devote as much time to feeding and treating Fluffy in a stressfree manner like I do.

I never grab Fluffy or force her do anything , I simply coax her to crawl onto my hand or out of her little hide straight onto my tummy , she chooses to crawl onto me / out onto me. The coaxing is simply my tapping her tail , she takes the hint and crawls onto my hand or out of her opened hide onto me.
She is getting about an hour on me for the syringe feeding session and dilute honey treatment of the her eyes and lacerations ( would happen a lot faster if she wasn't such an active and inquisitive little skink who had her own agenda ) .... just takes lots of patence - good thing I have cultivated this over my entire life as a fisherman.

 

[SHBailey]

That's probably why she likes you so much -- because you don't make her do anything she doesn't want to.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Sad news.

Fluffy's 4 babies were all born dead , two were fully formed (and terribly cute , a little boy and a little girl I believe) and two were underdeveloped still in their sacks (slugs). I more or less expected this , the trauma of her encounter with someone's whipper-snipper and her illness caused this. I think she may have one baby still developing inside her as she's still not as slim as I'd expect after delivering all her babies.

This is how I found the two dead babies

The two dead babies (still born) and two aborted fetuses (in sacks)

The dead baby boy

The little girl still has a yoke sack attached so she had a chance.
I am pretty sure both are dead ,as I've seen no removement or response to being touched from them but they are still not showing signs of rigor mortis so they may be alive, wont call it until they stiffen up and definitely dead.

The boy's yoke sack had burst when I found them, the girl's is still in tact and seems to have shrunk this afternoon (??).

I discovered the babies near Fluffy's water dish (she's been sleeping and spending the mornings in Toothless' 100L rearing tub (for the UV and to allow her to have more room to crawl and climb).

She seems none the worse for the experience but was not as frisky today as she was yesterday and not really interested in eating today, so I let her have a snuggle before returning her to her 10L tub for the afternoon.

Fluffy after and while I was trying to coax her to eat some Critta Care.

Fluffy handsurfing - get a load of her cute little new tail , and yes it does wriggle.

Wound up just wanting to snuggle into me and snooze so I gave in and let her , I expect she's exhausted after giving birth this morning.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Just checked Fluffy because I was worried about her after her big effort today. Good a time as any was when Peppa went back into her tank for some UV after her very long daddy snuggle (9pm).

She woke up while I was lifting her still in her hide out of her 10L tub (heard her moving right away) and she was H-U-N-G-R-Y !!! , 4 pupea and 1 decapitated meal worm, her biggest meal with me yet so far.
All taken with a vengeance from my fingers all I had to was take the bug's heads off and let her get a sniff and it was all over in a few minutes, too full to eat the 5th pupae ... very frisky tonight too (very interested in watching the TV what my wife was doing , but didn't take much coaxing to get her to crawl back into her hide and to settle back down - SLEEPY skink.

Was back out about midnight to treat her eyes and back lacerations with dilute manuka honey and back into Toothless' 100L rearing tub. Seemed ok.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Oh my was Fluffy active this this morning in her big 100L rearing tub under the 26W UVB200 , wife reports she was exploring all over the place and wasn't even at all phased when she was vacuuming the carpet - she was actually standing up in the corner and watching my wife doing the noisy activity with big red noisy vacuum. I thought she would have been hiding and terrified of the vacuum, Lucky and Wriggles were both terrified of the vacuum cleaner and even of the lawn mowing , edger and blower when the lawnmowing guy was here (despite being outside and out of sight).

Wife also reported Fluffy was crawling about all over the place in her big 100L tub and scratching here and there and was really enjoying her water dish/pond , in it heaps and splashing about having a ball and then sitting in while basking under the UVB globe.

As expected , she was full of beans this afternoon , but no interest in eating the Critta Care from the syringe today, different story with the manuka honey .... yummy !!!! big meal of whole pupae and mealworms yesterday - so not worried if she isn't hungry today.

Now she's in shed.

 

[kingofnobbys]

9pm...Just put Peppa back for the night , after time out on the chair next to me before and during diner , and then her daddy snuggle.
My wife discovered Fluffy laying in her water dish, she's fine, she does that lots and even submerges her self completely very often ==== WATER SKINK , they often swim underwater for over 2mins and bob up like a micro-crocodile maybe 20 -30 m away with a tadpole or yabby in their mouth.
She was just having a nice soak, but when she climbed out when my wife lifted her 10L tubs lid to check she was still alive she spotted another baby in the water, don't how long it's been in the water, was pretty cold , so I nursed it for a while in my nice warm hand with it's head sloping down just in case it was still alive. But no sign of life - and I noticed she (another little boy) had a nasty bite on it's side clear through to the gut cavity

- I think I think Fluffy bit it's side to drag it all the way out so I think it was also born dead like it's dead siblings. And no yoke sack on this one, just a ruptured yoke sack membrane, so it had no chance.

So that could have been 5 baby water skinks had she not been injured and gotten so sick. .... She is certainly very fertile.

So that's 3 fully formed babies & 2 slugs.

Fluffy has just about finished shedding now - I wish beardies shed like skinks do, all over in a day or two. And she looks very good now, the scabs have mostly come off and her back and sides look very good.


Two more pupae tonight .... made them disappear pretty quick , and was very active and wanted to investigate everything and as usual crawled all over me and my hands and finally crashed snuggled into my tummy and lower arm before she decided she was ready for bed, and she actually put herself to bed tonight, her 10L tub was on the coffee table and she crawled down my tummy onto the coffee table and wanted in , so I placed my hand conveniently and she crawled on and the crawled off into her 10L tub.

Fluffy now she's offloaded 3 babies and 2 slugs and now she's shed nearly completely ---- looking very good , crashed after having some fun crawling all over me and another couple of pupae.

My monkey !

I think you get a feel for how active and lively Fluffy has become.

handsurfing

Her regenerating tail

 

[SHBailey]

Sorry to hear that Fluffy lost her babies, but it sounds like she's instinctively doing what she needs to do to recover -- eat a lot and rest a lot. And it's a miracle that she herself has survived whatever happened to her, thanks to all your good care. It's amazing how fast her tail is growing back too.

We've got one of those newfangled robot vacuum cleaners -- my husband just had to have one, even though our house is not the best setup -- too small, and too many things sitting around on the floor for her to navigate her way around (because we have noplace else to put them), so we can't turn her loose and let her vacuum unsupervised. We named her "Robbie" before we realized she was female (that's our policy -- if it has an artificial intelligence, it gets a name :mrgreen: ). She speaks two languages, English and R2D2 ("beep bleep"), but when she speaks English she speaks it with a feminine voice. So my husband chases her around with a piece of cardboard to make sure she doesn't go anywhere where she can get in trouble, and Puff (our beardie) watches the whole thing from the safety of his basking platform in his tank, and looks at Robbie like, "What the heck is that?!?" I figure it probably looks like a giant cockroach to him, the way it crawls around on the floor, but I'm not sure if he wants to eat it or if he's afraid it's going to eat him, or maybe neither -- just curious, perhaps. It does make some noise, but it's much quieter than a conventional vacuum cleaner, so he doesn't seem to be afraid of it, at least.

They all seem to have their own individual different responses to our big noisy machines.

I hope Fluffy will continue to feel better. Maybe she will have another chance to have babies in the future, that is if you let her have herself a boyfriend, and if you don't mind having a bunch of little water skinks running around. :wink:

 

[kingofnobbys]

Full of beans this afternoon , only managed to get her take some manuka honey and a tiny bit of Critta Care .... she was just way too active and wouldn't sit still long enough to eat much of the Critta Care .

I think she may have had a big out on the mealworm lavae & pupae I left in her new worm proof feeder dish as only a few pupae and a worm were left from the 8 worms I lift for her overnight and for this morning. So too full to eat so I'm not terribly worried about her refusing the Critta Care today. She might be trying to tell me " no more orange goo please - I want whole insects now ".
She turned her nose up at a small silkworm this afternoon , will try her with a silkworm tomorrow. I'd rather feed Fluffy silkworms than mealworm lavae and pupae.

Have some Repashi GrubPie on the way , Fluffy is not keen on BSF lavae and pupae, turned her nose up them , but she might like GrubPie made as wet paste.

The mealworm she ate a couple of days ago has passed with her poo this morning.... very good - no blockages in her plumbing - working well.Wife reports Fluffy was much more settled in the 100L tub this morning and greeted her this morning at brekky. She's learning our household routine and was keen to come out to have some "daddy" time this afternoon. I think Fluffy quite likes her two tubs , the 10L tub she spends the afternoon in , and Toothless' old 100L rearing tub she spends the morning in.

Here she is in her 100L tub

She particularly loves her nice big warmed water pool and her home made hide.

Fluffy's eyes look great today too.