• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Fire Skink Breeding

C

clydesgirl

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This forum doesn't appear to be very active, but I thought I would post here for some help, just in case.

On Saturday we discovered a hatchling in our adult fire skinks' enclosure. We didn't even know we had a male and female (though we did suspect since one is significantly larger than the other now that they are fully grown), much less that they had begun breeding.

Well, we rushed to move the baby into a gladware container with some eco earth and moss in it and searched around for any more hatchlings. We found one other hatchling as well as seven more eggs. The eggs were in two separate bunches. The first had the two shells from the hatchlings and three more unhatched eggs. They all looked to be "older" as they were yellowish-brown. The other clutch was bright white and there were four eggs together.

On Sunday we got a new 18x18x18 enclosure set up for the babies with a Powersun 100 bulb on a stand (to adjust the temps), Zilla Jungle Mix on the bottom, a layer of Eco Earth on top of that, and a layer of moss on top of that. Substrate is about 1.5-2" deep total. We also have a small half-log and a small fake plant as hides. And we have a misting system to keep the humidity up.

We burried the other three eggs from the first clutch in the substrate, but they have not hatched and at this point are looking pretty sad. I do NOT expect them to hatch, but I am leaving them in there until they start to mold or stink.

The other clutch we put unto a container with some soil and placed that container inside the babies' viv. They are still looking good. I candled them and I *think* they are fertile. Checking temps on them constantly to make sure they are hovering around 83 degrees during the day time. Temps fall to about room temperature (72-75) overnight. Humidity seems good, as the container has holes in the lid, but we are still seeing condensation on the sides.

The two hatchlings are eating small crickets and seem to be thriving. I would love some advice on how to care for them, how old they should be before we re-home them, and how to care for the eggs.

Also, I am not sure we are prepared to be fire skink breeders, so any advice on how to slow/stop the adults from breeding beyond separating them? I'd hate to do that, as they have been together forever. But I also don't want to do anything that is going to make them less comfortable.

Here are some pictures of the babies:

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It's been a couple months since you posted this, so hopefully you've already gotten answers, but fwiw.
I care for the babies the same way as I do adults: deep moist soil-type substrate, hot spot in the low 90s, ambient temperature in the 70s. I typically wait until they're at least a few weeks old to sell/re-home. Gives plenty of time to make sure they're healthy, eating, and growing normally.

Eggs incubate in high 70s/low 80s, but be aware that a lot of temperature fluctuation can cause the babies to be weak- many will die in the egg or fail to thrive if there was a lot of temp fluctuation during incubation. Mom tends to lay eggs about every 2 months, which is also about how long they incubate (very frequently, I'll find fresh eggs within a week of the most recent clutch hatching).

Only way to stop them breeding is to separate them, sorry. You can freeze unwanted eggs when you find them to stop them developing if you don't want babies, but breeding and producing those eggs is still a lot of unnecessary stress on the female if you don't want to breed. They will be perfectly happy alone, I promise! They are not social animals. Housing them together is purely for our benefit (convenience, space, breeding).

Hope it helps!
 
Floof said:
It's been a couple months since you posted this, so hopefully you've already gotten answers, but fwiw.
I care for the babies the same way as I do adults: deep moist soil-type substrate, hot spot in the low 90s, ambient temperature in the 70s. I typically wait until they're at least a few weeks old to sell/re-home. Gives plenty of time to make sure they're healthy, eating, and growing normally.

Eggs incubate in high 70s/low 80s, but be aware that a lot of temperature fluctuation can cause the babies to be weak- many will die in the egg or fail to thrive if there was a lot of temp fluctuation during incubation. Mom tends to lay eggs about every 2 months, which is also about how long they incubate (very frequently, I'll find fresh eggs within a week of the most recent clutch hatching).

Only way to stop them breeding is to separate them, sorry. You can freeze unwanted eggs when you find them to stop them developing if you don't want babies, but breeding and producing those eggs is still a lot of unnecessary stress on the female if you don't want to breed. They will be perfectly happy alone, I promise! They are not social animals. Housing them together is purely for our benefit (convenience, space, breeding).

Hope it helps!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the follow-up. There have been a lot of developments since our babies hatched. We moved them to a separate enclosure set up just like the adults'. They did great and we re-homed them at just shy of 2 months. The second clutch of eggs we found didn't hatch. I think I failed at incubating them properly.

About a month after our babies hatched, the male adult had a prolapse of one of his hemipenes! It had to be amputated. Plus, when I tried to catch him to take him to the vet, he dropped his tail! While he was recovering and on antibiotics, he couldn't be in his soil substrate, so we moved him to his own enclosure (just a 20 gallon long tank with shelf liner on the bottom) for a couple of weeks. By the time he was allowed to be back in soil, we had re-homed the babies, so we just moved him into the enclosure we had set up for them. So now the male and female are separated. The female actually seems much happier. We see her out more frequently and she is eating more. The male seems very grumpy and shy now, but I don't blame him. It had to be very traumatic for him to undergo surgery and lose his tail in the same day!
 
Oh wow, a lot of developments indeed! Glad to hear your male is recovering well, even if his attitude isn't the best after all that, lol.
 
jonesaaron84 said:
Floof do you have any fire skinks for sale Im located in The HD hesperia ca and I could pick up no need to ship.
Click to expand...

Hey, just responded to your PM! Should have some in a couple months. My pair got a late start this year, just laid the first full size clutch of the summer last week :)
 
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