Help with Blue Tongue Lizards

[christinep]

Hi All,


I was after some help and having no idea about reptiles I have stumbled upon this site and am hoping that some of you peoples might be able to help me!


Our Kinder that I am a committee member of, has 3 Blue Tongue Lizards - we have Bert and Ernie in one tank and Shrek in the other tank! Last nightI volunteered to “redecorate” the kinders lizards homes and make them look more appealing but I’m not really sure what a blue tongue lizards likes / dislikes!
Shrek is very social and loves to come out of hiding and so does Bert, however Ernie likes to stay hidden behind his rock - we think he has social issues!!

They have lights and heater things in them but that’s it and now I’ve got a pretty unlimited budget to make their tanks beautiful!

So I was hoping that you could point me in the right direction as to what I should be looking at purchasing to make their homes more lizard friendly, but also make them still look appealing for the kids!



Thanks in advance!

[bump73]

Hey there Christine welcome to the site have you got a pic of the enclosures as they are now? That way we know what we have to work with siz etc...

Ben

[alison]

Hi Christine!! Sounds like fun! I have 2 bluetongue girls at home and they ahve just moved into a bigger home, so i've been doing some decorating of my own. It's a work in progress, but at the moment i have astro turf on as flooring (newspaper, aspen bedding, repti-bark and certain kitty litter are also commonly used, but i like the look of hte astro turf, and it's easy to clean).

They've got a big flat rock for basking under the heat lamp, plus other varying sized rocks around the place that they enjoy climbing on. I've also got 2 hide rocks ( Cookie is like Ernie and likes to stay hidden), and a couple of fake plants to green it up, which i got off ebay.

I've also got a fake hollow log that i got from the pet shop.

you can have so much fun with this, i'd love to see some photos when you get them set up!

[christinep]

I've attached photos of the two enclosures we have and what we already have in there - which is not much!!!!!

Any suggestions on what I should be buying or putting in them would be greatly appreciated!

[imalizard]

Maybe gets some fake plants and have sand that looks good. A big rock or something.

[Aslan]

Christine - Do they have access to UV lights? UV is necessary in absorbing calcium in their diets and can lead to health problems without it...it also lightens the enclosure up a lot...

Some small plastic plants would work very well in brightening the enclosure - and some hide areas would be useful, fake logs from a pet store would look good...

[Chris1]

some $2 shops sell really nice vines about 2m long for $6,...

[Jason.G]

We produce a book called Keeping Blue-tongue Lizards, have a look at www.reptilepublications.com.au

[christinep]

They have UV lights and heated rock things.

Do they like any sort of real trees or are plastic things ok? Besides logs and plastic plants do they like anything else? Might be a silly question but do they like any "toys" of any description!

They've been living in these enclosures for the past 2 years or so and seem happy enough (not that we can really tell if they are infact happy) but obviously the tanks aren't very "pretty" and the children seem to be losing interest in them, hence the remodeling!

Thanks for your help so far!!

[Glider]

Bluey's are pretty easygoing creatures, so having fancy toys and things wont make much difference to them as long as they have Heat, UV, food, water and shelter they'll do just fine.

As for making things more interesting for the kids, there are plenty of things you could do to liven the place up, mostly involving colour and shape.

Sand looks great and there are a fantastic range of brightly coloured sands you can buy at the petshop (albeit very expensive for dirt!), however for in a classroom I'd recommend against it simply because sand and dirt can be a big hassle to keep clean and hygenic.
As Alison suggested, you could try changing the flooring to Astroturf, which is nice and bright and if you get a couple of pieces of it you can rotate them as one gets soiled just pop in another one and hose off the dirty one and let it dry in the sun.
Bluey's like to hide in bark chips and leaf litter, so you could get a sack of the Aspen Bedding (bark stuff) from the petshop and pile it up in the corner for them to dig through and replace when dirty.
You can also go to the $2 shop and raid their fake plants section for brightly coloured fake plants and flowers, just make sure you wash and dry them before use.
Someone else mentioned fake logs- there are fake half-hollow-logs you can get at petshops that are perfect size for big blueys, but a tip is they also have the same thing at Big W in the aquarium section for much cheaper. Its really important to provide the bluey's with something to hide under if they want to.

You could also run an activity with the kids to help make decorations for the tank- you could find large rocks (basically anything way too big to fit in a bluey's mouth) and get the kids to paint them with colourful non-toxic paint. Once dry they'll need to be sealed with varnish and washed again so the lizards don't inject any chemicals, but then they'll be ready to use and provide interesting new surfaces for the bluey's to explore and the kids have been involved.

Anyway, there's endless possibilities. As long as a bluey's basic needs are met, they wont care if the tank looks like mardi-gras.