Yes, I always make sure they have access to fresh water 😃

They do experience a drop in temperature and so that’s why we attempted it. It wasn’t cold, it was just a drop in temp and food intake etc to try and replicate a specific area. I think you’re onto the right track copying their natural cycles. Just keep checking for eggs as they do eat them!

@@animalcwtch8238 ok thank you. I am trying to go to my local reptile shop to get the skinks pop and hopefully get eggs soon

They are quite similar to leopard geckos. But are perfect mini replicas of the adults too.

That is a common issue with this species. Keep an eye on their weight, make sure it’s warm enough for them and they aren’t stressed. So making sure they have deep substate. Then mix up the things they are offered. Are they freshly imported? Or LTC?

These ones failed but if you watched out other videos you’d see our previous attempt was a success. I think they just cooked the eggs. I’m fairly confident the main key is the brumation. I set up a Facebook breeders group and those who brumated last year had great success.

Yes, however mine have never taken anything other than insects and eggs. I do know some who have though. I do wonder if it’s more to do with where they were caught and what was available there.

How about the captive bred babies you hatched, do they eat a more varied diet??​@@animalcwtch8238

Excellent. Hope you have some success too.

@@animalcwtch8238 sadly my male passed away. He was at least 3 years old that I know of.

Absolutely, I don’t encourage the purchase of wild caught animals but when it comes to starting breeding programmes and even just learning the care needs then some people do need to have them first. Hopefully as we learn and share what we all know then we can get these all established as a captive bred pet.

Thats brilliant. Wishing you the best of luck. I brumate mine so my eggs don’t come until the spring usually.

@@animalcwtch8238 I do have a question! Someone reached out to me asking if I would buy their pbs from them because they can’t find more. They said it probed as male. I didn’t think they could be probed?

Sorry missed this. They failed. They were slightly darker in colour than usual and I think they had cooked them by being on the hot side. They don’t seem to be the most intelligent species when it comes to breeding 😂 so that was disappointing but also still also exciting in that we had a repeat breeding. So will just have to give it more thought how we do things next year to encourage them to lay in a better location.

Wish you loads of luck. I created a breeders group on Facebook book, there are a few of us breeders on there. My co admin Calum is tracking his progress with the eggs and now babies this year. Our second clutch of eggs failed, I think they cooked them at the hot end. But our other videos show our babies and eggs etc. any questions feel free to reach out. 😊

Mine makes a sneezing sound

Thank you

Sorry to miss you message. Yes. Animal Cwtch on Facebook and Instagram. facebook.com/AnimalCwtch/

Thank you for sharing 😃

Hi, I have always bought them in groups so I have just kept them together form the beginning. I’ve not had to quarantine to add groups, however, I usually keep them in a separate rubs/tubs for a week or so to just see how they do, I always use sand as they need that. Then I put them in the vivarium tighter and just make sure I don’t mix any of the items, bowls etc with any other reptiles and practice good hygiene to prevent any cross infection. However, like I say it’s not been an major issue for me so might be worth asking others who had added to their groups. I always take extra care for 6 months, it seems like a long time but it’s better safe than sorry. I don’t routinely treat for parasites. I just monitor it. As for ceramic, I prefer it as it doesn’t give out light, they have UVB for light but the ceramic heat drops down at night but because it’s ceramic it doesn’t disturb them at night.

The other commenter was me. Forgot to switch accounts. Opps.

30C on damp vermiculite for around a month.

I’ve found them better in groups, but they seem fine by themselves too.

Thank you. We just want to pass on what we have leant in hopes it can help others. Information isn’t widely available for this species yet, hopefully the more we all share the more we can learn. It was about 3 weeks after brumation, I should have documented things more accurately but I didn’t have much hope they would produce eggs. I put a lay box in which they ignored and buried their eggs. Which I missed. They laid 6 eggs, only three looked viable and one failed in incubation. I don’t have the most accurate information on timings unfortunately as we missed them being laid, I expected, foolishly, they would use the lay box. We incubated for 28 days I believe at 30C-31C. Wish you lots of luck, hope you manage to produce this year. 😊

@@animalcwtch8238 Hello again, thanks for the speedy reply! It appears my female may be Gravid, she is developing round protrusions near the rear legs. She also seems very interested in water and food as well as generally gaining weight in only a week. Do you have any pictures of a pregnant individual? Also, did yours lay in the hot or the cool side, or the humid spot?

@@mahlonm5011 no, sorry, I generally leave them be and try not to disturb them too much, so no photos. They laid the eggs in the cool end.

@@animalcwtch8238 awesome thank you! Any chance you’d be willing to share what incubator you use and how the process went? It’s actually my first time hatching eggs as we weren’t expecting her to be pregnant.

@@mahlonm5011 we usually use a homemade incubator from an old drinks fridge but it was full of other eggs so we used one of our back ups such as an exo terra one. We use a bottle of water to heat syn and two additional temperature gangues as they can be inaccurate, as it goes two days before they hatched the incubator failed so they moved into our home made one which thankfully had space at that time. home made ones tend to be much better but always monitor with more than just the inbuilt or one temp probe. We kept eggs in slightly damp vermiculite, the eggs were slightly dried out due to being missed, so you would need to assess if they need hydration or not, given their locale i certainly wouldn’t go to damp but equally it’s usually beneficial to most eggs to have some humidity. You kind of have to go on gut with it.

Hi, of course you can ask questions 😊 the short answer is no, I don’t currently recommend got children but solely for the reason they are likely to be wild caught. If you are likely enough to come across a captive bred baby then they are absolutely amazing animals. Regarding if they are suitable for children, that depends entirely on the child and I always say that patents need to take responsibility for the animal too. They are great for children if you are prepared to take responsibility and supervise.

Just to add, they are a really robust and great reptile. They would be great for beginners IF they were not wild caught.

@@animalcwtch8238 thank you for the information

Yes always provide fresh water. Forgot to say when making video but think I posted it in somewhere in text.

Wish you success. We need as many people investing time and interest in this species as possible. Check out our other videos and feel free to contact us worth any questions on whatever media platform you prefer. Totally agree, I always advise everyone to NOT brumate until your familiar with the animal and know it’s healthy. It would be horrible to lose an animal in brumation. Such an amazing species especially considering they are wild caught.

We brumated them too, which I feel triggered breeding. Will do a video at some point discussing it. 😃

Also, we used play sand but others have used a soil sand mix, so that works too.

@@animalcwtch8238 It is my understanding that PBS are not widely captive bred (if at all), thus I hope you will write your procedure as a breeding guide to share. So doing might reduce the wild caught trade in PBS and that would be a good thing.

@@Michael-yf1wo you’re right, there hasn’t been much success. We can share our experiences but equally once clutch doesn’t necessarily equal expertise in how to breed. I’d love to think we have cracked it and will have further success next year but realistically we all have a lot to learn. Happy to share our experiences with anyone interested though.

@@animalcwtch8238 Thank you! I'm looking for my first skink and PBS is on the short list...

Awesome. Wish you lots of luck. We need more people attempting to breed them and learn about them. If you ever want to share knowledge just PM me.

Love the name 😃 Glad it was helpful.

31C

Thanks

But wait can i get both male and female, what temperature can you get both male and female

@@Phutran-og7kr are you talking about temperature sexed? There have only been a handful of successful breedings, so we don’t know if temperature effects like them like it does for some other reptiles like leopard geckos. My both appear to be the same sex, so it’s possible that they are affected by temperature but currently I’m not aware of any sex determination being effected by temperature. It’s possible though. My main goal is to establish breeding and learn as much as I can. Given they seem to only lay once a year, I will probably stick to 31C as I know that works and if I were lucky enough to get another clutch then I wouldn’t want to risk that.

What is the right temperature for the skink enclosure ?

Hi Julie, yes we plan on making a video. They are such an amazing species. We did brumate. 😃 We will do a video at some point on how we brumated as we didn’t drop the temps very low. I really hope that at some point those of us that have had success breeding and keeping these animals can coordinate our experiences to create a care guide of sorts as I think this species would really benefit from it. Lots of conflicting information out there and all of us are just guessing from our own experiences. Was your question about Incubation of the eggs? We incubated at 31C. we guessed it was best to keep on damp vermiculite, also we didn’t catch immediately as they buried them and some were deflated. We had 5/6 eggs but only three looked viable and two survived. It seems people have low hatch rates so not sure if that’s the species or if we need a different approach to incubation. It will be interesting if they breed again next year. I am also enjoying the aspect of watching and learning from the babies. Any questions and suggestions for videos welcome.

@@animalcwtch8238 Fantastic, I am very excited for the video on your findings. I've wanted to try breeding these myself but with the limited information out there I was reluctant to start. I'm sure with the information you share more keepers will be willing to give it a try and contribute!

@@juliefisher9361 that’s the hopes. There are still so few of us, but I’m hoping that we can all get together as experienced keepers and breeders and try and work out the best for these amazing creatures.

@@animalcwtch8238 Hello from Russia! I managed to get a couple of these wonderful peters skinks in my country, but I did not find enough information about this species, so I was not sure if I could breed them. but I just fell in love with them! I came across your videos and it saved me, only on your channel I was able to find out more information than anywhere else! please keep lighting this view. I am looking forward to more details and discoveries about Peters skinks on your channel😍

@@elencapri866 thank you, that’s very kind. I really wish more of us would share their experiences as we all need to learn from each other. They are such amazing reptiles. If you have any questions or suggestions about things we should make videos about, then just let us know. 😃

Thank you so much. 🤞 for a repeat in 2022.