Quick question.
Has anyone else noticed that lizards have a strange fascination with eating Perlite? Or was it just mine?
I just got pair of Kenyan Zebra Skinks the other day. I had their enclosure set up for about a week before hand. I had potting soil as the substrate with various plants growing out of it.
I specifically chose soil that didn't have any chemical additives to it, but I didn't think anything of the white Perlite pebbles in the soil.
Well, when the lizards arrived, after spending a couple of minutes nervously exploring their surroundings the first thing they did was start cramming these things down. It was so bizarre. They were just sitting there basking, then one gets up, RUNS over to a small cluster of them, and then stuffs his face and eats a ton of them. Both of them seemed to prefer eating perlite more than they liked eating actual food. As in, I'd offer them both crickets and ground turkey. They'd sniff the food, take a small nibble, then proceed to walk past the food and eat more perlite.
The following day I completely cleaned out their enclosure and now I'm using the "Plantation soil" from the dry expansion brick [pretty much the same as the coco fiber]. Now that the perlite is gone, they're eating normal food. They both seem fine now, and I've seen them defecate [though there was no evidence of perlite in the feces].
Does anyone have any idea what was going on?
Has anyone else noticed that lizards have a strange fascination with eating Perlite? Or was it just mine?
I just got pair of Kenyan Zebra Skinks the other day. I had their enclosure set up for about a week before hand. I had potting soil as the substrate with various plants growing out of it.
I specifically chose soil that didn't have any chemical additives to it, but I didn't think anything of the white Perlite pebbles in the soil.
Well, when the lizards arrived, after spending a couple of minutes nervously exploring their surroundings the first thing they did was start cramming these things down. It was so bizarre. They were just sitting there basking, then one gets up, RUNS over to a small cluster of them, and then stuffs his face and eats a ton of them. Both of them seemed to prefer eating perlite more than they liked eating actual food. As in, I'd offer them both crickets and ground turkey. They'd sniff the food, take a small nibble, then proceed to walk past the food and eat more perlite.
The following day I completely cleaned out their enclosure and now I'm using the "Plantation soil" from the dry expansion brick [pretty much the same as the coco fiber]. Now that the perlite is gone, they're eating normal food. They both seem fine now, and I've seen them defecate [though there was no evidence of perlite in the feces].
Does anyone have any idea what was going on?
