Since Olive disappeared I’ve been working on researching a somewhat sociable lizard.
I’ve looked at three species of lizards currently:
Central bearded dragons, Northern blue tounge skinks, and pink tounge skinks.
I’m aware that all of these species can be costly to care for and their personalities may vary from individual to individual, and that babies can be absolute jerks from time to time.
I have room to set up a 4’x2’x2’ or larger for the critter of choice, and I’d be able to interact with it regularly to socialize it.
I know these animals require specific diets with plenty of variety, and require regular offerings of salads for beardies and BTS, and snails for a PTS.
Though I can’t pick between these three!
To those that keep/have kept these species, how were they for you? Were they aggressive, overly territorial, and grumpy? Or were they docile, friendly (as much as a lizard could be!), and tame?
Either that or it’s time to increase the number of geckos I have with a crested or chahoua!
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Out of the 3 listed I only keep a Central Beardie, well she’s my Husband’s pet but we both care for her. Keep in mind that all individuals vary in temperament so not all Beardies are going to be the same as ours.
From my experience she is like a puppy in lizard form, absolutely wonderful to work with. She potty trained herself and literally let’s us know when she needs to go by scratching at her door and prefers going outside on the grass so we have zero cleanup lol. But she refuses to go in her enclosure so she will hold it until we let her out, the downside being that she can’t be without someone for an extended period.
She loves to explore and free roams our living room/kitchen daily with observation. She has strange preferences for sitting on shoes and on my purse while free roaming and its usually the first things she goes for. She tolerates handling well but prefers to be free lol.
She was very picky about greens for a while but she’s slowly growing out of that. She only eats arugula at the moment but loves other veggies.
We’ve had her since she was a tiny baby and she’s never shown any defensiveness towards us, I’ve never even seen her blackbeard!
Here she is on the day we got her vs now
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I own a beardie named rex he’s a bit sassy which is normal when they reach teenage age they soften back up as adults, but normally lol he’s super handleable sometimes he will jump out the enclosure to explore, he sleeps on me a lot, the only thing is young beardies can be picky with greens but they are sociable he can be grumpy when he’s shedding or if he’s scared but normally he loves to be held and be warm with a human and its super rewarding to become a person they find safe! But I’ve also always considered a blue tongue skink sense I heard they are couch potatos of lizards! but rex is my best friend, You do have to get used to certain schedules of feeding them salad since they love having schedules! Some signs that they see you as their safe place is, slowly blinking at you, calm behavior, sleeping on you, and Warning is that sometimes they poop on you if they find you safe and comfy Lol. when they are babies they don’t believe in gravity and will jump off things 
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I’m pretty used to getting pooped on, especially when this little gremlin is usually “helping” me!
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Sun conures are pros at helping with that
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(atleast I believe that’s a sun conure correct me if I’m wrong 
)
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As a heads up for the snails, be very careful about where you get them. They may have parasites or toxins. Same goes for hornworm treats from your yard because they’re typically on tomatoes which is toxic.
It would probably be easy to set up a couple of mystery snails and remove the eggs to a new tank before they hatch to avoid parasites that way. Then you can feed them fresh veggies and such like zucchini or lettuce.
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I’m a big fan of painted agamas. Mine became very tame but if you could start with CB that would be a huge plus.
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Bugs from outside are total taboo for me, especially snails and slugs… Any and all outdoors inverts go to the ravenous flock of chickens!
I’d be glad to do some snail farming as I currently have two tanks cycling at the moment.
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