A true omnivore's plate
Blue tongue skinks evolved to eat whatever the ground offers — snails, insects, fallen fruit, carrion, flowers and greenery — and they thrive in captivity on the same variety. For an adult, build the plate at roughly half plant matter and half protein foods. Juveniles lean more heavily toward protein while they grow, then shift toward the adult balance as they mature. No single food completes the picture: a skink fed only insects grows fat and calcium-poor, and one fed only vegetables misses the protein that keeps muscle and condition on him.
The plant half
Leafy greens form the base — collards, dandelion, mustard and turnip greens — supported by grated squash, sweet potato, carrot, green beans and zucchini. Chop everything small and mix it through the protein rather than serving it in separate piles, because a skink with a choice will eat around the vegetables with great precision. Fruit — berries, mango, banana, papaya — is the part he will beg for and the part to ration hardest: serve it as an occasional treat or training reward, not a bowl component, since a fruit-filled skink has no appetite left for the foods he actually needs.
The protein half
On the animal side, variety is again the point: gut-loaded insects, earthworms and snails (a wild food they are built to crush) are excellent, and many keepers use cooked egg, lean ground meat or a quality wet dog food as practical protein staples for this famously unfussy species. Rotate two or three protein sources across the week rather than settling on one. Dust meals lightly with calcium powder regularly, and a multivitamin in rotation — a varied bowl reduces the supplement burden but does not remove it, since captive produce and proteins still fall short of wild forage in mineral density.
Rhythm and condition
Adults eat a few times a week rather than daily; offer the bowl, leave it for a few hours of grazing, then remove leftovers before they spoil in the warm enclosure. Weigh him monthly and judge condition by feel — you should sense ribs under a layer of condition, not beneath heavy fat pads, and a skink who waddles with his belly dragging is telling you the protein and fruit have crept too high. Loss of appetite in a skink with correct temperatures is worth a vet's opinion after a week or two, and any mouth swelling, retained shed on the toes or runny droppings should be seen sooner rather than later.
Because the menu rotates through several proteins and a garden's worth of vegetables, a written plan beats memory. KinsLe's Care Teams lets you lay out his feeding days and the week's mix as duties, so his balanced plate survives busy weeks and substitute feeders alike.