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Bearded Dragons are quickly becoming a
popular animal in the reptile hobby. They're hardy, beautiful, and have a
wonderful disposition. On the other hand, they have some pretty complex
care requirements. Due to this, they're sadly going the way of the Green
Iguana in regards to the numbers of them that are suffering from poor care
and misinformation. The goal of this sheet is to attempt to give a starting
point for your proper care search. Please, before you get your dragon,
join the pogona list above for a few weeks, make
sure you can finance the care for a dragon, and read every care sheet you
can find! Also, find a vet that deals with exotics BEFORE you get your
dragon – having a sick dragon and no
where to turn is a very awful feeling. Dragons also should really have
yearly checkups, just like dogs/cats! Good luck with your dragon and
enjoy the adventure!
Basic Requirements
- Heating and Lighting
- Temperature gradient ranging from 100-105F,
nighttime drops into the low 70's. This gradient is critical for food
digestion.
- Achieve gradient with regular incandescent
light bulbs set to whatever wattage needed to reach and maintain the
above temps. You do not need special “reptile basking
lights”. Normal household bulbs are preferred. No Infared or “red” bulbs for basking!
- Use no night time heating, it is
unnecessary as the native environment for these animals gets cold at
night anyway, they're fine with it. As long as your home stays above
60F at night and dragon is in overall good health, do not waste your
time or money on night time heat.
- Use thermometers to accurately gauge the
temps. Digital thermometers with probes are available very
inexpensively at Wal-Mart ($10). Do not guess at your temps!
- NEVER use a hot rock
- Beardies MUST have UVB Lighting. Reptisun 5.0 in a $20
steel under counter fixture (look for GE brand at Lowes
or Home Depot) is the recommended method of achieving indoor
UVB. The *new* Exo-Terra Repti-Glo 8.0 bulb is looking to be another
promising and quality light, though the Reptisun
is still the tried and trusted standard. Also available are UV Heat
lamps, but these are only recommended for large enclosures. Of these
mercury vapor bulbs, the Mega-Ray series from http://reptileuv.com is currently
best on the market. For more information on UVB, what to use, and how
to use it, please visit the UVB Meter
Owners Group
- Water
- Most water requirements are met via greens,
an in-home water dish is optional. If used, change water daily.
- Babies should be misted with room temperature
water two or three times a day. Adults usually appreciate a misting
at least once daily.
- Daily or Weekly baths are wonderful to
assist in hydration. A proper FAQ on beardie bathing can be found at ReptileRooms.com by Cheri.
- I do not leave standing water in my cages.
Once or twice a week I offer a bit of water for the dragons to drink
from, if they will, or swim in. With babies, a very shallow water
dish can be left in cage, just make sure it is not deep enough to
drown them (I actually use saucers or large jar lids).
- To teach babies to drink water, set the
squirt bottle to stream and spray in their water dish - they'll go
for anything that moves. Also, dropping a cricket or two into the
water achieves the same thing.
- If your dragon has been taught to drink
water and enjoys it, then leaving in cage water is OK as long as it
is changed daily and substrate kept out of it.
- Decor
- Sparse furnishings are best, provide for
their needs (basking, hiding, eating, and playing) but don’t get so complex that the cage is hard to
clean. Always make sure that nothing can be dug under and fall on the
dragon.
- Make sure they have several basking spots
so they can thermoregulate.
- Give them something to crawl under at night
to sleep (a paper towel works great).
- Hammocks are a favorite and can be
constructed out of many things, most of which are readily available
at the dollar store. Get creative; just keep safety and ability to
clean easily in mind when on search for hammock supplies.
- Plain old patio stones ($1-2.00 at Lowes) are great for basking or to keep claws
trimmed. Just be careful with weight, especially on glass.
- Substrate
- All babies fewer than ten inches should
have a substrate of paper towels or newspaper, period. Anything else
can cause fatal impaction.
- Adults can be housed on washed playsand (under $3 for 25 lbs at Home Depot) or
rabbit pellets. I prefer combo-substrate setups, as you can see in
many instances in our
galleries, but it basically boils down to placing your
particulate substrate in a container (like a dishpan) and leaving the
rest of the tank non-particulate substrate (like newspaper, quality
reptile carpet, vinyl flooring, etc). This makes cleaning easy and
eliminates risks of substrate impaction.
- Avoid calci-sand
and other prepared reptile substrates like the plague! More info on
this on the other care sheets I linked to above. Basically, if
it’s marketed for reptiles it’s a bad idea. Remember, the companies
making these products are unregulated, there are no laws out there
for them to make safe products for reptiles, and often they don’t care at all about your animal, only the
money in your pocket!
- Handling
- One of the first things people naturally
want to do with their new baby is to handle it. Ideally, the baby
shouldn't be handled for a few days at least. This gives the new
arrival plenty of time to accommodate to it's
new surroundings and begin to feel secure. Try and give it as much
time as possible to make the adjustment. Once you begin handling,
start in short sessions and do not put the baby down until it quits
squirming. Slowly increase the frequency of sessions over a period of
days. Offer a favorite treat after each session. Reward good
behavior!
- Take care to support the full tummy during
handling, they'll freak out otherwise.
- Be
sure to Quarantine any new acquisitions for 90 days to avoid the
spread of disease.
- Feeding
- Babies should be fed a diet heavy on
crickets and greens. Feed crickets no larger than the space between
their eyes. For young dragons, feed as many properly sized crickets
as they want within ten minutes 2-3 times a day. Do not feed meal
worms to babies. Older dragons require less amounts of animal
protein.
- Adults should be fed mostly greens, with
insect/worms every couple days.
- Do not feed rodents. This is old, outdated
information. Rodent feedings are hard to digest and no longer needed
as part of a healthy diet. There are many more safe insects foods to feed, there is no reason to feed
rodents.
- Wax Worms
should be fed sparingly and mostly only to adults as treats.
- The best greens are Turnip, Dandelion, and
Mustard. Collards are on the better side of greens as well. Feed Kale
only in moderation, Spinach rarely. My guys also like sides of winter
squash and summer squashes that have been run thru the food processor
or shredder. Blueberries are a favorite of the adults. Tear all
greens to about the size of the Beardie's
head.
- For ease of use, click here for POCKET-SIZE PRINTABLE
DOWNLOADS, all rights reserved to their respective sources.
- Use
iguana diets from GreenIgSociety,
Anapsid.org,
and IguanaDen
to base your greens diets. Basically, 2-3 rich calcium greens
plus 1-2 rich veggies daily. Fruits 2-3 days a week. Variety is
important as well as keeping your diet strong in calcium and low in
phosphorus. These 2-3 staple greens and 1-2 staple veggies are minimums – go above and
beyond as often as possible.
- Troy Tuttle has reorganized the Green Ig Society list making for easier shopping. It is
here
with permission.
- Provide greens all day long. Mist them
heavily in the morning and it will delay them drying out to a crispy
state.
- To keep greens fresh, try this.
- Do not leave crickets in the cage overnight
if you can help it; if you have to leave them, make sure there are
greens in there for them to much on else they'll eat on your dragon.
- Picky or sick dragons can be fed baby food
and pedialyte to recuperate. Please see the
other sites I listed for more information on this...
- Supplementation is up to the keeper.
Hatchlings and young dragons need supplemented with calcium 4-5 days
a week (Rep-Cal calcium STRONGLY recommended), vitamins 2x a week (Herptivite strongly recommended). Juvies & Subadults
generally get 2-3 days per week calcium, 1x vitamins maybe. Adults
are supplemented infrequently at my house, only gravid females really
get any supplementation (extra calcium) due to all of the adults
eating such a varied, calcium rich greens diet. Properly gut-loaded
crickets also are helpful in supplementation.
Additional
BNK Pages of Interest can be found at the main
dragon page - Including a New Owner Inventory sheet, Cricket Care, and
more!
This care sheet is
NOT intended to be a catch-all.
For the sake of
your dragon, read the additional care sheets listed at the starting page of
the Pogona group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pogona)
AND read that list daily.
You can NEVER learn
too much about the care for these complicated animals! -Jenn
Please
visit the other sites for detailed care sheets!
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