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BEARDED DRAGON CARE SHEET!

General Information

10 month old Citrus Bearded Dragon.

Click image to enlarge.

Bearded Dragons (Pogona Vitticeps) originate from Australia, where they live in a sunny, hot and dry environment. They can grow upto 2 foot in length including their tail but on average they end up between 15-17 inches. They live to around 10 years old, but this can be cut shorter if they do not get the correct care in the early stages of their life. They become very tame and tolerate human interaction making them great pets. This care sheet will guide you through their care requirements, covering all topics required for you to keep them successfully.

Housing

Young Bearded dragons can be housed in 2 foot vivariums and adult Bearded dragons will require a 4 foot vivarium minimum to allow them the space they need to thrive and move around in. Bearded dragons can be social with each other and dragons of a similar size can be housed together with close monitoring, females can be housed together, along with a male if desired but never house 2 males together as they will fight. Bearded dragons like to climb, so logs and branches will be appreciated, along with rocks to bask on. You will need to set up a basking spot at one end of the vivarium and provide UV lighting, these topics will be covered in detail further down.

Substrate

Like with all reptiles, you have a huge choice when it comes to what substrate to use, and they all have their good and bad points. Below are several options you have.

Herbi floor/pelleted straw - Advantages: Easy to spot clean, quick and easy to change, harmless is digested, neutralizes odors, highly absorbent. Disadvantages: There aren't really any disadvantages other that its a little more expensive than other options.
Sand - Advantages: easy to spot clean, looks natural. Disadvantages: can cause impaction if ingested.
Paper Towels - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to change. Disadvantages: looks unnatural, hard to spot clean.
Newspaper - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to change. Disadvantages: looks unnatural, hard to spot clean.
Tiles - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to wipe clean, hard wearing. Disadvantages: takes time to install, but grouting them will make it easier to wipe clean.
Repti-carpet - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to change and wash. Disadvantages: looks unnatural, hard to spot clean, claws sometimes get stuck in fibers.

Heating

Bearded Dragons are cold blooded are therefore need the correct temperature provided for them so they can thermoregulate. They like a basking temperature between 100*-110*, with an ambient temperature of about 78*-88* At night temperatures can drop in to the low 70*s with no problems, so unless your house gets very cold you will not need night time heating. If you do need night time heating make sure you use a ceramic heater as Bearded dragons can see all light and any light will disturb their sleep. To provide a basking temperature of 100*-110* you can use a clear spot lamp of about 75/100 watts, there is no need to buy specialist reptiles spot lamps as these are the same as regular household bulbs with a higher price tag. Make sure all lamps are controlled by a dimmer thermostat (bulbs) or a pulse proportional thermostat (ceramic heaters). You must not use heat mats to heat their vivarium as they only sense heat from above and need the bright light given off by bulbs to thrive.

Lighting

UV light for your Bearded dragon is something you must NOT cut corners on. A decent UV light is critical to the survival of your dragon. The best two bulbs to use are the Exo-Terra Repti-Glow 10.0, or the Zoo Med Reptisun 10.00. Any other bulb will not give you enough UV output no matter what they say. You should use a bulb that covers the entire length of your vivarium so your dragon gets as much UV exposure as possible. Something a lot of people do wrong is positioning the UV bulb too high in the enclosure, your Bearded dragon must be able to get within 6 inches of the bulb to fully benefit from it. You must also make sure your UV light is replaced every 8-10 months as after this time the amount of UV light given out is not high enough even thought the bulb will still light. Another option you have is to use one of the reptile mercury vapour bulbs, these will provide you with both heat and UV. The amount of UV these bulbs provide is much higher than the UV tubes listed above. One problem with these bulbs is that they are only suitable for larger enclosures due to: 1 - only being available in high wattages, 2 - they are not dimmable and 3 - you must have a distance of at least 12 inches between the bulb and your dragon (this distance may be different for each bulb, so follow your bulbs instructions.)

Food / Supplements

Bearded dragons are not fussy eaters and will eat all of the common livefood insects, including: crickets, locusts, mealworms, waxworms (only give these as a treat as they are fatty) and roaches. You can use any of the above as a staple diet, other than waxworms. They must also have fruit and vegetables in their diet, good dark leaved greens are best along with a mixture of fruit. You must not feed iceberg lettuce as it has no nutritional value, also stay away from citrus fruits and berries. As babies and youngsters they will eat livefood daily, most adults will eat livefood every two days, all ages of Bearded dragons should be offered fresh vegetables daily. It is important to make sure you gutload any insects before feeding them to your dragon, this ensures they are full of the nutrition your dragon needs. You can buy insect food from most of the livefood suppliers, which do this for you, or you can make your own. You can use oats, fresh fruit and veg etc to feed your insects prior to giving them to your Bearded dragon. If you feed crickets make sure you do not leave any left over crickets in the vivarium for too long as they can munch on your beardie while its sleeping, not something you want to happen.

Along with gutloading, correct supplementation is important, for this you need to dust your feeder insects with a calcium / vitamin powder before feeding them. How often you need to do this depends on the age of your dragon. For babies, dust with calcium 5 days of the week, and with a multi-vitamin 2 days of the week. For adults, you can cut down to calcium 2 times a week and a multi-vitamin just once a week. An easy way to dust your insects is to put some dust in a bag, drop the insects in, shake the bag and then tip the insects into the vivarium. Adding a bowl of crushed cuttlefish bone into your beardies vivarium will provide extra calcium, this is something you may wish to try.

Cleaning

You should spot clean your vivarium daily to prevent any build up of bacteria which may cause problems. If you do this you should be able to give your vivarium a full clean out every other week with no problems. For a full clean out you should remove and disinfect everything using a reptile safe disinfectant. Keeping your cage clean will help keep your animals happy and healthy!

Breeding / Sexing

Bearded Dragons are very easy to breed. The first thing you need to do is make sure you have a male and a female. If you look at the vent (under the beardie by its tail) you will either see, a line of pores and 2 bulges - a male, or no / very slight pores and no bulges - a female. If you are considering breeding please make sure you
have space for the babies, and space for any you cant sell. You should not breed your beardies until they are both at least a year old, perfectly healthy and of a good size and weight.

Once both your dragons are ready for breeding you can introduce them, this should be done from January until around September.
Mating at first can seem very rough but its all perfectly normal and wont hurt either dragon. Once your pair have mated, the female will be ready to lay upto 20 eggs within the next 4-5 weeks. You should provide your female with a laying site, this can consist of a simple plastic container with a small hole for her to get in, filled with a damp substrate such as vermiculite. You need to make sure your incubator is set up and running now so you are ready for when the eggs come. You can make your own incubator using a polybox, heatmat and thermostat, or buy one ready made. Your incubator needs to be set between 82*-86* and at this temperature the eggs should hatch in around 55 - 75 days. You will know she has laid as she will look saggy around her belly. Now she has laid her eggs you need to transfer them to your incubator. During this time you must be very careful not to turn the eggs as you will drown them. Carefully place them in a small tub filled with damp, but not soaking wet vermiculite, with a few holes in the lid and place this is your incubator. It helps if you make small indents in the vermiculite with your finger before placing the eggs in so they cannot roll around. After a few days you can candle your eggs to see if they are fertile, to do this you need to shine a small torch into the eggs.
If they are fertile they will glow red and you may see veins forming, unfertile eggs will look yellow and will soon collapse.

Once the babies hatch they can be kept in small groups of 5-6 in the same set-ups as you would use for adults, just on a smaller scale. After a few days they will start eating and will start to grow very quickly, by the time they are 6 weeks old they will be ready to go to new homes.