Picking Out A Bearded Dragon from the Store
When choosing your dragon there are visual signs you should look for to select a healthy dragon to take home to join the family. You should always start from head to tail, checking the eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and cloaca (from which they excrete both urine and feces) to ensure they are clear of discharge. Check the toes/ nails/ tail to ensure there are no missing/ damaged appendages, the scales/skin should have no cuts, scars, missing scales and they should be active, vigilant and inquisitive.
Housing
Adult bearded dragons can reach to a size of about 20 inches long. Adult male bearded dragons are territorial but even females will become aggressive if overcrowded in a 50-gallon tank. Crowded conditions or housing males together may cause injuries such as lost toes, lost of appetite, or blackened beards. Never house smaller bearded dragons (such as hatchlings or juveniles) with adults, as the larger lizards will eat the smaller ones.
An enclosure should be large enough to provide a wide temperature gradient both horizontally and vertically. It is recommended to house bearded dragon adults in 120 gallon enclosure at minimum. Beardeds can be surprisingly quick (trotting with their bodies raised well off the ground), making top-opening enclosures a must.
A cover to the top of the enclosure is required; this will keep the dragon from taking off on its own and will keep the crickets inside the tank. Tanks must be well-ventilated, yet able to retain heat. Tanks with the top made of a screen mesh often work well. Make sure the tank top is large enough and sturdy enough to hold a full-spectrum/UV light and a fixture for supplemental heating.
Even though bearded dragons naturally live in a sandy desert area, pet bearded dragons should not have gravel, granite, or sand in their enclosures. They are at risk for ingesting the sand/rocks on accident and causing an intestinal impaction. These kinds of substrate are also very difficult to clean and disinfect. Carpet is not recommended either due to loose threads can be accidently ingested, it is a difficult material to completely clean, and reptile’s toes can be caught in the loose threads and become broken/amputated in the process.
Paper towels and butcher paper are suitable substrates for bearded dragons. Avoid alfalfa pellets, kitty
litter, wood shavings, sand, topsoil, and excavator clay.
Branches for climbing and basking can be used in the enclosure, birch trees are the best recommended as pine and cedar can cause allergic reactions or toxicities in reptiles. Ceramic or wooden caves are also a good thing for bearded dragons to hide in when they are too hot. It is recommended that bearded dragons have a hiding place at both tends of the temperature gradient, and a basking area close to the hotter temperature side of the enclosure.
Plan on frequent cleaning of the enclosure with the tank undergoing a thorough cleaning and disinfecting several times a year. Regular replacement of the substrate assures the environment remains as healthy as possible for the dragon.
Temperature
The temperature gradient during the day should range from 76’F on the cool side to 86’F on the warm side, with a basking area ranging from 90-100’F. Night time temperatures can drop no lower than the low to mid 70s.
An under tank heating pad under the warm side of the tank will gently heat the substrate. A basking light or heating element should be positioned above so that there is a vertical gradient, with the warmest end at the top.
To give yourself as much flexibility as possible to cope easily with changing ambient room temperatures
throughout the seasons, attach your heating element and/or basking light into a temperature-controlled thermostat.
Do not use a ceramic heating element, you should use a porcelain light socket as the socket part of the
fixture can get very hot; the last thing you want is a meltdown or fire.
Use at least three thermometers to check your temperatures: one on the cool side, one on the warm side, and one in the basking area. Place them where the animal spends its time, not just where it is convenient for you.
For bearded dragons set the thermostat’s control to turn off the heat source when the temps exceed 101’F. Do NOT exceed the maximum wattage of your power strip or thermostat!
Best types of thermostats:
Hydrofarm’s Jump Start MTPRTC thermostat
Apollo’s digital thermostat
Inkbird Thermostats
Light
Bearded dragons need daily access to a UVB source, either being regularly exposed to direct sunlight, or to a UV-B light. Lighting is critically important for bearded dragons that are kept indoors as it assists them in synthesizing vitamin D3, which aids in calcium absorption. UV-B light should be placed no more than 12 inches above the lizard so your pet can get the maximum benefit of the UV-B exposure. UV-B lights typically need to be changed every 6 months, but this depends on the bulb. Depending upon the strength of the light, it may need to go under the lid.
Incandescent lights, while suitable for use as heat sources, do not provide the full spectrum required by
reptiles, including no UVA and never any UV-B. Plant lights and many aquarium lights are wide-spectrum rather than full-spectrum lights, and so should not be used other than as supplemental lighting or heating in addition to the full-spectrum lighting. The term “full spectrum” is incorrectly used by incandescent light manufacturers whose lights are suitable only for producing heat and light; they do not produce the UV-B required for calcium metabolism. Avoid Terra brand UV-B bulbs, ceramic heat emitting bulbs, coil lights, and any kind of colored lights.
Bearded dragons need 12-14 hours of daylight during the summer time and 10-12 hours of daylight during the winter time.
Never use a white light of any sort at night, for lighting or for heat. This will stress your animal, eventually affecting its ability to thrive through the resultant lack of sleep, loss of appetite, and other stress-related symptoms. If you need to provide supplemental heat at night – use the under tank heating.
Diet
Adult Bearded Dragons:
Adult bearded dragons are omnivores, with insects comprising about 20 percent of their diet and plant foods comprising the other 80 percent. Since these lizards consume a wide variety of invertebrates and small vertebrates in the wild, a variety of protein sources must be offered in captivity. Prey items such as appropriately sized cultured crickets, Dubia roaches, mealworms, king worms, and wax worms can be fed.
Make sure the invertebrates are freshly molted to reduce the amount of tough, indigestible exoskeleton the dragon will ingest; exoskeletons can cause intestinal impaction so the least amount ingested the better.
Feed your invertebrate prey before feeding your dragon. Prey bought from pet stores are generally in dire need of a good meal, having subsisted on cardboard or bran for several days at least. Sprinkle or dust prey with a calcium supplement just before feeding them to your lizard 3-5 times a week (more for baby and pregnant bearded dragons) and use a multivitamin supplement 2-3 times a week (more for babies and pregnant females). A good mineral would contain 2:1 ratio of calcium to phosphorus. A good reptile multivitamin is Zoo Med’s Reptivite with D3. Adult bearded dragons should have some short of calcium supplement every 2 to 3 days. Prepare an enclosure for your crickets, furnishing it with pieces of egg crate or cardboard cores from paper towels and toilet paper. Pieces of fruits and vegetables, as well as food such as high-protein baby cereal mixed with reptile vitamins, tropical fish flakes, and rodent chow, all make suitable foods. Since smaller crickets are more nutritious than larger crickets (proportionately less exoskeleton) it is better to feed out more of the smaller ones than fewer of the big ones.
Plant matter includes a variety of shredded/mashed/minced vegetables and fruits such as green beans,
orange-fleshed squash (such as acorn, banana, kabocha, spaghetti, and pumpkin), sometimes carrots,
escarole, parsley, mustard greens, dandelion and collard greens, raspberries, strawberries, mangos, and cantaloupes. Remember to keep the size of the vegetables and fruits no larger than 2/3 the size of the bearded dragon’s skull. If using frozen vegetables – thiamine (Vitamin B1) is destroyed in the freezing process, must be added in with multivitamin supplement sprinkled on top of the vegetables. It is best practice to use only fresh vegetables. It is recommended to offer fruit pieces 2-3 times a week. Ultimately, adult bearded dragons should have vegetables, fruits, plants making up 80% of their diet and then 20% should be insects.
If your adult bearded dragon is not eating a balanced diet (doesn’t like their vegetables or only eats one type of insect), supplement their diet with Mazuri beaded dragon food pellets. This is a good base diet to have your bearded dragon on and then insects and vegetables can be supplemented on top of the Mazuri diet. You can also dust the plant foods with bee pollen to entice your bearded dragon to eat it.
Hatchlings/Juvenile Bearded Dragons:
You must feed very small prey to baby bearded dragons. While the rule-of-thumb for feeding lizards says that it is generally safe to feed prey that is 2/3 the size of the lizard’s head, this is not advisable with baby beardeds (0-4 months). When fed prey that is too large for them, serious physical problems often result: partial paralysis, seizures, ataxia (loss of motor control), inability to self-feed, gut impaction, even death. Start with feeding pinhead/very tiny crickets and tiny, freshly molted worms, moving only slowly and gradually to larger sizes. Fresh leafy plants should also be provided daily (chopped fine for young dragons).
Mealworms should not be fed to young dragons as their digestive tract isn’t developed enough to digest them effectively. Wax worms are high in fat and should only be fed as treats.
Young bearded dragons up to 2 months of age need to take calcium and vitamin supplements daily, with one dusted feeding per pay. Bearded dragons from 2 to 6 months of age need calcium daily and vitamin supplementation every other day. 6 month to 1 year old bearded dragons should get calcium every other day and vitamin supplementation 3 times a week.
Water
Offer a water dish large enough for patient to soak if needed. Change water daily as bearded dragons
sometimes defecate in their water dish. Bottled water or tap water that has been dechlorinated is
recommended for reptiles.
Lifespan
Bearded dragons can live to be 6-10 years old in captivity. It takes them 3-6 months to develop from
hatchlings to juveniles. Bearded dragons are considered adults at 18 months of age.
Sexual dimorphism (sexing dragons):
Bearded dragons can be accurately sexed based on physical appearance after 6 months of age by looking for the presence of femoral pores on the inner hind legs. In younger dragons, it may be harder to accurately sex them based on physical appearance.
Brumation
Brumation is a naturally occurring behavior within wild populations of beardeds and something that can
happen during captivity. It is typically induced in the winter months by prolonged spells of low temperatures.
During brumation, the dragon’s appetite will reduce and even become absent, sometimes for 2-3 months. The dragon may appear alert, although responding sluggishly to external stimuli (sound, movement). They will sleep a lot during this time. As temperatures begin to rise in the spring the bearded dragon will become active and resume its normal habits and begin feeding.
Brumation is still recommended for breeding bearded dragons as researchers feel like it is it necessary as a reproductive stimulant in the early spring. Brumation can be obtained in captivity by decreasing the
temperature under the basking light to 75’F to 80’F and the night temperature to 60’F for 4-6 weeks.
Frequency and volume of feeding your bearded dragon should be reduced during this period. Soaking the Dragon in lukewarm water 20 minutes every 1-2 weeks can help to prevent dehydration. Shelter (hollow logs, artificial caves, etc.) should be provided. As spring approaches, the heat and light available to the lizard should be slowly increased over a few weeks. Once normal activity levels have resumed, normal feeding regimes can be reintroduced.
Shedding
Bearded dragons shed their skin when they are about to grow. This occurs every couple of months and is perfectly normal to see skin coming off in patches. It is also natural for dragons to eat their shed skin. When they are shedding it is advised to up the humidity by misting the enclosure every other day, this helps the skin to come away naturally more easily. Caution should be taken if skin is stuck around toes as dragons can lose their toes if it gets stuck. You should never try to remove the skin yourself as you could damage the new scales underneath. This can be prevented by giving dragons a bath in luke warm water. A pre-shed indicator is that the dragons overall color will get dimmer, duller and will start around the head/ hands, gray/ white patches will start to appear.
Bearded Dragons require a dry tank. High humidity is detrimental to the health of Bearded Dragons.
Humidity
should never exceed 30% in an enclosure. Excessive or broad-leafed vegetation can trap moisture and
increase humidity and should therefore be avoided. Enclosures should be kept clean and dry.
Helpful Links and Resources:
Reptivite with D3: https://zoomed.com/reptivite-with-d3/
Recommended UV-B lighting: https://www.arcadiareptile.com/lighting/lamps/dragon/
Very Detailed Care Sheet with other links and explanations: https://www.reptileforums.co.uk/threads/beardeddragon-detailed-care-guide.833790/