Need opinions on beardies age please

I got my beardie, Merv, just under two weeks ago and he’s settling in well. However, the guy who owns the reptile shop said he was 6 months old, but when I went in to get more crickets his breeder was there and from photos he guessed a year old (mostly based that on his size of 12”).


He is 12” and weighs 185g, but does have a tail nip, as you can see in the photos. Could anyone else offer an opinions as to which end of the 6mo - 1 year scale he is on? I would guess nearer 6 months based on some growth charts I found via google, but he is my first beardie so I’m not confident on this!

I've put on quite a few photos so you can get a better idea of his size/shape (plus one to show off his colouring as the lighting was bad in the other photos


Thanks in advance!

My guess is around 8-10 months. Make sure you switch out that bedding though to shelf liner, tiles or paper towels. If you go with paper towels go with white paper towels and not the one with designs on it unless its non toxic.

Thanks!

I am planning on changing the substrate in the next couple of weeks, he loves digging down into it at night though so trying to work out what a suitable replacement for that is. It's currently a hemp substrate so in theory fully digestible and won't affect him if eaten, but the mess is annoying and I'd still rather we didn't risk it in terms of whether or not he can actually digest it.

You could use tons of paper towels underneath the hides. Thats what i do for my beardies and when they go in there they dig in it and sometimes will dig their selves underneath it.

I agree, probably around 8 months or so...and please, remove the hemp ASAP and put down paper towels. He'll get over not being able to burrow, or as already mentioned just stack up the paper towels. Hemp is not necessarily digestible, and more importantly loose substrates are the most common way for dragons to get fungal infections, bacterial infections, and parasitic infections. Loose substrates just breed in loose substrates, and you say he digs in it all the time, so that's not good at all. Dragons don't burrow naturally, he'll be fine. It's just not worth it, and the papertowels work fine for them to hide under. Please, take out the hemp and be sure to completely disinfect the tank before putting the paper towels down, and do it soon. I always press this issue, as it's not worth the serious trouble it can cause, especially if he's burrowing in it. And I really don't think a dragon could digest it either, so if he gets a mouthful of it he could get an actual bowel obstruction, I've seen that happen with Unshelled Millet Seeds that were "digestible in theory" too, and the dragon died of a bowel obstruction after it literally blew up like a balloon from the gases building up inside his GI Tract, then his bowel perforated and he died a very painful death from peritonitis.