Are Beardies susceptible to other lizard diseases?

[RMac]

We're planning a raised outdoor habitat for our bearded dragons but had concerns about diseases they may be exposed to with all of the wild lizards here in South Texas. Can diseases cross species and how concerned should we be?

 

[AHBD]

Hi there.....unless a lizard were to come right in and defecate in the enclosure [ and even then your beardie would need to actually ingest it and in most cases only parasites that a lizard would carry ] there is literally no chance. The only thing you might be concerned about would be if there are any insects that might be toxic like fireflies or other predatory insects like fire ants but even that is not a real danger in most cases.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Is considered good practice here in Australia to quaranteen all new "specimens" in reptile collections for at least 3 months to avoid infecting existing collections with nasty paracites, bacteria, viruses, fungal infections brought in by new reptiles.

Obviously this is impossible to do if you have resident / itinerant wild reptiles frequenting your yard if your reptiles (beardies say) are living in a outdoor pit, avarie style enclosure, or even a raised outdoor enclosure that the wild reptiles can climb into
(Who knows what locally endemic deseases and paracites the local wild reptiles (mainly lizards) will carry in their guts and tissue (that they will have developed a tolerance for and your captive bred pets will never have developed a tolerance for or immunity to).
If the wild lizards are small cf with the pet beardies, they risk being eaten by beardie if it can catch it , this is a possible avenue for infection/paracite transmission .

Converted raised Colorbond metal garden bed style enclosures are common here for outdoor enclosures and are relatively slick and hard for wild lizards to climb into.

Worth keeping in mind.

Another risk is roaches who have been poisoned by the neighbours entering the enclosure and being eaten.

 

[RMac]

I appreciate all of the replies. A lot of good information. We'll keep you guys posted on how things go.