First time owner: Best place to buy a beardy?

[highaltitude45]

Hello everyone,

I am hoping to buy my first ever beardy here in a few weeks once I move into my new place and so i have been doing a lot of research on them! I am curious to hear where you guys think I can buy a quality bearded dragon for my money! I have around $70-$100 I am willing to spend. I dont want a leatherback, transclucent, or anything fancy like that (Although I do like the red morph bearded dragons). Also, any advice you can give me for owning my first beardy would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you everyone!

 

[Taterbug]

I have been happy purchasing from local breeders at the local reptile expo. Many breeders are online and will ship too - personally I like meeting the animal first. Sometimes exotic pet stores are good too. Only buy from a place that you like how the animals are kept and all the animals seem healthy.

 

[pcarle]

I bought my first beardie at Petsmart and despite what people would say about the store, I am very happy with him. He's a baby and luckily most of the people working there owned bearded dragons. The only mistake I made was purchasing calcium sand, which after doing research at home I dumped out within an hour of putting it in my tank. The mistake was from reading Petsmart's care sheet, which said to use sand substrate and maybe they should have warned me against buying it, but oh well it was not in there long enough to make a big deal out of it.

Local breeders are also a good idea, but be careful because a lot of them are not that experience so you may be get a baby with nips on his toes or tail. Online is also great, but you will spend more money. I suggest https://www.facebook.com/webe.reptiles, he takes really good care of his dragons and he has a lot of babies right now.

Craiglist is also a great idea because you could get a tank with all of the extras for about the price you are interested in spending. Purchases separately a tank, lights, hides, and dragon would cost much more than $70. Just make sure you clean the tank out thoroughly, dump out any sand substrate (many people have no idea this is bad), and don't rely on whatever UVB bulb that comes with it--buy a ReptiSun 10.0 UVB immediately. You can get them from Amazon for a really good price and I suggest starting with a 24 inch because he will grow out of his smaller enclosure fast, so it will avoid getting a new fixture--here is the link: http://amzn.to/1shK4rm. This is the fixture I use in each of my six enclosures: http://amzn.to/1maRpDg.

Best of luck! You will love your new friend.

Pete

 

[Esther19]

I recommend Rio Reptiles. I have one of their dragons, and he is very healthy, affectionate and smart. Loves to swim in his kiddie pool, too.

 

[brokenartist]

I would say it all depends on where you are located. A few options:

1. Local pet store
2. Chain pet store (petsmart, petco)
3. Reptile swaps and expos
4. Craigslist

I have had some good experience with local pet stores and swaps. Chain stores kind of give me the creeps when I go in there and see the babies. Not always so great environments and great looking places. Craigslist I tend to laugh at sometimes. Most people are looking for "RE HOMING" fees which arent bad because you get everything for one price. Just as always buyer beware.