Hiya i a new!

[lotties]

Hi i am new here i am looking at getting a bearded dragon at the end of june or july as the pet shop near will have their new hatchlings around that time.

It is my first time getting a beardie, i currently only have a california king snake! So my mum isnt impressed that my bedroom is turning into a zoo!! LOL!

I was just wandering of any tips anybody can give me for first time handling a beardie and also can beardies be put in the tank as other reptiles??

Any help will be much appriciated!!

Thanks.

 

[Ouroboros]

Welcome!

Bearded Dragons need UVB lights (Reptisun 10.0 is the best) and a basking light (take your pick lol). The tank needs a hot side and a cool side, the hot side should be around 95 degrees F with a basking spot that is 105-110 degrees F. The cool side should be around 85 degrees.

Non-adult beardies need alot of live feeders (Crickets, hornworms, silkworms, ect,) but stick to one kind, this will be their staple. You also should give them a salad each day (Mustard greens, collard greens, kale, squash, ect). You can get the full list at http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html.

Adults eat much more salad than juveniles, but eat less live feeders (Silk worms, horn worms, superworms, crickets, locusts, ect).

You also need to dust their live feeders with repcal d3 (pink label) 5 times a week, and repcal multivitamin (blue label) once a week.

Once again, welcome to the site! If you need ay more help just ask!

-Dan

 

[Ouroboros]

Here's a good multivitamin: http://www.reptiledirect.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=550

Here's a good calcium with d3 supplement: http://www.reptiledirect.com/index.aspPageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=553

 

[lotties]

Thanks for your help look forward to hearing more!!

Does anybody know if BD can be caged with other reptiles??

 

[Ouroboros]

No, they really can't. Beardies get very aggressive if their territory is shared with something else.

 

[emmini]

Hi, please don't listen to the pet shop if (and they probably will!) they advise you to get a hot rock. I parted with £28 and then read nothing but bad about them. Apparantly even now with a thermostat in them they can still burn beardies, so steer clear and save your money for all the endless food they are going to eat!! I was told that they only needed them for night time heat, but IF they need night heat, a ceramic heater is much better as it heats from above and they can't lie on them to go to sleep and burn themselves!

Also, steer well clear of Mealworms - this is another one the pet shops don't tell you about!

Good luck with your baby if you get one, it's quite daunting to start with, but you get there in the end! I got mine a couple of months ago and had been given a lot of bad advice from the reptile shop, but everyone here has been really helpful and got me sorted. You're very sensible to ask questions first on what you need rather than afterwards, as I did!!

 

[lotties]

My pet shop do a setup with everything included for £300 they say that the tank is big enough to keep two adult BDs in i was just wandering if that was a good price or if i should get things seperate and will the babys have to start in something smaller??

thanks for everyones help and input!

 

[emmini]

Hi Lotties, you will probably now gets lots of people telling you not to keep beardies together, and that the only time it might work is if you have two females. As they are quite hard to sex when they're small, there's no telling what you'll end up with, and apparantly if the breeders are able to sex them early, they tend to keep the females themselves for breeding, so you are likely to end up with two males.

I bought two babies, having been told by the shop that any sex can live together and if one turned out to be female it wouldn't be a problem as I could just remove the eggs.

However, since being on this site, I have read of the untold harm it can do a young female when she is not ready to mate, but the male is!! I had a lot of problems with having two together, (one not eating and therefore not growing) and have had to get someone to build me another viv, which of course means double the expense for everything else too, lights, heat etc.

Viv wise, I was also told that they could live in a 3ft viv together forever - again, I have since found out that this is rubbish, and an individual dragon should ideally have 4ft x 2ft of floor space minimum, and ideally 2ft high, although I don't think this is quite so important. I put mine straight into a larger one, and hung imitation plants from the ceiling to give them some security.
I think when they're babies, we don't realise that they can actually get quite big, and should be given as much space as you can possibly give them so they can run around. What size are they trying to sell you? Also, watch out for what they are trying to sell you as substrate - a lot of shops seem to want to try and push you into Calci-sand, probably just because it's really expensive. This can kill them, and they're much better off on kitchen roll when they're babies. I was going to use tiles in the whole lot, but decided to stick with the kitchen roll as it's softer for the, and I just weight each corner down with a ceramic tile so the crickets cant get underneath.

Does that £300 include the dragons? I know there's a good breeder in Winchester, which although is not that close, it's not out of reach for you, and you may well end up with a better quality baby than those churned out by pet shop suppliers. I wish I had known about her!

Sorry for the essay, I just don't want someone else to be palmed off with loads of useless stuff like I was. I spent loads of money unnesseccarily (sp??) It makes me mad that they are only interested in getting our money, and not really bothered about the welfare of the poor animals. I think the whole reason they sold me two in the first place was so that I had to go back and spend loads more on another set up! I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction and went elsewhere for the 2nd viv!