How hard do Bearded Dragons bite when they do?

[Dragonman555]

I'm just curious I'm not afraid of mine biting me because hes pretty tame now and I trust him as if he were a Dog. But when they do ever bite how much damage can an adult Beardie do to your finger? I know they probably can't bite off your finger and send you to the ER like an Iguana can but can an adult Beardie still do a fair amount of damage to your finger?

 

[Mistyck]

How old is the dragon? A baby won't cause as much damage as a full grown adult. My male could probably bite through the skin and cause some bleeding and some ripping of the tissue. Not like an iguana though.

 

[snazzyglasses]

I'm not sure if a food chomp and a bad-behavior chomp would be the same, but I've gotten a couple of "food chomps" from my four year old male. Both times it was totally my fault, I was letting him munch canned pumpkin from on my finger and he got a little over zealous and bit my finger. It felt like a strong pinch-y pressure, but it didn't leave a bruise or break the skin/fingernail.
If my finger was in the side of his mouth where his teeth are though, I have a feeling he would've broken some skin. Nothing crazy or requiring hospitalization though, just a bandaid and maybe a phone consultation with the doctor lol

 

[Dragonman555]

I'm not sure if a food chomp and a bad-behavior chomp would be the same, but I've gotten a couple of "food chomps" from my four year old male. Both times it was totally my fault, I was letting him munch canned pumpkin from on my finger and he got a little over zealous and bit my finger. It felt like a strong pinch-y pressure, but it didn't leave a bruise or break the skin/fingernail.
If my finger was in the side of his mouth where his teeth are though, I have a feeling he would've broken some skin. Nothing crazy or requiring hospitalization though, just a bandaid and maybe a phone consultation with the doctor lol

Yea I'm wondering how hard an aggressive bite would be from a Bearded Dragon like if you got him mad at you for some reason from teasing him or something? But none the less I think you'd have to be a pretty cruel person to make a Beardie mean unlike an Iguana who could just snap for no reason at times.

 

[vampy]

My bf got bitten on the lip by an adult male beardie. It drew blood, but barely, and he had a purpley red dragon-mouth shaped bruise on his lip for a couple of weeks.

It was the day he got this guy who'd been given back to the pet shop cos the previous owner didn't have time for him, and the pet shop tried to handle him regularly but couldn't do it enough, so he was very skittish. He told me he was trying to touch him and the beardie turned round and bit him. He later confessed he was actually trying to kiss him, so I stopped being quite so sympathetic at that point, and laughed at him instead.

I wasn't there, so I'm not sure if it was a scared 'leave me alone' bite, or a full-on agressive bite, but I doubt very much a beardie would ever do serious damage to a human.

They can hurt each other a LOT though, I imagine if they can bite of another dragon's leg during a fight, they could get close to being able to bite off a human finger, but I think their instinct with us is to lash out a bit then run away, rather than go in for the kill, so you'd have to be seriously traumatising your beardie and not let him have any space to get away before you'd be likely to get seriously hurt.

 

[thebenior]

A young dragon, not so hard.

An adult dragon, quite a bit harder.

I got bitten by my dragon when he was still young as I was feeding him a piece of apple, didn't hurt.

A year later, I was hand feeding him a cricket, which I was about to find out was not a good idea. He bit the cricket and my finger; tasting the cricket, he continued biting my finger, drawing blood. I left a trail of blood drops on my way the bathroom to clean the wound. Best analogy I can think of is that it felt like pinching my finger in one of my folding closet doors.

Damage was minor, but I did have a nice bruise underneath my fingernail until it grew out. :lol:

 

[Brieana]

Adults can bite pretty hard! I've only been bitten once, when I made the mistake of trying to hand-feed Gimli a superworm. It wiggled out of my finger and he bit my thumb. The majority of the bite was on my nail, but it hurt for quite a while, and it sliced my skin open. He let go instantly, which leads me to believe an aggressive bite would be MUCH worse!

One indication of how hard they bite is I was feeding him his Acidophiluz from the plastic dropper and he chomped down and swallowed. Then I realized he had bitten off the tip of the dropper and swallowed it! From the way he acted, you would have no idea it happened. He gets his 3 drops daily on a pile of butternut squash now.