Never had a pet, looking to get a beardie

[jducky18]

Hey, so, I've never actually had a pet before and I was looking to get a bearded dragon as my very first pet ever. I feel like a nervous mother, reading everything I absolutely can on bearded dragons, but I still have tons of questions. I've read as many fact sheets, care guides, and forums as I could, but I'm still super nervous. I'm in college, so I have some days where I'm in class all day, others where I'm only gone a couple hours, and some weekends I might be away for a couple days.

I have a place to buy my beardie, and I know someone who has a beardie from the same shop and they seem pretty satisfied. I also bought a 20Long starter-kit-thing that I'm told will get to be too small. The starter kit includes: a 20-long glass tank with locking screen, three lights (day blue light, night black heat, and desert 50 UVB flourescent coil) a bowl, humidity and temp. gauge, alfalfa bedding (which I might switch to reptile-friendly/acceptable sand) and some "bearded dragon food." Like I said, I'm in college, so I can't exactly be dropping $250 at a time for a tank set-up, so I went with the kit.

My other main concern is what to feed my beardie when I get it. I have two roommates that are cool with having a lizard, but the chirping crickets and apparent "cricket smell" might be a little too much for them to put up with, so now I don't know what to feed my beardie when I get it.

Call me a nervous first-time mom all you want, but I really want to make sure I do this right and make a really cute reptilian friend in the process.

 

[Blakeybutt]

First things first, welcome to the Forums and hooray for choosing a Beardie!

I'd return the kit immediately. You should be able to get your money back if it hasn't been too long. The kit has inadequate lightening, horrible substrate, and the day/night bulb is useless. I'll tell you what I did:

I found a 40 gallon breeder tank on Craigslist for $40. This would be able to last the Beardie it's whole life. They outgrow 20 gallon tanks far too fast to make it worthwhile.
For my light setup, I got a light dome from Petsmart for $20. I put a regular 100W household bulb in it for it was like $9 or something. For the UVB setup, I bought the Reptisun 10 and the Reptihood, for a total of about $60 including shipping. For Substrate, it would be best to use regular paper towels. It makes cleaning up VERY easy. If you want a nicer looking substrate, you could buy tiles from Home depot. I bought two 18X18 tiles from Home Depot for less than $3, and it fit the tank perfectly. Then, you can pick up some whichever decor you want for whatever fits in your budget. This is the ideal way to get started. Those kits are rubbish

 

[Blakeybutt]

Oh..
As far as feeding goes. In my experience, I've never had crickets be annoying or wake me up due to the sound they make. I never really got a funk from them, either.
If you want, you could keep them outside it if gets bothersome.

 

[Mariah94]

Well, you’re not going to like this but that starter kit won’t give you much of anything you need to properly car for your beardie. The day blue bulb could work as a basking…but a regular house bulb works too and is much cheaper. Also the red heat light…isn’t good for your beardie, they can see the light and it will bother them at night. You only need a heat light at night if temps drop below 65 and you will want a CHE for that, gives off heat but no light. There is a great lighting thread in the enclosures section on this. Also, yeah you will be upgrading the 20 within a month or two And the coil UVB is a huge no-no. There are only two UVB’s out that are good for your beardie and won’t harm him, and the fixture you have for it won’t do. They are ReptiSUN (not GLO) 10.0 and Arcadia 12% and these can be put into a regular household undercabinet tube fixture (walmart 10 bucks) also the “thermometers” in there won’t work…you need a digital infared for the best temps. Also the pellet food in there is okay if your beardie eats it, but it is in no way a staple food.

So think about this…you spent, I dunno 70-80 bucks on the starter kit right? Well the only thing that will work in there is the cage…temporarily.

So let’s say instead you buy a 40 breeder at a petco 10 dolla a gallon sale. That’s 40 bucks.

Household basking bulb 2-3 bucks (and you’ll have to get a few to test out temperatures)

ReptiSUN 10.0 20-30 bucks (This is and food are the two most expensive things you’ll be buying as this needs to be replaced every six months)

Reptisun fixture 9 bucks via walmart

Digital thermometer ranging from 6-20 depending on what you get…I got a 5 dollar one that broke, so I went to radio shack and bought a 35 dollar one that works. But I dropped it so it was prob my faults.

Now, I’m a college student as well so I understand what you’re going through. Luckily I have family willing to feed my baby when I’m not home, or I leave phoenix worms in a bowl (they don’t climb) but let me tell you this…I am beyond broke (and I was broke before) because of my beardie. First off, I spent 185 bucks at the vet within the first two weeks of getting my beardie. Second off, food is expensive. Your little guy will eat as much as it can in 10-15 minutes three times a day. That can easily be over 100 bugs a day. Sure crickets are cheap, but are nasty and have parasites a lot. And I’m raising a Dubia colony but because my beardie is so young and sick, she can only have soft bodied feeders (worms) and those aren’t cheap!

I wouldn’t trade my baby for the world, and me being broke is worth her love. But I have zero cash…I can’t afford to drive to school..can’t buy food. Thankfully I’m living at home and I don’t have to cover any bills. But that vet trip definitely drained me. And that’s something you always need to be prepared for because accidents happen and beardies do get sick.

Now, what I did to aquire all my beardie gear was fairly simple…craigslist.com I just so happen to find a guy who gave me a 40 breeder, tons of décor, some vitamims/calcium, and fantastic beardie advice all for 100, which was a steal. I still had to get a thermometer and the reptisun, but that’s it. And I’ve gotten light fixtures and manmade cages off of craigslist for under 20. I have more than I need now, but it’s always great to be prepared.
Basically, if you don’t think you can afford to set up the beardie properly right now, then just wait. Or just slowly gather your supply, that’s what I did. I had everything ready before my baby came home and it’s a good thing because she quickly fell ill and I needed that extra cash for her medical bills.

After you buy all she needs for her home, food is going to drain your wallet. These guys eat…I mean EAT.

Anyways, just keep researching on the forum, everybody here will give you good accurate info that no other place gives correctly. IE petstores tend to tell us we can feed our beardies five bugs and day and they will be healthy…which is so beyond wrong.

Also beatifuldragons.org has a GREAT sheet on feeding…everybody here will send you there when questions come for what you can and cannot feed

Also any loose substrate, any...is bad for a growing beardie. It WILL cause impaction and impaction can be very serious especially for babies. Your best bet is tile/slate/ or papertowels or repti carpet (this is very hard to clean...tile is easiest)

 

[Mariah94]

As for feeding, the cheapest thing to do is Dubia Roach colony...seems yucky but they don't smell, don't climb, don't chirp, don't do anything but eat eat eat anything (but of course only feed what you would put in your beardie)

Crickets hop..smell...SMELL...and carry parasites more so than Dubia.

But remember those bugs ^ have to be suppliments with calcium/vitamins, calcium one feeding 5 x a week and vitamins one feeding 2x a week (for baby/juvi beardies)

The more pricey...much more pricey, but less hassle is pheonix worms, repti worms, they are the same thing just different suppliers...these guys are already high in calcium and are a great staple but are not cheap and go fast. They are small and beardies will eat them up...also they sit in a little cup all day, so no bins no cleaning no feeding the bugs...but you have to order them constantly and in bulk and it adds up.

Best thing to do is always buy in bulk for cheapest prices. Remember babies will eat up to or more than 100 bugs a day at times, so that's a lotta bugs...and buying bugs from petstores will get very pricey. I priced up a friend of mine who feeds her beardie from petco, it can cost her an upwards of 150 a month because she buys 20-30 a time (every other day so he doesn't get fed enough as it is) but her parents buy the bugs so she doesn't have to "worry."

However Malachi my baby (out of my pocket) will cost me...with my colony (when I can feed out of it), nothing, to feed her other than greens because i grow my own bugs (eww) but if I do order online since I can't feed from the growing colony right now I buy 1000 bugs at a time which is about 40 bucks a months for 2000 bugs since I'm sure I'd have to order every 2 weeks. 40-60 bucks a month compared to 150...yeah.

Also they need to be offered greens which the beautiful dragons care sheet can tell you what is good and not good. They need to be offered them daily, they prob won't be interested at first but eventually they will. As adults there diet becomes mainly greens so it's very important that they get used to them early on.

So this is a lot of info, but you're already doing the right thing by researching first. It'll take a while to sink and make sense...took me three weeks before I understoood all this forum advice and what it all meant (What's a che, how do I set up lights correctly...these are big questions) but now it all makes sense...it's pretty simple once you understand it.

Just do lots of this on this forum and soon it will all come together and you'll be like...I get it! :study: