What got you into bearded dragons?

[ShiverBug]

Well, that's Krueger's story. Sorry, didn't mean to write a book, here.

You can't leave the story like that! I need to see a photo of this awesome dragon of yours! She sounds amazing.

LOL Ok, here are a few.

As a baby:

When I decided to take her home, finally:

Prolly my fav pic:

 

[ladygodiva35]

She is for sure unique. It must be amazing to have such a cutie of a dragon as she is. I'd love to adopt one as precious as she is but one dragon is enough for me. lol

 

[ShiverBug]

She is for sure unique. It must be amazing to have such a cutie of a dragon as she is. I'd love to adopt one as precious as she is but one dragon is enough for me. lol

Likewise - she's the only dragon for me, especially since she cannot be housed with anyone. She's my one and only... dragon ^_^

 

[cbbrown]

I've always liked lizards, just never allowed to have any since my mom was scared of them. My first herp was a tiger salamander. I had him from a larva at 4 inches to an adult at 10 inches. Then i got a painted turtle, princess squirtle the turtle. But i was forced to get rid of them both. Then i finally got my first lizard shuji the mali uromastyx. He was kind of unplanned but i researched plenty before he was given to me. But there was always something missing, my partner and i wanted a bearded dragon. so yesterday my partner surprised me with an adult bearded dragon. My first bearded dragon is named kaisei, he and shuji are my babies. I'm having problems getting him to eat but that's another story and another thread.

 

[Firebonbon]

I'd always wanted a reptile as a pet, namely a snake. Thing is, my mom is TERRIFIED of snakes and most reptiles, so I'm not gonna get one of those until I move out! I always watched videos of corn snakes and ball pythons on Youtube because a girl can dream.... when I stumbled upon this video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CskNJ1fFzU
And I was like, "Oh my gosh... A lizard can be that.... cute?!" Hundreds of adorable videos of beardies later... my birthday comes up, and so I ask my mom for a bearded dragon. I even offered to pay for everything but the bearded dragon and I saved up tons of money and gift cards. I NEVER thought she'd actually surprise me when I came home with Paco staring right back at me!

 

[MapleDeer]

I wanted to get a snake at first, but because my mom is afraid of snakes, I can't have one, so she suggested a lizard. She owned an iguana when she was younger.

 

[SuperCraz123]

For me ever since I was a little kid I was attracted to the reptile sections of pet stores and at one pet store I saw my first bearded dragon and thought it was the neatest thing ever. Form that moment on I bugged my mom for years about getting one I did all the research got all the right equipment and she finally let me get one. So we found a breeder here in ohio who had to very neat citrus babies he was selling and we ended up making a deal and I came away with both of them...unfortunately one of the babies develope coccidia and we treated it for a month with vet prescribed medicine unfortunately at the end of the month of treating it passed away so now I just have my big girl minx and am planning to find her a mate this summer

 

[ilovestripedragon]

My grandma! When i was younger, my grandma was a paraprofessional in a school. The school had a bearded dragon, a snake, and a turtle and my grandma would always care for them over the summer when there was no school. Of course, the beardie got me hooked!

 

[DracoLord510]

When I was younger, I volunteered at a local zoo and got assigned to the reptile and snake building because nobody else really cared to. I didn't mind, because as a kid I was the one picking up wild snakes, frogs, and turtles and bringing them home. While I was there, I got the opportunity to meet a bearded dragon owned by a coworker and pretty much just fell in love.

When I met my now-wife-then-girlfriend we were discussing getting a pet, and we don't have room for a dog or cat. We went to a local breeder and ended up going home with a tiny hypomelanistic orange beardie we later named Lola. She's kind of "my" lizard because when we picked her out, I put a hand in the cage and she climbed right on.

Two months later, we decided we didn't like sharing Lola and my wife's birthday was coming up, so we visited a local store and found a small black bearded dragon who 'nobody wanted because he was mean'. He got out of the cage and literally ran away. They tried to convince us not to get him because he was a 'bad lizard', but that made my wife want him even more. On the way home, we stopped for coffee and ended up naming him Java.

The two of them now live in 50 gallon tanks in separate rooms in our house, and we intend to breed them once Lola gets big enough. I love my lizards!

 

[LadySlylyss]

Good question!

I love animals so much and I use to work at Petsmart. Every morning when I came to open the store all the little bearded dragons would run up to the tank and put there hands against it when they saw me, I loved it, I felt greeted, like they were excited to see me. Ive been fascinated by them ever since. I looked up things about them and there personality and now two years later I finally decided to get one! My boyfriend got a big check from his car getting hit and so we both got to get ourselves something. He decided to get a Wii U and I decided to get a bearded dragon!

 

[Pazuzu]

my roommate came home with a corn snake and that piqued my interest and reptiles, I had never had any reptiles only dogs and cats when I was younger I was never very keen on snakes but lizards were always pretty interesting. The roommate came home with a baby bearded dragon and I absolutely fell in love with it. I had to get one for myself. after about 2 weeks of research I got my first dragon on Valentine's Day this year with my boyfriend. hi absolutely love him one of my favorite pets I think I watch him as much as he watches me.

 

[jenn4turtles]

... He decided to get a Wii U and I decided to get a bearded dragon!

LOL. Both good choices!

 

[BlueMorpho]

I've been blessed with animal love all my life; always had dogs and cats in the house, fish, and my brother and sister both had rats when I was young. My Auntie (who lived on a farm) had an aviary at home where, during my regular summer stays, I'd learn to clean the cages and learned tons and tons about the different species. She even gave me one of my own. Auntie always stressed how important it was to learn as much as you can to give animals the best.
(She passed away a few weeks ago, and chatting with someone at her wake it was mentioned that I talk of and research my dragons just like she did her birds ^.^*)

When I was about twelve, I was part of a program called "CinemaZoo Nature Club". The same fellow who runs Urban Safari Animal Rescue had us over once a week to clean cages and learn about all kinds of exotic pets. I was in charge of cleaning the rodent cages, but I loved holding and petting the tarantulas and lizards, too. Gary (the owner) had a HUGE iguana that was almost always with him, and I was utterly fascinated by him, too!!

I became really interested in reptiles when I frequented pet stores for supplies and occupants for my four wonderful fishtanks about 6 years ago.
Like another poster, I had really wanted a Uro!! Expense and space prevented me from getting one, though.

A few years later, a friend of mine who bred dragons hired me to babysit while he went on vacation, and continued to have me over to help him do tank cleans (not as big of a job with an extra pair of hands).
When he had to downsize, he offered me one of his breeding pairs, but again, I couldn't accept.

Fast forward to about a month before I turned 25, my ex (we'd stayed friends) asked me what I wanted for my birthday. He knew I'd been really depressed, and suggested a pet. Landlords were very allergic to dander, so no cats, dogs, or rodents. It broke my heart when my budgie Buddy died, and I didn't think my landlords would appreciate a noisy bird, either. And I wanted to have something a little more interactive than fish.
Looked around Craigslist to see if I could find a Uro, and Striker came up.
I fell in love instantly.
My signature links to Striker and Eri's thread

Thanks for such a great question; I love reading everyone's stories!!

 

[kamelotte]

I've always been into the idea of reptile, amphibians, and insects as pets. I loved reading about them and looking at them, because they were colorful and funny and didn't make me sneeze. I remeber being 7-8 years old, trying to convince my parents that an anole was basically the same level as a fish, can I have one please they're 10$ each(oh how wrong I was)? When I was 10 I saw a Fire Salamnder at Petland and thought their orange bellies were the neatest thing. When I was 11 my parents got me a cat to shut me up. When I was 13 I saw a blue-tongued skink for the first time and fell in love because as far as I was concerned it was like a snake and lizard rolled into one. When I was 14 my friend got a cornsnake and I was insanely jealous. When I was 17 I found out Scorpions had become a more mainstream animal in the pet trade and begged my parents to let me get one. When I turned 18 I finnally paid some attention to bearded dragons.

I had brushed them off as an ugly lizard nobody wanted initially. You see, I live in Canada. Northern Canada. Pet stores don't bring in many reptiles because of 1. the tempratures and 2. everybody wants hunting dogs so thats the focus. The first Bearded dragon I saw was a bad impression. It was at Petland when I was 14, an extremely grumpy adult who was dark from what I now know was improper heat and light, wrinkly from lack of hydration, and thin from lack of feeding (sunken fat pads make beardies look scary ). But when my parents finally caved when I was 18 and said I could have a reptile I started doing some research on what would be a good starter... interactive lizard? It was either a Skink or Beardie. I ultimately went beardie because by this point I'd seen pictures of healthy adults and the BABIES. I have yet to find a cuter baby lizard TBH.

So I did the research. Colors, feeding, habitat, female (eggs) vs. male (neurotic during mating season), lighting, enclosure sizes, I read it all. Fortunately I didn't buy one of those awful box setups because I had you guys on this forum to tell me how bad it is :lol:. Shipped in a Reptisun tube (they only carry reptiglo here), Then came the time to pick a lizard.

Local pet shop was out; they housed their beardies together on loose substrate and could not gender them, also did not feed properly. I wanted a "fancy" color but couldn't afford to import from the states and wasn't willing to risk an animals safety at the border. Beardie Breeder pickings in the great white north are slim but I found Capital Dragons Canada. I picked the one I wanted (my baby Diesel; His sale picture had his head turned to the camera over his shoulder and his mouth open so I knew he was full of sass :lol: ) and fired off an email. They're great people to buy from in Canada. They actually followed up on the shipping setup for air travel to make sure it was heated cargo before sending him out. When they found out it wasn't heated on the connecting vancouver flight to my location they called me right away to let me know it would be delayed and made the trip again 2 days later (they're located 4 hours from the airport they use to ship so they usually ship in batches) and followed up to make sure he was adjusting alright. Diesel was actually eating salad 2 hours after I got him home and ate bugs the next day after passing 100% healthy stool. And he had no stress marks, just a little darker on top. I could not have been more impressed with the little guy. Let me tell you though, 9 1/2 inches was a lot bigger in my head than what it turned out to be.

So yeah, thats the story? What a novel. Diesel is now a year and 2/3 old and 22 inches long. Grew to that length within his first 8 months of life, not sure what I did wrong/right (I mean he ate a lot as a baby. feeding 1 of the day- an entire tub of 100 large phoenixworms feeding 2- 125-150 small crickets. I went broke raising this boy). His favorite pastimes are throwing his salad everywhere, mocking the cats with his indiffrence and pressing himself right up against his enclosure door when I'm not paying enough attention to him :roll:

 

[fluffpuffgerbil]

The 'too long;didn't read' version: A life long passion and love for reptiles AND dogs got me into bearded dragons =)

Short novel version: I've loved reptiles for as long as I can remember. I was always obsessed with dragons(the fire breathing kind....still obsessed with them!) and was drawing them all the time, and I grew up in a place out in the middle of no where and was homeschooled so I didn't really get out and meet people until I was older and had no friends aside from my siblings around, so either by myself or with my younger sister, I'd go out and catch snakes and lizards and frogs all the time. I loved them a lot, would keep them in a critter keeper over night(I wouldn't mix snakes and lizards nad frogs, but I would keep several garters at once) and try to feed them, and then I'd let them go the next day. I was always good with wild reptiles! I even found a garter snake whose head was stuck in a soda can tab and I helped it out of the tab carefully before releasing it. I think I was seven.

We moved from that house to our current one when I was nine and I was interested in having a pet lizard. I already had a hamster, but I always loved lizards. My mother told me I'd never have a lizard while under this roof haha(oh man that's funny to think of now). But I started reading books and studying different types of reptiles. At this point, my only 'pet lizard' was a rubber iguana who I loved a lot :lol:

I wanted a bearded dragon after reading between them and leopard geckos, my two choices. Somehow I still managed to persuade my mom and dad to let me get a lizard or at least let myself prove to them that I could take care of one on my own. I had my mom take me to the petstore so I could look at the dragons and write down the supplies I needed and the prices of them so I knew how much money I'd need. Then I saw the Crested Geckos. I have never heard of them or seen them before! So I went home and did my research. At one point I had already bought the things I needed for a dragon, only to decide I wanted a gecko instead. So I returned that stuff and got stuff for a crestie, and that's what I got! I got a crested gecko, my lovely boy Boga, and I still have him to this day. So I had my crestie for several years, happy as could be with him. I ended up getting into a dog obsession four years later, when I was 13. I REALLY wanted a dog of my own, despite the fact we already had a dog. But I'm a persistent, stubborn person, so I started saving my money and figuring out how I could get our current dog to get along with a new dog. I think I had about 200 dollars saved up when I really did realise another dog wouldn't work out at all. So I remember my dad was doing some building work and my mom was over there, and I went over and was like: Hey can I use my money to buy a bearded dragon instead of a dog?'
And my dad was like: i don't care'
So I began the process of getting the stuff together! I wanted to have everything set up before I got him, but one day my mom and I were at petsmart 'just to look' at the dragons and we saw they had two. One larger and one smaller. The larger was sitting on top of the smaller and I fell in love with the bigger one! And I ended up taking Scout home that day, 2 months old and 8 inches long. We had a bumpy road at hte beginning, especially with remembering to clean his cage and the cost of crickets, but here we are today. Now I have 3 bearded dragons, 7 crested geckos, 1 gargoyle gecko, a leopard gecko, and that's just my current amount. I was breeding cresties awhile ago, so I had a LOT of cresties.

Bless my parents, they put up with my crazy lizard obsessions haha. but I always proved I could care for them myself. I was a responsible child when it came to my pets. I had rats and a snake before, too. I had to write persuasive essays to get those ones though ;D