Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone have a cost breakdown on keeping 2 beardies (same cage) with food, enclosure, lights, etc?

Thanks.

Depends on the price and size of tank and beardies? Lights cost about 10-15 for fixtures and about 3-50 for lights, andthing you put in is your choice. Substrate Papertowels is the cheapest and efficent and healthiest for your beardies!

well, i'm thinking about 4x2x2, which is about a 120 gallon, but I like sliding doors, so it will have to be custom.

Also, I'm probably looking at 2 babies/juvies, probably reds.

I'm interested in what people have invested. Any ideas?

Well i have a 50 breeder right now, which cost about 80 bucks and my two i got at shows one was 40 and the other was 30. SHows are much better to get herps at i beleieve. I posted pics of them as well!Not here but a new thread it says 2 silly beardies!

maybe cost wise anyways.

I tend to believe that reptiles are more stressed at shows then say, from a breeders house or maybe even in the mail, though that one I'm not sure about.

I tend to think reptiles are more susceptible to illness in that sort of environment and impulse buys are more likely than if you did more research. I bought a leopard gecko from a show that only lived a few short months before he succumbed to what I believe was crypto.

On that note, always bring your reptiles to the vet after purchase. We all know or should know how common these issues are in the pet trade. I wish I had been smarter at the time.

Sorry you had a bad experience, i still prefer shows verses anyone else. I have had nothing but troubles order reptiles offline, due to site unseen and not really positive what your getting till you get it.

All herps are very stressed at shows, and through the mail. Mail is even worse due to temp drops and traveling all throughout the night.

Owning any herp is very expensive and very costly. I do not take my herps to the vet right away, sorry i have way to many for that. If something happens and they tend to go downhill they will get a checkup. Other then that. No problems. Good luck!

I only have one pastel dragon, the cost of setting up the cage with lights, food, decor, carpet (I've since switched to tile) and everything else ended up running me about $400, I have a 40 gallon breeder right now. Note this doesnt' include the cost of the dragon. Also, if you play on buying crickets/food from a local pet store, you can expect to pay about $30-40 a week just for crickets when they are juvies. Right now mine eats about 50 a day. Plus I've spent an additional $100 or so to get everything set up how I want, and with things I found that worked better than the inital set up I have. So to get it exactly how I want, $500 plus the cost of food and the dragon himself. A custom cage, unless you build it yourself, will likely run you quite a bit more.

thanks profilergirl, thats exactly the 411 I was looking for.

Have you considered superworms and pellets to cut down on the 30-40$/week you spend on crix? Also, do you always buy your crix from the petstore?
Have you considered ordering your crix in bulk?

Just a few thoughts. What do you think? Could you have done it cheaper and if so, how?

That's such a hard question to answer. The hardest part is how fast the Dragons grow. Do you go with all adult size cage and all right from the start? Or do you give them a beginning size and then change later?

Well I believe that the minimum cage size for an adult bearded dragon is 4' x 2' for a pair 6' x 2'. A 4 x 2 enclosure is about $400 by the time you pay tax & freight. It's pretty close whether you go with Vision Cages, CustomCages.com or a glass aquarium with a screen top. A cage 6' is closer to $500.

Then you need furniture. Per Dragon say 2 - 1/2 logs $20 a basking log $20 Substrate $20 Digital Thermometer with probe $10 Combination Hood $70 UVB Lamp $25 UVA Bulbs $5 Spot light bulb for basking area $6 Clamp lamp for spot light $12 Food and water dishes $20 Calcium $6 Multivitamin $12

Greens/Vegs. cost me about 50 cents per dragon per day. 1000 crickets costs me $19.00 delivered. For 2 adult dragons that would last about a month. For 1 juvenile that could last about 2 weeks.

So I come up with $226 per Dragon before food and without the enclosure. My estimates are for a basic set up. There is always more expensive stuff to buy. Also I didn't include a myriad or other stuff you'll need. Like cricket cages, nail clippers, cage and furniture disinfectant, cricket food, and various other supplies. Bottom line dragon's aren't cheap.

The good part is when you fall in love with them you eventually have all of the hard items, then it's not too bad. Oh, except for the electric bill. lol.

There are many reptile supply web sites where you can price this stuff out. I recommend reptilesupply.com, thatpetplace.com, or lllreptile.com all have good prices and selection. Some are better on certain items than others so shop around.

thats some great info!

I hope more people read this before they go to their favorite chain petstore and buy one of these little guys on impulse.

Comparatively, my leopard and african fat tailed gex are a lot cheaper to keep. But, I need a daytime friend. ; )

Everyone has given you a pretty decent break down of the costs but I wanted to add in here.. You mentioned using superworms and pellets in place of crickets, and that is something you cannot do, especially for a juvenile dragon. For the pellets, if you can even get a dragon to eat them, they are not a got staple for their diet, and reall i feel, that they shouldnt even be sold. Dragons are not used to a dry food and when eating it on a regular basis are more subject to dehydration. Superworms are much to large for baby beardies and should only be given when your dragon reaches around 10in in length. Still, they should not be used as a staple of thier diet, as the nutritional value is not very good. Insects that can be used as a dietary staple include Crickets, roaches, silkworms, and a few others. Most of these other insects are actually more expensive than crickets, but occaisionally you can find good deals online for them. The cost of food actually goes down a little as your dragon gets older though, because the amount of insects the dragon eats goes down, and the greens go up. Greens are really cheap, you can go to wal mart and get s huge bunch of mustard greens for 50 cents. But anyway what I am trying to really get at here, is Its really quite expensive to start out the $250 cage, the $100 worth of lighting, $100 substrate, decor etc. $20 worth of vitamins, definately looking at at least 500 to start out.. maybe more, but you really cant take short cuts with it. If you start looking for short cuts you will only hurt the dragon in the long run, they need what they need, and beardies arent very forgiving creatures. They are fairly finicky when it comes to their health. I had a friend get some beardies long before I ever got into them, and he tried to take a bunch of shortcuts.. skipped out on the UVB bulbs, didnt have enough heat, who knows what else he didnt wanna spend all the money on it. His dragons didnt last a month. I didnt make that mistake when I got my first beardie and he is goin on 2 years old now. Sorry to ramble.. good luck.
-Dustin
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1.0 Bearded Dragons
1.3 Fat tailed geckos
0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa

if you want to bring cost down a bit here are some tips

for heat bulbs, use basic home soft white light bulbs. work just fine to give off heat, and not expensive. get fixtures with ceramic bases from home depot or lowes. dont buy the crap from pet stores

buying and breeding roaches is easy and cheapest in the long run. they may cost more at once but they are worth it, and better for your dragon than crickets. more meat in the roaches. crickets are mostly water and roaches are mostly meat. about 4-5 large dubia roaches 3 times a week do an adult dragon perfect, vs crickets. silk worms, hornworms, pheonix worms, are also very good. baby and juvi dragons do just fine on roaches also. id buy like 100 or so roaches, and breed them. they breed quick. dubia and discoids are best. they are 2-3 inches in size. lobster roaches work well, but are the size of crickets, climb, and breed REALLT fast.

roach sites
www.blaberus.com
www.discoids.com

and as for the cage...if you have some building talent, or some help, BUILD YOUR OWN!!!! you can build the size you need and the way you want. Melamine wood is what most are made of. go into the forums under CAGES and you can find plans to build them. the most expensive part of building a cage is the glass doors.

and if you plan on having 2 dragons together, which is not recommended, you need a minimum of 6 foot long cage. a single adult should be minimum 4x2x2. 2 males should never be kept together, male/female together can lead to overbreeding, and 2 females can stress each other out but alot of people do it. young dragons can be kept together but later seperated

here is a pic of similar melamine cages

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Beach Beardies

2.4. bearded dragons
1.0. Turquoise x Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

Great ideas.

I hope this thread keep people like your friend and many others from making bad choices for their pet. 500$ is no joke and certainly not easy for a teenager's wages. I'm 24, work full time and I'm still not sure if this is a smart financial decision.

Thanks for correcting me on the pellet thing too. Although, it seems to me that crix don't really provide that much to hydrate the beardie in the first place. So, I'm not sure how pellets would deyhydrate these little guys with proper veggies and daily misting. But again, this thread is about cost and I appreciate your honesty.

>>
>>Thanks for correcting me on the pellet thing too. Although, it seems to me that crix don't really provide that much to hydrate the beardie in the first place. So, I'm not sure how pellets would deyhydrate these little guys with proper veggies and daily misting. But again, this thread is about cost and I appreciate your honesty.

When a dragon eats a cricket, the cricket's body is providing a limited amount of moisture to the dragon.. crickets contain water. When a dragon eats a dry pellet, that pellet is taking/removing moisture from the dragon's body..dry pellets do not contain water.
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PHWyvern

The biggest price in buying a dragon, will be the cost of the adult sized cage, UVB fixtures and food. The cost of the animal is small compared to that.

Giving a price list on each item you need to buy is difficult as the prices do vary depending on location, size of cage, whether it is wood, class, acrylic, custom made etc. ALso, cage decorations can vary in price as well, depending on what you buy and where you buy it.

A simple feeding dish can cost anywhere between $.50 to $10 depending where you get it and what type you go for. Same for just about everything else you buy. About the only thing that is pretty consistent in prise is the UVB bulb. Most places sell them at pretty much the same price, be it the local pet store, or an online supplier. (once adding in shipping etc). Just about everything else you can buy cheaply or spend as much money as you wish on it.

About 90% of the tank supplies you need for your bearded dragon can be found at a standard Dollar Store and home depot store. What can't be found at these places are the UVB lights and tanks. (unless you build your own, in which case you can find everything you need to do that at these stores, except the UVB light). Florescent tube and basking light fixtures can be found at a home hardware store or dollar store as well. Others have already indicated the best lights and fixtures to get.

I also want to emphasize that it is best to house bearded dragons separately. Babies and juveniles could be kept together, but should be separated by the time they are 6 months old, or sooner. The typical cage we give our dragons is not large enough for multiple dragons to really get along well. Some adjust and get along fine without any signs of stress etc. Some dragon keepers have kept multiple females together fine with no issues. Some have also had females get along for several years, then suddenly they fight and one or both wind up having toes or limbs bitten off by the other.

Thus, I always recommend housing dragons separately except during mating season, (with fully grown mature adults of both sexes (12 months or more for males, 15 months or more for females (though most breeders recommend 18 months or more for the female and a weight of at least 300g) and even then, only long enough for the male to do what he needs to do, and separating as soon as any real aggressive is shown.

Also, baby dragons are not easy to sex. Many breeders indicate they can sex baby dragons with 100% accuracy but till the dragons are 6 months old, this cannot be 100% accurate unless genetically checked or ultrasound (which I believe works with young dragons, but not 100% if it will work, till the dragons are older anyway). Thus, if you get two possible female dragons to house together, there is a chance one or both will wind up being a male and this will present you with problems. Two males in a small cage, (even a 6'x2'x'2 one) once they reach sexual maturity can and often will fight aggressively, usually till one is so severely injured it dies. Often if both are about the same size and weight and neither gives in, both could be so injured both may wind up dying if not separated and giving proper medical treatment.

When having a male/female pair together, then you run into the problem of your female become pregnant at a very young age (females could become gravid as young as 6 months of age, which is very very young and many complications could result form being gravid then, including death by egg binding, lack of proper nutrition etc.) Also, even if she doesn't develop eggs till she is older, the stress of the male trying to mate her all the time could result in her not eating enough, not basking enough, becoming heavily parasite infested and then having eggs to produce and sustain, could severely weaken her, again increasing risk of egg binding and other complications. Even in the best of situations, if she produces eggs, remains healthy and lays her clutch of eggs, you will then have the responsibility to either destroy the eggs or incubate them and rear the young. Not to mention the cost of buying extra cages, extra UVB lights, fixtures etc. Then you have to find new homes etc.

Giving the risks of housing two dragons together, and I haven't even touched upon the cross contamination of parasites, diseases etc. which will require both dragons being treated by a vet etc. I hope you can understand it is best to just house them individually from day one.

Thus, you will need to consider two cages that are at least 4x2x2' in dimensions, two UVB lights etc. so you costs effectively double.

If this will be your very first reptile, I suggest buying just one juvenile. Build a cage yourself (don't need to build it right away, as it is always best to start small dragons in a smaller cage. A 20-35Gal long aquarium is good for the first couple months or till the dragon is between 10-14" (smaller range for smaller cage, bigger range for larger cage) then you can move him into the adult cage). You can always ask a friend or family member who likes to build stuff to build you a cage with sliding glass doors on the front, vents on the side for air flow and attach the needed fixtures (ceramic for the basking lamp, florescent tube running the length of the cage (I recommend a double fixture, this way you can have a UVB bulb and a regular full spectrum bulb for extra light intensity and UVA light. Or if you want to pay the extra expensive, add a second UVB bulb).

Building your own will cost you roughly $50-$100 depending on the cost of melamine in your area as well as the light fixtures. And how big the cage will be. Not to mention the glass and getting it cut to fit.

When I had a family friend build my first bearded dragon cage, I used plywood, 1/4" for the bottom and back, the top was thicker plywood as I wanted the extra strength to hold the light fixtures. The sides and doors were a combination of plexi glass and aluminum screen. The entire cage was varnished to seal the wood off. The dimensions of the cage was 5'x2'x2'. I am up in Canada and it cost me roughly $150, including the price of the fixtures (not the UVB light, that was about $30). I used plastic table cloth for the substrate (with a layer of paper towel underneath for traction and to absorb any moisture leaking through the claw holes), A large piece of driftwood for a basking spot (which I collected from the wild and soaked in a bleach solution then air dried to disinfect). Feed dishes I bought from Dollarama, two large ceramic bowls for a dollar. I used a plastic rectangular flower planter as a hide (but wound up getting rid of it as my dragon never used it, she slept underneath the driftwood instead).

The cost in cage furniture was about $22 (most of which was the 3'x100' roll of plastic table cloth). Total cage cost was about $200 (which includes the cost of a 40oz bottle of rye as a thank you to the guy who built the cage for me. He was retired and doing wood working jobs like this during the summer gave him something to do, so he wasn't willing to be paid for it. I just had to cover the cost of wood.)

Right now I am playing to build three cages of the same size as the one above (well, two cages will be 5'x2'x18" as they will be for skinks, who do not need climbing room) and right now I have spent about $100 for the light fixtures, but haven't picked up the wood or UVB bulbs yet. I expect to pay another $200 for the wood and bulbs, but again i am using plywood. Melamine I was going to use initially but decided I didn't want to deal with the weight. I would rather spend an extra weekend varnishing the wood or painting it first, then having a cage that is so heavy I can't lift it at all on my own. The wooden cage i had made for my other dragon, was very light and easy to lift...just awkward due to it's length.

below is a picture of the cage i had built for my first dragon.

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PHLdyPayne

here are some thing i did to cut down on cost:
1) not soo many crickets and also used pellets as a staple diet. some crickets in the morning and pellets the rest of the day. I had to start out hand feeding it to him, and i soaked them in water for hydration. but ordering in bulk is better...
2) an hour of natural sun light a day is good for them and cut the cost of UV lighting. working for me
3) making a cage is a CRAP load cheaper than buying one(haven't made on yet). Some times you can have someone at a hardware store make it for you for a little extra charge.
4) substrate... newpaper. Not pretty but cheap and absobant. like the daily .50 paper might last you a week or so, depending on size of enlosure
5) as for stuff to put in the cage for basking,hiding, whatever, Look to the great out doors. There are logs, sticks and things and they are free. Just remember to clean it before it goes in the cage. Can either soak it in bleach water or bake it in the over 250 F for 30mins to kill germs and parasites. If you gonna bake it, make sure it's dry wood(been dead for a while). And for soaking, rinse well and dry in a venttilated area.

i think that about covers it... but always keep an eye out for ads, specials, sales and such. You can get good stuff that way. I got a 60(or is it 65?)gal screen enclosr for $20 and a 5ft iguana cage for $27.

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1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Rex- "normal" orange fire)
1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Glutany- German Giant Mix)
0.1.0 Okeetee Corn (Okatee)
1.1.0 Spotted Python (Hotdog and Shoelace)

Definitely buying them in bulk online is cheaper. I'm working up to it. lol I live in North Dakota, and shipping anything live here in the winter is not cheap. I ordered some phoenix worms online because no one here carries them, and it was $12 to ship them (for a box about 3 by 3 inches). I do have a friend who has 3 lizards of varying types and we will probably go in on a cricket setup and I'll just bring my bug vacuum over and take what I need every few days.

So yes, I'm still experimenting with the cheapest and easiest way to feed him. Not to mention, right now it's more worth my money to buy them as I need them than to deal with taking care of 1000 crickets. I have 2 kids who are fascinated with bugs and they would be all over the house.

I buy my crix from LLL reptiles which is the cheapest and most reliable i have found. I get 2000 crix for 26.99 shipped every two weeks. They also have mealies on there cheap as well. I buy them from a bait machine and don't lean towards mealies to feed as a staple, they are just treats. I feed crix and the veggies as a staple and they get mealies as treats.They also get adult beardie food which they don't like to much only eat every now and again. Papertowels is the cheapest and best subtrate as well.

www.ghanns.com
cricket website for everyone....cheapest i have found. beats out LLLreptile and everyone else.

www.coastalsilkworms.com
good site for silkworms, pheonix worms, and everything needed to care for them.

DO NOT USE PELLET FOOD AS A STAPLE FOOD SOURCE AS POSTED BEFORE!!!
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Beach Beardies

2.4. bearded dragons
1.0. Turquoise x Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

I bought my 4x2x2 tank for $50 on craigslist.com

I actually checked out ghanns and was going to change but it's not cheaper shipped to me then LLL. I pay 26.99 shipped from lll and it would be 42.00 shipped from GHANNS!!