Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 2 lovely young beardies. Elizabeth is a Chris Allen Scar/Siren x Crimson Red/Blood at 19 wks. old. She measures 12" and seems healthy and happy. Merlin is Redflame/Foxfire Red x Hypo Red/Sandfire at 20 wks. old and 12.5" in length. Merlin is a fat and happy guy.

Both should be screaming red in color, but are mostly dark brown with some only slightly reddish tones. Do they color up with age? Both are undersized according to the chart provided by the kindly Dachiu, as average at this age is 15.575". They are certainly not thin.

My friends are sharing a 39 gal acrylic. They are on paper towels. They enjoy a Reptisun 10 and a 60 Watt incandescent (10" from basking site). Basking site is 110 F and cool side is 82. I provide a mixed salad consisting of collard greens, mustard greens, dandelion greens, chopped carrots or squash in the morning, then crickets when I return from work. I dust the crickets with a mix of 75% Reptical and 25% Herptivite. I drop in around 25 crickets ranging 1/2" - 3/4". Maybe feed more? They eat most of their salad and all of the crickets. Is it possible to overfeed? How often should I be dusting the crickets at their current age?

By the way, I am studying various plans to build a larger, more suitable habitat for each of them. How long can they cohabitate?

Thanks, in advance, for your helpful responses. I am happy to be "Lurker No More."

A lot of beardie coloration actually has to do with lighting, funnily enough. I would purchase a Mercury Vapor bulb from www.reptileuv.com...these bulbs are excellent and really help to bring out color.

In the "Bearded Dragon Manual" by Phillipe De Vosjoli he has a section about (this is ROUGHLY paraphrased) a guy who boguth some bloodreds from a guy who raised all his dragons in a greenhouse type enclosure with lots of natural sunlight. The man who bought some of the babies contacted the breeder a few months later and complained that the colors of the babies were not very good and he wanted to return them. He returned the dragons and the breeder placed them back in a greenhouse type enclosure with his original babies...he noticed a great difference in color between the beardies that had been raised in his greenhouse setup with natural sunlight vs. the dragons that had been raised inside on fluorescent lights. Within a month or so of being retuened to natural lighting, the beardies who had shown poor coloration were just as impressive as the ones who had been raised in the natural lighting.

Anyway, a MVB bulb is closer to natural lighting than a fluoresct. If you live in an area where you can expose your dragons to real natural sunlight this time of year, that is an even better idea.

On top of that, i would separate the two dragons - there are a variety of reasons to do this, however the one that bears most influence here is stress. Housing two young dragons together is stressful on them - and stress will lead to less impressive colors (as well as poor overall health in the longrun)
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1.1 Bearded Dragons
2.2 Leopard Geckos
1.0 Uromastyx (Mali)
1.1 Corn snakes
0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake
1.0 Rosy Boa
1.1 Green Anoles
1.1 House Geckos
0.0.2 Flying Geckos
0.0.1 Red Eye Tree Frog

I raised a male and female unrelated in the same cage from 8 weeks to about 20 weeks.
I seperated them, and within a week, I noticed a HUGE growth spurt, my female who was starting to LAG way behind my guy (12 female, 14 male, at seperation) Within a mont my girl was bigger then the guy.

I use MVB, however i find it difficult to maintain proper temps with proper throw distance on the light. There are MANY aspects of MVB I am growing uncomfortable with.
There are some sources that state if the bulb is not perfectly straight down, the UVB suffers greatly.
Meaning the UVB will not be sufficient UVB for the entire 4' by 2' cage minimum recomended.
I am useing my MVB for another month, and at that time I will have 2 new custom cages built, with a flourescent tube running the back of the cage and use incandecant spots to provide the appropriate heat from cage top.

I agree MVB brings out brilliant colors, even after a 30 min bake under then, My Dragons come out bright as can be.

I plan on useing my MVB from a 3foot throw distance ofer the cages still, this will not help in heat, however will make me more confortable with the other stories that 24" could even be to close.
Right now I have pulled them back to a MAX of 18" still weary that my dragons may be suffering, 12 months under this set up, 1 more month they can last. My new cages will be crazy good, and will settle all my worries, and deal with all issues I have learned here.

Good luck with your setup
I would deff seperate them, and watch them GROW, I plan on reintegrating my dragons to a 2 decker ramped 4'x2'x'4height cage, with a devider at 2ft height, when they are 24 months.

Thanks for the input on MVB. I had considered it for the new cages, but I think I will stick with flourescent strip lights for UVB. Should they run the length of a 4' long cage, or would a 24" UVB be adequate? Would you suggest that I buy or build my new cages?

The brighter your cages are the better. So I'd run the light the full length. Keep in mind that on the cool end the only light will be from the fluorescent. Also, make sure your cage has an inside measure of at least 48" if you're going to run a 4' fixture the long way. You could also just make it a little wider and run 2 lights front to back like I do.

Buy or build is really a personal decision. I build my own because I'm not real happy with anyone else's design.

Interesting, and important for pre-planning. Do you mean that you use 2 24" fixtures ceiling mounted? For a gage 10" in height should I use 10's?

Typo above. A cage 20" in height (I may make it 18".

When I built my dragon cages I made the cage 5'x2'x2' and used double florescent fixtures that are four feet long and centered it. it means about 6" on either end but the tubes fully cover the tank. The shop light fixtures are Use however are not screwed into the top of the cage but suspended by hooks so the actually light fixture can be adjusted for best height to ensure the UVB rays push down to the floor of the cage and still have some strength. I use the exo-terre 8.0's lights as I haven't been able to find the zoo-med 10's around. Unfortunately I can't ship them up from the US...and so far they never have them at the reptile shows, or they sell out before I get to the Zoo-Med booth.

With a double fixture I have one uvb tube and one full spectrum plant growing type bulb..though it is possible to put two uvb tubes in as well. I use the normal full spectrum to give greater light and brightness in the cage and any other light which is beneficial to my dragon and skinks. But moistly its the light intensity.
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PHLdyPayne

The outside height measure of my cages are 24". So the inside is 22 1/2" less substrate and the amount the bulbs hang down in the fixtures. Therefore, nowhere is further than 20"

Where do you live? Perhaps if you find it difficult to keep up the temperature, you can add one or two, or how ever more, heat lamp to the set up. Adding more heat lamp is good way to raise the temperature. Also you might try to raise the wattage of the bulb you are using.

I am in Indiana. What do you think of controlling ambient via a radiant heating panel on a proportional thermostat?

I prefer radiant heat from bulbs. It seems more natural for beardies since in the wild they bask in the sun and get most of the heat from the from the sun shining down on them. You can use radiant heat from the heat panel in conjunction with the bulb. It is my experience the the heat panel doesn't heat the basking spot up very much.

I agree forget about the panels and use bulbs. Believe me their is no such thing as too bright. Sometimes I look at my enclosures and wish they were brighter.

Give them all the crickets they will eat in a 15-20 minute period. You cannot overfeed them. Offer salad in between. I'd skip the vegs. at this stage. Here's a good link:

http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html

I would dust every live meal but one a week with Calcium only. Make sure it contains no Phosphorus or Vitamin A. One meal a week I would dust exclusively with a multivitamin.

As far as separating them that's a tough call. If they are both female, and stay about the same size you may be OK long term. If they are both male you need to separate them now. If they are m/f, you should separate them when the male starts head bobbing, probably soon.

I'm not an MVB believer but own some and use them for my unenclosed basking areas. Personally I don't think they have any effect on colors. A UVB 10 according to Zoo Med gives UVB penetration to 20" assuming their is no obstruction. A fine screen costs 50% of UVB so the distance would have to be within 10". Glass, Acrylic, or Plexi, block all UVB. Every area in my enclosures is within 20" from the UVB source. The basking spot is closer.

You should strive for a basking spot of 110-115 with an ambient of 90 or so for babies and juvies. Your low side at 82 is fine.

Thanks. I will follow that dusting regimen. They are M/F and I think the time is now to separate. I fed crickets this morning and a salad for the day. For the first time they ate none of their salad (dandelion, while it's still available). They ate their fill of dusted crickets again this eve.

Thanks for the high quality responses. I am moving cage-building to the top of my priority list. Now seems like a good time to separate Merlin and Liz. I will also increase frequency and volume of cricket feedings.

It's hard to guarantee the color of your bearded if you buy them as hatchlings. Whatever the morph you have the color will start tot develop as the dragon age, so you just have to wait and see. Sometimes, they don't develop the colors you hope for even if the parents are of specific color. I know! Bearded dragons are weird unlike geckos.

As for dusting and overfeeding them. I dust my dragon crickets with calcium 5 times a week lightly and multivitamin 2-3 times a week. You want to dust your feeding insects because they have lousy calcium to phosphorous ratio and don't necessarily contain all the vitamins your dragon needs. I tend to feed as much as my dragon will eat. There has been study done that suggest that reptiles will not eat when they are not hungry and will naturally stop when they have enough unlike mammals, such as dogs and humans, which are gorgers, and will eat even they are not hungry. Retpiles are cold-blooded animals and don't need to eat nearly as much as warmblooded animals that's why they won't eat when they are not hungry. So you can't overfeed them; they just won't eat.

Yes, it's true. For the past few days I've doubled the feeding and they just quit when full. They are eating more crickets and less of their salad, but that's OK. I read that adult beardies only require calcium dusting once/week. At what age should I reduce dusting frequency?

You should reduce the amount of dusting at probably around 18 months. That's when they are fully mature and the growth rate slow down to nearly a halt.

I reduce live food for adults, therefore I am also reducing calcium supplementation. Personally, live food should always be dusted to improve the CAH ratio. My big male adults get live food 2-3 times a week. One meal is dusted with a multi, the others with calcium.