Reptile & Amphibian Forums

While my sister is moving she entrusted me with the care of her bearded dragons. It looks like her female is gravid, as both her and the male have been housed together all year. So my questions are:
-How should I prepare a laying box?
-What's the best incubation method?
-Can the babies thrive on a diet of primarily mealworms (appropriately sized, of course)? Mealworms are cheaper, easier, and cleaner than crickets.

I've been feeding the female everything she can eat, and started feeding her a lot more protein that usual (crickets and mealworms).

Any other advice would be great. Thanks.

Nope. You shouldn't feed babies meal worms at all actually. The hard chitin shells on mealies will quickly impact and kill a young dragon. You can use crickets, silkworms, and even roaches, but no superworms, waxworms or meal worms.

Your sister is REALLY going to owe you for thie. Are you aware that baby dragons eat anywhere from 30-80 crickets a day EACH? That an average clutch size is aroudn 20 eggs? That from one breeding a dragon can lay MANY clutches (I got eight from one female this year, and believe me there was NO way to stop her from laying once she bred, I would never have wanted her to produce that many eggs, its too much stress on her).

It costs around $1000 to get setup for hatchlings. You will need to order several thousand crickets a week. I spend an hour just caring for the crickets everyday!

The babies MUST be fed THREE times a day at the exact same time. If you are late the hatchlings will very likely start to eat the toes and tails off of each other. This means that you have to very carefully plan EVERYTIME you leave your house to be gone for just a few hours and get right back. There is no weekends off, its everyday. You will likely have the clutches start to catch up with each other. One clutch will hatch, and before they are old enough to sell the next clutch will hatch. It really takes a whole room to raise hatchlings. You should only keep about 5 hatchlings per bin, so you will need a lot of lights in metal reflectors, you will need a lot of bins, and you will need some way to get UVB to the babies. You will need several incubators, and a place to keep them that does not flucuate in temperature more then a few degrees.

Anyway, I hope you make your sister understand that this is not a little thing that she is asking of you. It is a full time job and it takes a lot of money to setup the first time. GOod Luck!
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Dragons by Nature

Kakadu is correct about many of the points posted, but I have to say that I disagree with some of them. I’m not saying Kakadu is wrong, but in my experience you don’t have to fed babies three times a day at the exact same time. I feed mine twice a day (though they do have veggies to eat whenever they want) and it is not at the exact same time (I do sleep in on the weekends). If you under feed the dragons it does increase the risk up nips, but I guess I haven’t under fed mine since I’ve never had that problem (or I’ve just been lucky).

The other problem I have with Kakadu’s post is the exaggerations in the post. Sure it can cost around $1000 to get a setup for hatchlings, but you can do a very good job of it for a third of that or less ($50 for a incubator, some suitable plastic bins to house the babies in, and some lights. Babies should have very little in the way of decorations in their bins so I don’t know what other costs Kakadu is referring to other than food and supplements). Yes some dragons lay 8 clutches a year, but this is not typical (especially if it is the females first year of breeding). Also, the odds are a fair amount of the eggs won’t hatch if this is your first time breeding.

As far as mealworms, they should not be a stable of a dragons diet. I wouldn’t recommend giving them any until they’re about four months old. After its okay to give them to sometimes (but not every day). I have some in my frig as a backup food supply if I run out of crickets and can’t get to the store that same day. I have many dragons (the count as of this morning is 21, 13 of which are new babies), and I do not raise my own crickets (if you just have just one breeding female it probably isn’t worth the time and energy to breed your own crickets).

I totally agree that your sister is going to owe you big. Baby dragons are lots of work (fun too though). Enough of this post, you need to do a lot of reading (check out the threads others have provided and do some web searches for bearded dragon breeders. Many of them have detailed instructions and care sheets).

Here's a page I wrote up that has some of the info you asked about. it's def something you will need a lot of advice and help with to do right.

http://www.dragonsbynature.com/breedinginfo.htm

good luck with your dragons.

brandon
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Dragons by Nature

My sister, who bred these two last year, said the clutch she is about to lay should be her last for the season, implying that she laid this many last year. The clutches she laid earlier my sister threw out because she doesn't have the time to deal with them. Don't say anything to me about that, she should have separated them, I had no control over that (we don't live together).

As for setups, I have half a dozen spare 10 gallon tanks laying around. I have extra lights and fixtures, a UVB light thats on the parents at the moment... everything I've read leads me to believe that, with proper supplementation, I can put the UVB on the parents one day, the babies the next, and so on. Any thoughts on that? A new, full-time light for the babies would be $20, no biggie.

My sister gets usually about 20 eggs, two-thirds of which usually hatch. Usually. I realize there could be more.

As for an incubator, I have her Hova-bator already set up, and mine has gecko eggs in it, but theres lots of room there too, just incase.

So I figure all I'm going to have to buy is maybe a UVB light and crickets, of course in bulk, and try to keep them alive.... I hate crickets...

Anythign I missed? Thanks for the replies, I apreciate the help.