Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Since im looking into buying a beardie i was wondering what it will be like cleaning the cage. I work at a nice pet store that actually takes care of it's animals (that's rare) so I clean bd cages already, but i need to know if they ALWAYS have such foul smelling feces. The juvenile dragons at work don't seem to deficate every single day, but when they do it's a big pile when compared to their body size. IS this normal? If i do get a beardie it's going to be in my room so i'm wondering how much it might stink in here if an adult beardie poops while i'm at work or something. I've dealt with burmese python poo stinking up my room so i'm kind of hoping i can find something not quite as bad. If the Burm wasn't so huge it probably wouldn't really smell all that bad. A beardie on the othe hand seems to really pack a punch if you know what i mean.

In my experience, the odor and frequency of bearded dragon feces varies with food, age and health. Babies eat LOTS daily, so they poop LOTS, daily. As they get older and eat less and digest more efficiently, they poop less often. My adults probably poop once or twice a week. When they are eating a lot of veggies with high water content, it is runnier. Crickets seem to produce the strongest smelling poop, almost a very strong "stable-like" smell. Silkies and supers seem to produce less strongly odored feces. Pellets can make dragons of all ages poop more often (and in interesting hues!) but it isn't terribly smelly. Some of this will also vary from animal to animal.

Parasites can make feces very smelly. They can also make the digestive system not work as effectively, so the poops can contain a lot of undigested material and thus be larger than they might otherwise be. Too-large prey items can have the same effect. I keep my cages clean with grapefruit seed extract and chlorhexadine and remove feces daily. The dragons also get daily baths. I don't use crickets for adults, everybody gets a wide variety of veggies supplemented with pellets, silkies and the occasional superworm, and I no longer have any problem with odor from the dragon cages.