Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone. I'm new (brand new) to keeping Bearded Dragons. I have to admit that I relied on the information of the pet store in getting started. Can you tell me if there are any changes that need to be made in order to insure the health of my new babies.
I purchased 2 Dragons (body length about 4 inches, total length about 6-7 inches). They seem to be very healthy and eat very well. They are in a 125 gallon glass aquarium. I have two Flukers 8.5 inch clamp lights with a Day Glo Basking bulb 150 W and Night Glo 100W. I also purchased a 36 inch Repti Glo 8.0 30W light. The substrate is sand. I bought the Flukers Guage kit one reads humidity and the other temperature. Oh and I got a Repti Thermal pad that attached to the outside of the bottom of the tank. The tank decor includes driftwood, fake vines, an aloe plant and some non-spiney cactus. Their water bowl is about 2 inches deep and large enough for them to lay in. (I don't put enough water for them to be submerged, just enough to lay in and drink from). I also bought a hiding cave for them. As for food, I am currently feeding them crickets (small) and mixed vegetables (do you have to freeze and thaw them first?). I bought bearded dragon juvinelle food also.
So, with this information--can you give me any advice on what I need to change, add, or get rid of?
Thank you so much,
Lydia C

I wanted to mention also that the Dragons are very tame. They lay in our hands and are not skiddish, at all.

There are only a couple things i would advise changing. Overall it seems you have a very good start on raising healthy beardies.

Unfortunately, the first thing I will say is probably going to be the last thing you want to hear, but it is very important, and it may indeed one day save the health, and even lives of your dragons. Seperate them. Here is a little thing i have written about the issues that face someone when they keep two beardies together:

If these are going to be your first beardies i would start keeping just one, or keeping two, but keeping them seperately. There are a number of different reasons why this is a good idea...

1. Dominance Agression/Stress: Many people make the mistake of assuming that aggression is displayed only through head bobbing, throat puffing, and physical attacks, but this is incorrect. while its true that these are SOME of the ways that dominance/aggression can be shown there are other, more subtle, and probably more dangerous (because they can be harder to notice) ways. Usually when two beardies are housed together, even females, one of them will be more dominant than the other one, the more dominant one will usually take the best basking spots and the most food. Getting less food and taking second best basking spots chronically will become stressed, chronic stress will lead to failure to grow and thrive and parasite infections. Even if the more dominant beardie doesn't "take" the most food, their presence will often lead to the less dominant one not eating us much. A good analogy is to imagine you are back in school, you are sitting down, about to eat your lunch and the class bully plops down right next to you to eat his lunch...you are probably going to lose your appetite. Right? Now what if that happened every day? Sometimes if the two are together the more dominant one will bask sitting on top of the less dominant one, many people will mistake this as a sign of affection, and think that the BD's are friends, but its actually a sign of dominance. The biggest issue with dominance aggression is that it leads the other beardie to always be stressed, and over time this will cause his immune system to falter and will allow for parasites to multiply in the system. You will often hear people say they have had two beardies together for some time with no problems and then one of them grew much bigger while the other stayed smaller...this is typically what happens, if they are not seperated and treated the smaller one will usually end up dying.

2. Physical Agression: Not much needs to be said about this, physical aggression is when they actually fight. Chasing, biting, scratching etc... Obviously this leads to drastic problems such as stress, infections and lost limbs.

3. Positive Sex Identification: This is a problem that frequently gets over looked when people consider putting two dragons together. Dragons cannot be sexed 100% until they are close to a year of age. Educated guesses can be made, but without probing there is no sure fire way to tell. There are a few problems that can arrise from this. If you get two baby beardies and house them together and they turn out to be a male and a female and you dont notice in time they will probably mate, and probably when they are two young. Mating when they are too young causes serious problems for the female, producing eggs takes a lot of nutrients and engery...energy that young dragons need to be using to grow. Young dragons that are bred are more likely to get sick or become eggbound or have other problems related to reproduction. If it turns out they are two males, the beardies may be able to tell before you do and you could come home one day to find they have been fighting. Its possible that one may even kill the other.

3. Disease, spreading and identifying: Another issue when dragons are housed together is disease. First and most obvious, if one dragon gets sick, its housemate is going to get sick also and then you will have two dragons to treat, not just one. Also, say you come home one day to find a suspicious looking poo (smelly, runny, and nasty) or some vomit, there is no way to tell which dragon is having a problem, unless you can constantly observe them. Or, how do you tell if they are both defecating? If one dragon was to become impacted (or has another issue causing constipation) you may not be able to tell until its too late. You will still be seeing fecals, but will be unable to tell which dragon they belong to. Also, one early symptom of disease is lack of appetite, when beardies are housed together its harder to tell who is eating how much. This is especially true if you keep veggies in the tank constantly, or often. You may set out the salad, walk off, come back later and find it all eaten...but who has eaten it? there is no real way to tell, you may not notice one dragon isn't eating until you see significant weight loss.

5. Space: This is another big one. You said you were getting a viv that was 48x18, this is the bare minimum size for one bearded dragon, if you were keeping two this space needs to be doubled, at least. If we are talking aquarium gallons, a 125g is the smallest i would ever consider housing two beardies in.

There are other reasons as well why its not such a good idea, but these are a few of the biggies. I am not saying that it cannot be done, but it presents a whole new world of issues to deal with. Keeping multiple beardies is best left to the experts, or at least those who have a bit more experience with beardies. People with more experience may be able to identify potential problems quicker and intervene before a problem becomes serious. Its awesome that you have experience in herps, but all herps are different, if this is your first bearded dragon i would go with one and see how things go. Maybe some time down the line you could consider getting another. If multiple beardies are housed together you should definately wait until they are adults that are proven females, if you buy two babies keep them seperate until they are full grown and then maybe work on intergrating them. And always, always, always have a second enclosure available should you need to seperate them.

Personally, i wouldn't take the risk. Beardies are awesome lizards but they are definately a handfull and caring for two in the same enclosure just makes it that much trickier.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Here are some links to recent threads that discuss the issue of multiple beardies:

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=809606,809606
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=814664,814664
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=813136,813136
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=809612,809612

The other thing i would say is once they are seperated i would switch their substrate. Sand is very dangerous for beardies, it can lead to impactions, particularly in baby beardies because they are so zealous when they hunt. Babies should never ever be kept on anything they can injest, and most people agree that adults shouldn't be either. Sand also harbors bacteria and is almost impossible to keep clean. Some safe alternatives to sand are: indoor/outdoor carpet, tile, linelium, non-adhesive shelf liner, paper towels, or newspaper.

Keep both babies on this until they are 1 yr of age, if you then want to switch to sand (which i wouldnt advise) use ONLY screened, washed fine grain playsand (you can buy it at home depot for about 2$). It should be completely changed once a week to once every other week and the tank should be completely steralized.

Also, are you supplementing their food?

The very last thing i would suggest would be to get a fecal sample to a vet and have it checked, routine fecals should be done for all reptiles at least 1-2x a year.

Good luck with your babies

-----
0.1 Bearded dragon
0.1 mexican Black kingsnake
1.1 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Tokay Gecko
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Anerythristic Corn
0.0.1 Red Tegu
0.1 Bullmastiff
4.1 Cats

Welcome to the wonderful world of beardies!

Be prepared for these 2 to eat you out of house and home--as far a crickets go this next year--they grow fast and eat a lot!

As for suggestions...
1. get rid of the sand...most will agree it is not good for babies. I prefer Duck Brand non-adhesive shelf liner...it is easy to clean and provides good traction.

2. Unless your house temperature drops below 60F at night you will never need the heating pad or night heat. Beardies like and need to be cooled when they sleep. Use a temp gun or a digital (indoor/outdoor) thermometer to measure basking and cool side temps. Basking temps need to be over 100F for proper digestion (I prefer 105F) for babies. Cool side day temps should be around 80F...

3. Beardies need a good source of UVB light. If you are using a flourescent strip for UVB make sure that the beardies can get within 8-10 inches of it. A 125 gallon tank is pretty deep--you may consider a Mercury Vapor Bulb--heat and UVB in one--pluse the rays reach further.

4. Water bowls can be more trouble than benifit...very few beardies will drink from standing water...they often use it for a litter box. A good way to provide water is to mist your babies daily with a spray bottle or soak them in lukewarm water-shoulder level. Both of my beardies love their baths.

5. Your tank is a little large for babies...it can be difficult for them to find all of the crickets. Any crickets left in the tank at night WILL EAT your beardies...cricket bites can be come infected and they can also do some real permanent damage. I'd suggest hand feeding crickets or better yet feeding them in a smaller tank (a rubbermaid container will do).

6. Keeping 2 together is pretty risky...if they both turn out to be females then it MIGHT work and 125 gallon tank is fine for 2 adult females. Beardies are NOT social to each other--they live solitary in the wild except for mating. Baeardies are known to canabalize each other--even after being safely housed for severl weeks or longer...it only takes one or 2 bites to kill or mame... If they are male and female and you purchased them at the same time/place they are probably siblings--DO NOT LET THEM MATE! I'd suggest dividing your tank and permanently seperating your babies--it is the safest thing to do...I've seen too many horror stories and would never take the chance myself.

7. Vegetables--beardies will need more vegetables as they get older...offer a variety of dark leafy vegetables such as Collard, Mustard, and Turnip greens. Sites such as www.beautifuldragons.com have wonderful lists of healthy foods to offer your babies. If they will take pellets then sprinkle a few moistened ones on their salad...having my beardies used to pellets sure helps when I run out of crickets.

8. Supplements. Babies and adults need calcium. Use a Calcium D3 supplement such as the pink Rep-Cal powder. Dust crickets lightly at least every other day (less as adults). Also dust with a multi-viatmin at least once a week.

9. Purchasing crickets online will save you tons of money--babies can eat 25-50 crickets a day each--or more! Expect to pay around $15 for 1000 including shipping. Keep in a deep rubbermaid without a top--or with a screen top (cut a hole in the lid and tape screening to it). Use egg crates for hiding places and offer vegies for food/moisture... OR you can raise silkworms like I do...it is easy and silkies are a very healthy feeder.

10. Read as much as you can about these wonderful animals...there are several years of posts stored on this site with tons of information and helpful links. It will not take long to figure out who really knows about beardie care.

11. Feel free to post any question and of course post pictures as soon as you can.

DM

Today I purchased another reptile 8.0 UVB bulb to add to the tank. The only D3 suppliment that I could get is a spray called Carnivore Calcium made by the ESU company. Anyone heard of this? I sprayed the crickets before feeding. Did I read correctly that babies can eat 25-50 crickets per day? The pet store had been feeding them 8 crickets twice a week and giving vegetables daily. What would be an ideal feeding schedule for them? I am very interested in doing things right and keeping these babies healthy. I hate when people say "Oh it's just a lizard/fish/turtle/any pet."
I will change the substrate. The sand that I bought was the Home Depot playsand, but I understand now how dangerous it can be.
Thank you both for replying with such valuable and insightful information. I would like to continue to frequent this site as I can see that there is much to learn here.

Lydia C

most pet stores just keep the animals ALIVE long enough to sell..too often the animals are not given the proper foods. 8 crickets 2 times a week will starve a beardied dragon baby--even with all the veggies they could eat. Babies need 90% protein and only 10% veggies...it is reversed for adults.

Our first beardie was just over 6 inches when we go him. He easily ate 25-30 1/4 inch crickets a day. We would feed him about 1 hour after his lights came on and then again in the afternoon and sometimes early evening. Make sure the lights will be on at least one hour after they eat so they can bask and digest their meal.

Purchasing crickets by the 1000 sounds extreme...but they can and will eat them. The cricket container needs lots of ventilation (why we did not use a lid) or it will smell bad. I use silkworms now and with my beardies both being adults my large order cricket days are past...ask in a new post about where to order crickets from... I would order about one size smaller than I would normally feed out. That way the crickets would not get to be too big for my baby to eat (they need to be smaller than the space between the beardie's eyes as a rule to prevent impaction/choking). Make sure any uneaten crickets are removed at night so they will not eat your babies.

The playsand can make a decent substrate for adults. 1/3 of my female's tank has sand. She loves to sleep on sand. BUT sand gets nasty if she ever uses it for a litterbox! It is almost impossible to scoop away all of the moisture--leaving behind lots of bacteria to create bad odors!. Changing the sand out of a large tank every few weeks is also a huge pain... the shelfliner looks nice and wipes up easily.

Sounds like your beardies have a great home.

DM