Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have plans to purchase a few beadeds in the future (near future hopefully). I know the pro's/con's of keeping animals together in the same cage however I'd still like to do so. I'm not a big breeder or someone with tons of animals. I want to make a naturalistic setup with plenty of room. What would be the optium cage size for 1.1 beadeds as adults? From what I have gathered they also seem to enjoy climbing if given the room. I was thinking somewhere around 6ftL X 2-3ftD X 4ftH. This would give the animals plenty of room to get away from each other if they wish to do so. Let me know what you think.

-----
John Light

It sounds cool but I don't think a naturalistic set up would be the way to go. The dimensions are more then enough for a couple of larger Beadeds, the problem would be with them tearing it up in my opinion. Beadeds are constantly making messes and digging around there enclosures during there active spurts away from soaking in the water bowls. I think you would get frustrated having to fix things back up constantly.

I've only kept beadeds a while but they do love to destroy thier cages almost immediately after cleaning. After a while I learned to think its sorta neat watching them construct comfortable burrows n dens outta a thick layers of newspaper and cardboard boxes.They like to hide when they want to. I think a naturalistic cage wouldn't be a problem though as long as the rocks n logs n such were set up crush proof.

Personally unless it was a huge huge cage, I'd avoid keeping them together. I know its possible and has been done, but these animals can be really aggressive and are very valuable and I can't imagine the heart break to come home from a long day of work to find my babies legs ripped off or worse.

PS folks...um uh I was so lucky yesterday! Give you a clue
I now own a child sired by likely the most spectacular captive cinctum on this planet. nah nah nah nah nah! Yep daddys on cover of a book! ok ok gotta breath! My camera doesn't do my collection justice at all anymore but I guarantee ya in a couple months I'm gonna start getting mouths waterin and jealous folks sad!

Thanks again to Dr Seward and Mr Angeli for sharing your knowledge and amazing animals so willingly. Its been great having both of your support venturing into this project. I can't show my gratitude enough!

Hmmm...maybe I'll go with something smaller then like some vision model 332's or something along those lines and just house them individually. I just recieved the book "Biology of Gila Monsters and Beaded Lizards" which has some great info in it! I am however disappointed by the lack of captive care information within it's pages. I can't wait to keep these gems of the reptilian world!
-----
John Light

I forgot to ask...How do most people keep these guys as far as cage size and substrate and what not. Is there anything often over looked when dealing with captive husbandry? Thanks for your replies!
-----
John Light