Bearded Lizard

[windfreek]

as above,

has anyone got one and what advice have you got for someone thinking of getting 1 or maybe 2, ie ideal viv sizes etc etc

[turbojolt]

use to have one when i was a kid very easy to look after and friendly

[novaguy08]

They like to eat mealworms, salad and crickets, need a warm rock and plenty of space, a 3ft viv would be plenty big enough to give them space to wander and popping bits for them to climb on.

Other then that the head banging and arm waving is a right giggle to watch, just watch out for a pair that doesn't like each other as they'll kill each other! make sure that you put the viv in a well ventilated area with plenty of sunshine, and when it comes time to clean them out because its warm enclosed space it REEKS!

[claire6069]

you mean bearded dragons? we have 2 they're about 8 months old

pretty much as novaguy08 said, they need crickets locusts and mealworms as a diet and dark green leafy salads i.e. curly kale, cabbage, rocket, escrol, parsley, clover, dandelions - avoid iceberg lettuce and such forth as its like cocaine to them and once they've tasted they refuse to eat dark greens plus it gives them the runs

they need at least a 4ftx2ftx2ft viv, especially if there are 2 of them. they get their energy from heat so they need a hot end and a cold end - the hot end needs to be between 90 and 100 degrees Farenheit and the cold end needs to be at 80. The hot end is best off being controlled by a light bulb on a dimmer switch so the temperature remains constant. You should put a thermometer at both ends to keep an eye on the temps.

Plenty of rocks or bark is good for them to wear their nails down plus the rocks will hold the heat well in the hot end.

Baby beardies cant detect water unless it is moving, we put in a waterfall to solve this. Once they got to about 4 months they didnt need it anymore and just had a bowl of water.

Dont put babies on sand, put them on newspaper or kitchen towel - reason being is that when they're eating the crickets, they can easily digest the grains of sand and they then can become impacted (blocked gut) and can die from it. Once they reach about 4 months, they can go onto sand.

Dont feed them anything bigger than the gap between their eyes. Reasons being is that 1) it can break their jaw if they try to eat something too big and 2) when they pass it out the other end, it can paralyse them by pressing against their nerves if its too big to pass through.

They need around 12hours of daylight and night-time split equally. Natural sunlight is better so position them next to a window if you can but be careful as the natural sunlight will also heat their tank up as well as the bulb that is in there.

You need to sprinkle their food with calci-dust and reptile minerals - easiest way we found was to have a dish in their viv with the dust and minerals in and then tip the crickets in the bowl - the crickets then become covered in the dust and the beardies absorb the minerals when they eat the crickets. The calci dust is essential for their health and growth.

Also helps if you get some Kricket Keeper boxes to keep the crickets in - they have a black tube in them that the crickets crawl into and then you can just shake them out into the bowl without having any escapees! Feed the crickets veg whilst they're in the keeper boxes so that the goodness the crickets eat is absorbed by the beardies when they eat them.

They're really cool little pets and easy to look after once everything is set up and you get into a routine of it - there is plenty of reptile forums out there to help with info if you get really stuck.

Oh one last thing - avoid keeping 2 males together as they will fight. Loads of females with a male is fine or loads of females together is ok.

Enjoy

Heres our set up and the dragons - Marcy and Major - aka Fatboy and Skinnygirl (they're the one on the bottom, the one on the top is our boa)