Housing: Young Hatchling should be kept in a 10-20 gal. enclosure. No larger. This makes it easier for them to catch their food. They should have a basking area on one end of the enclosure that should be around 105-110 degrees. On the other end of the enclosure the temperature should be around 85 degrees. Not over. They will regulate their body temperature by going from one end to the other as needed. Night temperature can get as low as 60-65 degrees. They should also have a source of simulated sunlight. For this we use the zoo-med 8.0 uvb bulb. A 5.0 uvb bulb will also work. They should be able to climb to within 8" to 12" so that they can absorb the rays. It should be long enough to cover the entire length of the cage. Lights should be set to go off and on at the same time each day. For best results, lights should be on 12 - 14 hours per day and set on a automatic timer. If you Intend to have more than one Dragon and Intend to house them together, It should be females. When Dragons reach around sub-adult size, you can not keep Males together. They are very likely to hurt if not kill each other. Females will normally get along.

Feeding: Before first feeding in the morning, allow them to warm up for a hour or two. They should be fed 1/4 crickets until they are a couple of months old. Never feed crickets that are to large because this can actually kill baby dragons. Babies should be fed 2-3 times a day. Before feeding, crickets should be dusted with a good calcium supplement once a day and dusted with a multivitamin once a week. For this we recommend Rep-Cal with Vitamin D3. As a multivitamin, we recommend Herptivite. They should be offered a small portion of various greens (collard, turnip greens, romain lettuce,etc.) daily. No iceberg lettuce. It is better to offer greens first thing in the morning. The dragons should be sprayed with water once or twice a day. You will notice, they will lower their heads and start lapping the water in. Continue to spray their heads as long as they continue to drink. We also soak our dragons once or twice a week. Our adult dragons we feed crickets once per day (the same time each day) and greens and Nature zone bearded dragon bites every morning. Once or twice a week, we will treat our adults with a few superworms.

Substrate:  For our babies, we use shelf liner, which can be purchased at Wal-mart. We cut it to fit the bottom of the cage or tank. It has a rubber backing and will lay down flat. This makes it harder for the crickets to hide during feeding and easier for the babies to catch. At about 3 to 4 months old, we starting using play sand. Play Sand must be sifted through a screen to remove any pebbles. DO NOT use play sand without sifting. Any pebbles ingested could cause blockage and result in death of you beardie. This can be easily obtain at your local builders supply such as Home Depot. You can use Calci-Sand, However, it can be very expensive. We have used the play sand for a good while and never had a problem.

Sexing: At a very young age, it can be difficult to sex young dragons. The easy way to sex a dragon is to hold it in one hand - With the other hand lift to tail up so that you can clear see, being careful not to lift to far. On a male you should see to bulges, one on each side. Sometimes you can slight twist the tail to make the bulges pop out. (Picture of Male) The Female will only have one bulge in the middle. (Picture of Female)

Breeding: There are alot of different opinions on when is the right time to breed. We believe that health and size is more important than age alone. We usually breed our females at around 1 year to a year and a half. Males will sometimes mature earlier than females. When you are ready to breed a pair, place them together in a large cage. The mate can sometimes be kind of rough. His beard will darken, he may start bobbing his head and he will begin chasing her around the cage, actually biting her at the back of the neck. This behavior is normal. However, it is a good idea to keep a watch on them to be sure that he does not injure the female. (Picture of Pair Mating.) After mating has taken place and you have separated them, it's time to wait for her to lay (Picture of dragon laying). This usually takes 3 to 4 weeks. The average clutch size is 20 to 24 and they will lay an average of 3 to 5 cluthes per season. It will take 65 to 90 days for eggs to hatch.

Temperament: As a general rule, bearded dragons have a very good temperament and usually make great pets. However, on rare occasions there may be an exception to the rule. This is just some basic information to help make to care of your dragon a pleasant experience. If you have other questions, please email us and we will be happy to help.