planning on building a beared dragon vivarium and have some questions?

[Stingray12]

First of all, can a male and a female bearded dragon live together? The male is smaller than the female.

I think I would make the vivarium 48" by 24" by like 20"

Just plywood with a glass center.

What types of plants could go in there?

Cactus?

 

[dpal666]

beardies are a solo critter, so housing the pair would not be a great thing (yes some people do keep pairs, this is just in general).

Any plants that go in will be eaten, so, yes you could put cacti in there, if you do make sure it's prickly pear, as it's good for them anyways, but overall, not a good idea if you like your plants.

With beardies, keep it simple, repticarpet, tile, linoleum are all fine, anything loose as substrate, will be eaten as they are very aggressive eaters, so it's easier to just go solid surface.

An upside to the tiles is cleaning, pull a dirty tile, wash and replace, you don't have to tear apart your cage.

Hope this helps

Don

 

[Sylvias]

... what?

ok....
Beardies are actually very social as far as reptiles go and even in the wild they have been seen to establish little social hierarchies. I would not suggest keeping a male and female together though because they will most likely mate and then you have to deal with eggs and finding the babies a home when there are already a ton of beardies on the market. Males CAN be kept together in big enough space but that is definitely not at all recommended. They will sometimes establish their own pecking order but it's much easier to remain on the safe side and not house males together. Females are usually alright to keep together. However, all that being said, your beardie will not suffer at all if it is kept by itself and you are the only companion.

If you are going to do live plants make sure it is nothing prickly. No spikes, spines, needles, etc. For a desert vivarium... hardy, tough succulents are best. A bearded dragon is still very likely to try and eat these though and you will need to make sure it is nothing harmful to your lizard. Craft stores usually make some very realistic lookin succulents... and though they appear similar to us the lizards USUALLY know the difference.

If you are wanting to do it as natural as possible sand is probably the easiest thing for beardies. Despite all the bad media out about sand it is actually perfectly safe if you keep your animals at optimum temperatures with a basking hot spot of at least 105F. I would avoid calci-sand and repti-sand and all that stuff that is supposed to be "good" for your dragon if it is ingested. Simple play sand from a home depot type place is perfect. It is a very soft fine grain sand that is easily digestible when accidentally ingested and it's generally cheaper for more.

If you do try live plants in the desert vivarium it will be easier to keep them in their individual pots and just bury them in the substrate, that way when you need to water them you can do it at the spot and not have to water the entire enclosure.

If you want it kind of natural but want to keep things easy on yourself... go with news paper, tile, or butcher paper substrate, and a couple of realistic fake plants. lenolium tiles look nicer than paper but can be slightly harder to clean (although not by much) as you generally don't just removed and toss out the tile. fake plants are easy to clean and don't require any care!

 

[dpal666]

... what?

ok....
Beardies are actually very social as far as reptiles go and even in the wild they have been seen to establish little social hierarchies. I would not suggest keeping a male and female together though because they will most likely mate and then you have to deal with eggs and finding the babies a home when there are already a ton of beardies on the market. Males CAN be kept together in big enough space but that is definitely not at all recommended. They will sometimes establish their own pecking order but it's much easier to remain on the safe side and not house males together. Females are usually alright to keep together. However, all that being said, your beardie will not suffer at all if it is kept by itself and you are the only companion.

The socializing you see in the wild, is only during mating season, and lots of damage to the animals occurs from this, including death of smaller males.
In captivity, keeping them in pairs or groups generally results in lost toes, tails, lack of eating, and sometimes death of the submissive animal.

As far as keeping a breeding pair together, the constant attention from the male can stress the female to the point of death.

The costs of a single season of breeding runs around $5000 with little chance of recuporating costs for 5-7 years after.

The sand debate has always been a heated topic, check out other dedicated beardie forums, and find some of the threads on substrate. The slightest chance on impaction from sand is too much for my taste.

I have several years of experience with these guys, and used to breed. If you have anymore questions or ideas please keep posting.

Don

 

[jeosbo01]

I have kept and bred beardies for more than a decade and almost always house multiple animals together. Rarely more than one male, but often 3-4 females with a single male and it is very rare for me to have issues as a result. Housing babies together is the exception, doing so often leads to bullying and loss of toes and tails...this is far reduced in adults though and with the exception of damage done during breeding my adults pretty much ignore each other. They don't seem to have much social interaction but certainly don't tend to be aggressive either.

As for sand...I have read about the risks of impaction, typically on sites that indicate how unhealthy superworms and pink mice are for adults...I keep on sand, NEVER had a problem (again in over a decade of intensive keeping), superworms are my primary protein source, again never a problem, and the calcium and fat content of a pink mouse do wonders for a female who just layed a clutch of 30 eggs. Some of the dedicated beardie sites may not be filled with all of the best information, like anything on the web read as much as you can, from as many sources as you can find, then distill that info into something useable.

I'm not a pro breeder, and everything above is nothing more than my opinion (granted an opinion based on extensive anectdotal reasoning)...I like sand and I keep dragons together. Thats the way I do it and it works well.