Bearded Dragon Care Guide

Species Common Name: Bearded Dragon (Central)

Scientific Name: Pogona vitticeps

Adult Size: 18-22in (45-55cm) including tail.

Captive Life Span: 7-10 years (12+ is possible but unlikely)

Data for this species in the wild

Natural Distribution: Central and Southern Central Australia

Habitat Type: Open Scrub, Dry Forests, Arid Woodland

Activity Pattern: Diurnal

Activity Zone: Terrestrial to Semi Arboreal

Summer Temperature Range: Over 30c, regularly over 40c+ during the day

Winter Temperature Range: 18-19c and occasionally below 10c at night

Wild Diet: Omnivorous by nature they are opportunistic predators eating Insects (especially termites), Small lizards, but also eat assorted leafy plant matter, particularly wild sage which is abundant in drier regions.

Keeping them as Pets – The Basics

Captive Housing Minimum Size: 48in x 24in x 24in (120cm x 60cm x 60cm) but many people are now opting for larger enclosures at 60in x 24in x 24in(150cm x 60cm x 60cm) or more. Some people also opt to give them additional height as well, when given sturdy branches / platforms to climb on they will make use of this extra height.

Cage Material Construction: Wood, Melamine or PVC works best for maintaining the high temperatures required.

Social Structure: Best kept individually once past 5-6 months of age unless they are being introduced for breeding purposes.

Daytime Hotspot / Basking Temperature: 45c

Daytime Ambient Temperatures: 28c-35c

Nighttime Ambient Temperatures: 17-20c

Preferred Heat source: 100-150w basking flood or 75-100w halogen lamp.

UVB Requirement Ferguson Zone: Zone 3 – Open or partial sun basker

Preferred UVB Source: Arcadia12%Pro T5 covering 50-75% of enclosure length, a 14% Dragon lamp is required in taller enclosures.

Humidity Requirement: Low, no need for misting for adults or juveniles, newly hatched offspring below 8 weeks of age will benefit from daily misting directly on the animal to encourage them to drink water droplets for hydration.

Preferred Humidity Source: None required

Water Requirements: Provide a small bowl of fresh water, they don’t drink frequently though.

Substrate: Loose sandy soil, the most popular premix is Pro Rep Beardie Life, but other popular substrates are Arcadia Earth Mix Arid and Desert Sand.

Recommended Décor: Branches, grapevine, bark, rocks, bamboo roots etc for a naturalistic look. They can also have basking platforms and resin ornaments like Skulls if you so choose, bearded dragons will climb on anything they can grip onto. Avoid artificial hanging plants as they may try to eat them but plastic plants with bases can be used as the leaves on these tend to be too tough to chew, artificial cactus are also normally safe to use. You can use live plants such as succulents, Sansevera, turtle vine etc but remember not to place them near the basking site as it will be too hot for them.

Captive Diet: Assorted insects including crickets, Locusts, cockroaches, and occasional worms such as mealworms, morio worms, silk worms and wax worms. You can read our guide to feeding insectivorous lizards for more information. They will also eat mixed assorted leafy greens and a small amount of fruit can be offered as an occasional treat. For more information on what types of leafy greens can be used please read our guide to feeding herbivorous reptiles. Whilst some care guides suggest that adults can also be fed occasional defrosted baby mice, and while this can be useful for egg laying adult females for most pet lizards this is likely to just promote obesity so we would not recommend including it in their diet. There are some good dietary boosters that can be added to their feed such as Arcadia Dragon Fuel which is a dried blend of leaves and flowers that can be mixed into their leafy greens.

Feeding Frequency: For young dragons up to 6 months old we would offer insects daily, and leafy greens twice per week, for juvenile animals (6-9 months) we would feed insects 5-6 days a week with leafy greens offered twice per week. For subadult animals 9-15 months, we would feed insects 4-5 days a week and leafy greens 3 times per week. For animals over 15 months old they should have finished most of their growth, from this point we would only offer insects twice per week and leafy greens 3 times per week. They do not need to eat every day as an adult.

Supplementation: Assuming you are using a good quality UVB source such as the 12% arcadia Pro T5 unit you will not need to use a supplement with any added Dietary Vitamin D3. Therefore, we tend to use Arcadia Ca as a daily calcium powder or our favourite one to use is Arcadia EarthPro A as this is a calcium balancer with added trace minerals and carotenoids but without any synthetic preformed vitamins. This should be dusted onto their insects every feed and sprinkled over their leafy greens on every feed.

Cleaning: Bearded dragons need their enclosure spot cleaning daily, so remove uneaten food or bodily waste. This can be easy to do using some form of sand sieve, or can also be done by hand. They should have a full substrate change every 6-8 weeks or sooner if you feel they are a particularly messy individual. When you perform a substrate change you should also disinfect the entire enclosure and all furnishings using a reptile safe disinfectant, our preferred ones to use are either the vet ark Ark-Klens or F10 reptile disinfectant.

Handling Suitability: Excellent, there is a reason bearded dragons are the most popularly kept pet lizard in the UK and this is almost entirely down to their personality and suitability for handling.

Recommended Starter Kit: Click here for a link to our recommended starter kit.

Advancing your care:

Simple ways to advance your care can include opting for a larger environment for your dragon both in terms of length and height. Ensuring regular variety to their diet is also a simple step that is easily achievable for most keepers. You can also use some of the most cutting-edge heating and lighting equipment. The Microclimate Evo 2, Evo 3 and Evo Connected range of thermostats all have the capability to program varying temperatures throughout the day to mimic early morning temperatures, heat of the day and late evening temperatures with fully customisable options. This can be especially good for species like bearded dragons which exhibit “biphasic” basking patterns in the wild which means they would often bask in both the morning and the late afternoon while avoiding the hottest part of the day, you can provide these varying temperatures by using these cutting-edge thermostats. By using the Arcadia LumenIZE range of UVB fixtures you can also program your lighting to simulate dawn and dusk to provide a much more natural range of UVB exposure throughout the day. Another often overlooked factor is the general brightness inside the enclosure and although we may think of the UVB bulbs as being quite bright, they are nothing when compared to natural sunlight so it is now a well-recognised method to improve the environment for lots of species of reptile to add LED fittings as well as the UVB just to increase the general luminosity (brightness) within the environment. Again, these are available in the Arcadia LumenIZE range so that they can have variable levels of brightness to simulate dawn and dusk.

Environmental enrichment is another area that you can always improve, this means adding different furnishings regularly and using objects of different textures and materials to encourage your dragon to investigate their environment. This can be as simple as rotating through different cage furnishings or adding things like piles of dried leaves for them to investigate, the options for this are only as limited as your imagination.

Additional Information:

Bearded dragons are probably the most kept species of lizard in the UK, they have been selectively bred to enhance their colours and patterns in lots of different ways. Most of these colour and pattern variants (referred to as morphs) are just as healthy as the naturally coloured individuals. Do bear in mind though that bearded dragons which are carrying lots of different genetic mutations may not be quite as vigorous as they will be from a more restricted gene pool, a bit like with pedigree dogs generally having a shorter lifespan than mongrels.

Most pet bearded dragons are probably somewhere in their past a bit of a crossbreed between several closely related species. The Centralian bearded dragons natural range overlaps with several of its close relatives and when they were originally exported for the pet trade in the mid to late 1900’s they would have been accidentally breeding anything that looked similar together so there isn’t really such a thing as a “pure bearded dragon” in captivity. The two most likely species for them to have been hybridised with in the past are their smaller cousin the Rankins dragon (Pogona henrylawsoni) which is another commonly kept pet species. Or their slightly larger cousin the Eastern Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata) which is rarely seen in captivity in the UK but a little more common with European pet keepers.

Bearded dragons display a wide variety of social interactions from head bobbing to hand waving that are all unique ways of them communicating. They can also turn their beard black and inflate themselves to appear more intimidating should they feel threatened, alarmed or in response to other external stimuli.

It is normal that many bearded dragons will go through a period of lowered activity levels over the winter, referred to as Brumation. You can read more about brumation in our brumationarticle here.

Bearded dragons are generally a very hardy species and often the most appropriate starter lizard for many people, especially for families. They tend to be trouble free and have relatively few health complaints. Obesity is probably the most common health complaint that we tend to see in them these days as people overfeed their adults by feeding them the same number of insects as they would for a juvenile.  

With a suitable environment and appropriate feeding, they are a very rewarding pet to keep.