Bearded Dragon Care

For the first ≈6 months of their life, a Bearded Dragon can be housed in a 40-50 gallon enclosure - I recommend giving them as much space as you can! Once your dragon gets close to outgrowing their first enclosure, its time to think about their forever home. We recommend Dubia (Reptile Habitats) Enclosures! All of our breeders live in a 4’x2’x2’ Enclosure of theirs and love it.
For Substrate, We recommend starting with a non loose substrate such as paper towels, newspaper, or rubber reptile mats. This is much safer for your dragon until they have grown up and also makes clean up easier on you! Once fully grown, loose substrates can be used. We use play sand in some of our adult enclosures.
No matter the size, your dragon’s enclosure should have a warm side and a cold side so they can thermoregulate on their own! Keep reading as we will dive into the specifics of temperature in the next section.

Bearded Dragons, like many other Arid climate reptiles, require a specific lighting setup in captivity to survive. This is not optional for your dragon if you are looking to have any sort of success keeping them!
The first type of light source required in their enclosure is a Basking Bulb. We use Arcadia 50-100W bulbs depending on enclosure size. Its all about dialing in the temperature of the basking spot to 100-110°F on the physical area where your dragon will bask. Ambient temperatures on the warm side of the enclosure should be between 85-90°F while the colder side should be within 75-80°F.
The second type of required light source is UVB. We recommend using the strip style fixtures for optimal output. All of our dragons, from the first day of life, use Arcadia T5 15% Dragon UVB bulbs. These bulbs will need to be replaced approximately every 6-9 months. A UVB tester can be purchased from Amazon to determine the state of your bulb!
The basking bulb should be placed directly over your dragon’s basking spot and the UVB fixture should be installed as close by as possible, giving the maximum amount of UVB output at the same location as their basking spot. If your enclosure has a screen or mesh top, we recommend installing the UVB strip underneath so that it does not interfere with exposure.

Bearded Dragons will require both live insects and vegetables as part of a healthy diet.
For live insects, we offer crickets, dubia roaches, black soldier fly larvae, mealworms, and hornworms. Dragons appreciate variety in their diet and can certainly get tired of the same offerings if not switched up from time to time. As babies, bearded dragons will need to be offered live insects 2 times per day - this will slowly ramp down as they grow into adulthood where they are given live bugs 2-3 times per week. At Scorchin’ Scalies, we consider 6-10 appropriately sixed feeder insects as a “serving.”
To complete their diet, bearded dragons need greens/vegetables. I recommend offering greens daily to your dragon as their first meal. be sure to soak and clean all vegetables before offering as this will allow your dragon to ingest more water! Give them 1-2 hours to warm up and sprinkle finely chopped collard/turnip/mustard greens around their enclosure.
It is very easy to overfeed your dragon. I always compare their food drive to that of a dog - they truly will eat themselves sick if allowed. Overfeeding can lead to many unfortunate health complications for both Male and Female dragons. If anyone has questions, feel free to reach out! I am here to help.

We hydrate our dragons through a few different avenues; Soaking 1-2 x per week, and their greens.
To soak our dragons, we provide a separate bin with warm water up to their knee/elbow joints to allow them to clean off and drink. Most dragons will use this opportunity to use the bathroom as well. We will allow them to soak for a few moments - do not leave them unattended during this time. Before putting them back in their enclosure, we recommend drying them off with a towel.
Greens are a fantastic way to keep your dragon hydrated. If you follow the procedure in the diet section, your dragon will have plenty of opportunities to hydrate themselves!