A Basic Care Guide for Bearded Dragons	2
Housing
Substrate
Heat & Lighting
Furniture
Diet
Questions? Comments? Send me an e-mail

      The most important thing to remember when considering housing is that bearded dragons like roomy enclosures with plenty of open floorspace.

      A 30 gallon aquarium tank is large enough for a single adult dragon, but I would consider this the absolute minimum acceptable size. In an enclosure this small, I would strongly encourage you to give your dragon regular “out-time” allowing your dragon to excercise and explore. Larger enclosures such as 40 gallon breeder and 55 gallon aquarium tanks are much better for these active lizards. I know a couple of people who have kept and bred pairs of dragons in 40 gallon breeder aquarium tanks. This seems a bit small to me. Your dragon will spend a lot of time in its enclosure, so the bigger the better.

      Bearded Dragons are not exceptional climbers or jumpers, so they may also be housed in a variety of large plastic tubs and home-made enclosures. This type of enclosure can be much larger for much less money than buying an aquarium tank. With a little careful planning, you can also construct a cage which may be placed outdoors during the warm months of the year, and brought back indoors during the cool months.

      Sunshine is an excellent tonic for the health and growth of dragons, and many people feel that dragons are able to display a much fuller, more brilliant range of coloration when they are exposed to it, even occasionally. Sunshine also provides you with a FREE source of heat and light. Be sure to provide a shelter area of some sort where your lizard can move out of the sun when it feels too hot. Also be sure the cage is designed so that rainwater will run-off or drain and not puddle up in the bottom and drown your dragon. I have had no problems keeping my dragons outdoors, even during times of high-humidity and lots of rain, and I believe it is because my cages don't collect rainwater and can dry out the day after the rain stops. As long as the temperature at night doesn't drop below 50, I keep my adult dragons outdoors. I am more cautious with babies, and bring them in when night temps dip below 60.

      I house trios of adults in enclosures 2 feet wide by 4 feet long and larger. My favorite cages are 8 feet long. In these cages, the dragons are much more interesting to watch because they tend to be more active. In large cages, the lizards prefer to jog from point a to point b, and hardly walk anywhere, unless they are only moving a few steps distance. In the smaller cages, they rarely jog, walking most of the time. They also more frequently engage in social interactions in large cages. I believe this may be because some social behavior requires enough space for enough time to initiate the behavior.

      Dragons will do fine housed individually or in groups. In groups, they will display social behaviors, but individual males tend to display social behaviors towards people anyway- like head bobbing to say hello. Housing 2 males together is generally something I discourage, unless you are free to remove one at any time to another cage, as often one male will intimidate another and then the one being intimidated will slowly loose weight.

      If you have any good ideas for constructing home-built cages, I would like to pass them on to others. So please, feel free to e-mail ideas to me. Thanks!