Supplements - With babies/juveniles dust the bugs, with adults dust their salad

Arcadia EarthPro-A Supplement - Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.

Arcadia Earth Pro Calcium - Monday, Friday

Arcadia Earth Pro Revitalise D3 - Wednesday.

Types of bugs

Staple - give two+ types per week
Dubia Roaches - Our favourite long living, easy to keep and can’t escape ceramic food bowls.
Turkistan Roaches (Red runners) - can’t escape ceramic food bowls. Mainly suitable for younger dragons due to being smaller.
Locusts - Slow moving, easy to feed with tongs. They come in variety of sizes for all ages of dragons.
Crickets - Adults chirp, and smell. They can bite your reptile but suitable nutritional value, make sure to remove any remaining bugs from their enclosure.
Calci Worms - Cheap, but don’t live too long. They require no calcium supplement dusting.
Silkworms - High in protein, and low in fat, great addition to their diet overall.

Treats - Once/Twice Weekly
Wax Worms - High fat content, little nutritional value. Only offer minimal amount
Morio Worms - High fat content, can be addictive so only offer minimal amount
Mealworms - High fat content, little nutritional value. Only offer minimal amount

Salads

Florette Classic Crispy Salad - Available at any supermarket contains a good variety and quick to deal with. Alternatively you can offer a wider variety, such as bell peppers, spring greens, butternut squash, cabbages, carrot (grated), and others.
Fruit can be offered once a week, strawberry, blueberries, and raspberries tend to be the favourites.

Salads can be dusted with ground bee pollen, this can help with dragons who are fussy eaters. We recommend always providing fresh daily salad.

Fruit and salad to avoid

Avoid are citrus fruits, Kale, Spinach, and Iceberg lettuce.

The ongoing costs of running an enclosure are as follows.

Power - 100Watt Basking bulb + 24 Watt (T5 Pro Kit 22 Inch) for 12 hours a day uses 10.4 Kwh per week, at our current price this comes to £3.02 per week. Dimmers will lower this amount, this is the maximum at current energy prices.

Food - The volume of food varies depending on the age of the dragon, You should budget for £20 - £30 per month. If you’ve got multiple reptiles you can decrease this by buying bugs in bulk.

Bulb replacements - T5 22” must be replaced every 10 months for £20. Basking bulbs replaced when they fail.

Dragons are desert dwellers thus they don’t dehydrate as easily as other reptiles. Dragons show dehydration with wrinkled skin, sunken eyes, and being lethargic.

Dragons gain the majority of their hydration through their salads + live food. They won’t drink standing water, as a result a water dish shouldn’t be placed in their enclosure.

You can mist their salads to help water intake, or use a pipette to drop water on their nose which will stimulate them to drink.

Do not spray/mist your bearded dragons enclosure, this can cause excessively high humidity which can increase their risk to respiratory infections.

For our dragons to be healthy, we need to have them in the correct environment Below are all the essential items to help keep your dragon happy and healthy! We are not paid to give this list, its our own personal choice and equipment we use with our dragons.

Arcadia T5 UVB 12% Pro Kit - Replace the bulb every 10 months. 22 Inch 24 Watt version.
E27 Basking bulb Mount - Use suitable wattage halogen basking bulb, we recommend 100w for 4 foot enclosures.
Basking Platform - Basking platforms should be kept moderately flat, so that your reptile can fit on it comfortably. We recommend a flat rock, piece of slate or similar.
High Range thermostat controller, or other digital thermostat controller. - Critical for maintaining their warm spot without it overheating the reptile. For dragons place the probe directly below the basking bulb leaving 2 to 3 inches from the ground.
HA6 Marine/Aquarium Silicone- We recommend sealing the edges of the enclosure with silicone, this makes sterilization easier in the instance your reptile gets any parasites.
Substrates - We recommend a hard substrate (tiles, paper,lino) until at least 4 months, and potentially for the remainder of their life. After 4 months, we recommend either Beardie Life or a top soil + play sand mixture 50/50. Substrates we strongly advise against are Calci Sand, Reptile carpet/Sand mats, wood chips, crushed walnut, coloured sands. There may be others to avoid, feel free to enquire if unsure..
Vivarium - We recommend starting at a 4x2x2 enclosure, this will be suitable for their entire life. We personally choose to use Repti-Life’s enclosures.

We strongly recommend using a high-range thermostat controller and setting the basking area to be approxitemtly 42°c. They should also have a cool side down in the range of 25°c.

If night-time temperatures drop to 15°c within the enclosure, we advise using a ceramic heat emitter and setting it to 20°c. Once temperatures drop below 13°c Bearded Dragons are at risk of hypothermic.

When dragons go into shed they begin to appear really pale. Babies typically go into full body sheds, but adults can shed just parts of their body.

Do not assist them with shedding. As long as they’ve got access to rough textured rocks and wood they will rub it off in their own time.

When shedding, they may become agitated, and may not eat. This is completely normal and nothing to worry about.

Het is abbreviated from heterozygous, it refers to a particular genotype containing two alleles. When the dragon contains a heterozygous gene, it’s not outwardly visible.

If a dragon is translucent it is homozygous which is the visible form of heterozygous. You can only get the visible gene expression when both parents are either heterozygous or homozygous.

The percent chances listed in the Store is based on the odds of them carrying the heterozygous gene as it’s not 100% unless one parent is homozygous for that genotype.

Salads should be provided every day, there should be no exceptions to this baring brumation.

Bugs baby dragons should have insects 2 - 3 times daily, reducing to twice by 6 months and daily by 12 and once fully grown adults should be fed insects 2-3 days per week.

Captive dragons do not brumate like wild dragons. This is because our homes usually remain a consistent temperature compared to the outside world which fluctuates with weather.

Some dragons may not brumate, some may annually. However any captive dragon is capable of brumation, whether they did last year or not will not keep them from doing so this year. Dragons may also brumate in response to drought, or famine (thirst and hunger).

All female dragons are capable of producing infertile clutches, typically when ovulation occurs if the eggs are not fertilized they reabsorbed the yolks. In the instance that this doesn’t happen, the female will need to lay the eggs once she’s finished producing them.

The simplest way to determine if she needs to lay infertile eggs is by monitoring her behavior, typically when ready to lay they will be frantically digging, or potentially glass-surfing.

Aiding her in laying means supplying a suitable substrate for her to burrow into. We use moist compacted play sand inside a Strata 24L tub, with a hole cut out in the side so she can gain entry.

If your female does produce an infertile clutch of eggs, we strongly advise increasing her calcium and protein intake. Provide calcium and bugs daily for the 4 weeks encase she opts to produce multiple infertile clutches. If you don’t see a following clutch within 4 weeks, you can reduce her bugs back to 2 - 3 times per week.

Dragons are fairly easy to tame down if you start with them at a young age, the key is to not make them feel threatened. Some dragons are naturally easier to handle than others, bearded dragons are captive exotic pets, they still retain a vast amount of their natural survival instincts.

My personal way of taming them is simply by hand feeding, and when they’re comfortable enough to walk on your hand to eat then pick them up. When placing them back inside the enclosure I let them choose when to leave my hand and i always try to give them a treat after. This associates my hand with food which is a positive, rather than a threat.

This website provides a lot more tips in more depth at taming a dragon. Click here.

We strongly recommend testing for parasites every 6 months, or prior to brumation. Dragons are prone to parasites due to consuming live food. A healthy dragon can typically manage parasites but sometimes they require our help.

Keeping a clean enclosure is critical to maintaining a low/no parasite count as the majority of parasites get out of control due to hygiene. We spot clean daily, and deep clean weekly with a diluted solution of F10.

We get all of our reptiles tested at Parasite Vets using the silver level. Click here.

Here at Coastal Dragons, we opt to only bathe dragons when they’re dirty. That being said, some dragons enjoy the bath as they can swim. You can use a soft toothbrush to aid in cleaning any dirt off your dragon

If you choose to bathe your dragon, make sure the water is not above their front elbows, using warm but not hot water and monitor them at all times. You may find they’re stimulated to drink when in the bath. We strongly recommend using Zoo Med ReptiSafe water conditioner with all soaks.

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We use dedicated specialists to courier our reptiles throughout the UK. They are all licensed, and insured to transport reptiles.

Depending on your purchase, delivery date may vary. We will reach out with specific information pertaining to your dragon. We will commuicate with you via your email, but please feel free to contact us at our Facebook page Coastal Dragons.

We work with Pogona Vitticeps (Central Bearded Dragon) on average they grow from 18 - 24 inches.

Bearded Dragons are very sociable, we recommend only allowing kids to handle them with supervision. we recommend waiting until the dragon is large enough to find, babies are prone to running so caution is needed when handling.

Candling is using a torch to sign through the base of the tail to help determine sex. Beard dragons don’t always externally show their reproductive organs outwardly, in most cases you can determine sex via candling.