The Habitat

[Jimmy]

Hello, this is my first post on this forum.

Let me start by saying I have an extensive background in reptiles, from geckos, chameleons, frogs, turtles, snakes, lizards ect. I've pretty much owned them all.

I recently decided to start breeding bearded dragons, I was going to breed dart frogs, but the care for tadpoles and all that is quite extensive, I then considered breeding ball pythons and or boas, mainly boas because they lay larger clutches, but also take up more room and are alot larger then ball pythons, but I just dont have the room for it.

So I decided to start a bearded dragon project.

Naturally as any Reptile enthusiast, I want to build there enclosures as I have for all my reptiles, it will consist of melamine wood havent decided on the dimensions yet, depends on how many I will house in a single tank, I plan to have atleast 8 tanks, so maybe 48 x 18 x 12, possibly larger.

I will run Flex Watt Heat Strips connected to a thermostat and a UVA/UVB bulb, my question is in the wild these reptiles can comfortably withstand 110-125 degrees Fahrenheit. I dont plan on having the heat strips run higher then 100 degrees at any given point which should still be warm enough to have healthy active beardies.

My question to you guys is as follows ;

Do you recommend me run it horizontal on the backside of the cages, or run it under the tank?

I always through experience ran heat via bulb, but when I did use heat panel for my leopard geckos I ran it on the bottom because this is where there belly is and as far as I thought they seemed to always be warm to the touch when I would pick them up so I figured this was the best way to run heat.

Whats your thoughts on this?

 

[Fliehigh]

Hi Jimmy

I have afew thoughts/suggestions:

1) Bearded Dragons are not social animals and the only time they should be kept together is for the act of mating. It is never an issue of if they will not get along it is a matter when one will injure another. Just an FYI as well but the act of mating is very agressive and takes a lot out of the female.
2) The minimum size of tank for an adult dragon should be 36X18X18. Most of us have gone larger than that. My VIV is 60X24X36.
3)Dragons Can Not Feel heat from their stomaches, they can only sense heat from above. The ambient temp in the VIV should be somewhere between 80-85 but under the basking light the temp should be between 100-110 for adults and about 10 higher for babies. When you mesure this temp please use a digital thermometer with a probe touching the basking surface or a temp gun.
4) They will need at least a 10 UVB bulb (stay away from the coil bulbs) that should also be shining int he basking area.

I hope this helps and good luck with you new adventure/project.

 

[drgnfly2265]

I agree with Fliehigh

 

[Jimmy]

So I'm going to be purchasing an incubator if not more then one most likely as I know I'll be pumping alot of eggs out if everything goes right. Whats a good size incubator? I dont want alot of heat fluctuations I seen hovabator but doesn't seem large enough.reptipro looks nice, but fluctuates 2 degrees from top to bottom. Plus its kinda small.

 

[Jp]

So I'm going to be purchasing an incubator if not more then one most likely as I know I'll be pumping alot of eggs out if everything goes right. Whats a good size incubator? I dont want alot of heat fluctuations I seen hovabator but doesn't seem large enough.reptipro looks nice, but fluctuates 2 degrees from top to bottom. Plus its kinda small.

Check these out! www.poultrysupply.com/cabinet_incubators.php

 

[Jimmy]

Ok, here's the plan. I read alot about breeders barely breaking even breeding bearded dragons. I dont know what they are doing wrong, but I cant see how I wouldn't be able to make a profit off bearded dragons if you have quality animals to start off with.

For instance, yes the initial investment of animals atleast (5-6 females and 1-2 males) at a modest 100-150ea, then the cages that all have to be built, bout 50-100 each, then the lighting, and heating and thermostat, bout $50-$100 or so per cage, the dubia colony I will start will cost roughly $75, going to be about 75 females and 10 males, I'll breed for 3-6 months before I start to feed from it, then another 6 months i'll start another colony.

I see the only overhead being the initial investment roughly $2000-2500.

The rest is all downhill, since I'll be feeding out of my colony I wont have to worry about feeding costs, I plan to get mustard greens, romaine lettuce and sliced carrots and cut it all up and put them in big zip lock bags so that I can just get a hand full everyday and feed each cage, should last me bout 2 weeks, so I go to the food store every 2 weeks anyways to buy groceries, thats like $5-$15 for the lizard food, so $30 a month.

On top of the energy bill that will go up, im guessing anywhere from $20-50 dollars. So as far as monthly costs, I'm only looking at $80 a month more less to run my breeding project, this isnt expensive at all seeing as just (1) nice quality bearded dragon could easily sale for $80.

The way I see it is females have multiple clutches a year, they may or may not have multiple clutches a year but to be hypothetical I'll say each female will have (2) clutches of 25 babies, assuming they will all survive, which they may or may not, hopefully yes. thats 50 x 6 = 300 babies a year, and thats on a LOW # im expecting.

I dont see how you CANT make money breeding bearded dragons, if someone knows something I dont, please elaborate.

 

[Jp]

Honestly, the market has been flooded by a lot of people with the same game plan.

 

[Jimmy]

If you go to kingsnake.com and go into the bearded dragon section you see maybe 8 different breeders with a total of like 50 different bearded dragons, only 1 page worth.

Now if you go to ball python and boa page theres like 50 pages of younglings for sale, so its not that its flooded, maybe the demand is not as high as the ball python and boas, i mean ive seen 1 python sale for 25k....

So I dont think the market is flooded.

 

[Jp]

There is obviously a higher demand 4 snakes, no doubt about that, that's why some people that breed dragons have started with snakes as well. I'm not trying to start an arguement or offend anyone but u did ask for people 2 elaborate. Most of the dragons that u see on kingsnake & fauna have been listed for 1-2 months & still haven't sold, that should tell u something about the market.

 

[Jimmy]

I see, I'd breed snakes but thats alot of work lol. plus their clutches aren't very large, and it pretty much takes a 6 months to complete the whole breeding process which is probably why they cost alot too, more work put in, more money they should be worth with dragons they breed so easily and lay so many clutches I could see why the market would not be in such high demand for them unless some ridiculous morph came out.

 

[Jp]

No matter what the product is, people will always follow the trends. More exotic animals will always pull in more cash but your initial investment jumps way up, now your talking 3-5 hundred per dragon.

 

[Jimmy]

Yeah I hear ya. Well. I planned to sale bulk quantities to local petstores, they sale normals for about $ 75, and sandfires for lije $ 85. I would only sale the best looking ones on kingsnake, and possibly hold atleast 1 male and female per clutch to expand my collection.