Eastern Bearded Dragon Husbandry and care

[ferretbite]

Hi. I recently bought an adult eastern bearded dragon and am interested in the differences in husbandry, feeding, type of enclosure, temp etc. All of the information available about bearded dragons is for centrals especially american information. I have heard they may require more live food, lower temps and also may need higher enclosures for climbing branches etc. I have read a little but havent found anything specific relating to them.

On a side note i have noticed at night his greyish yelowish brown colour completely fades out when he sleeps and his spikes become almost white and the rest of him becomes much more of an ochre yellow. Weird.

Any help would be welcome.

Cheers

 

[Lollypop]

Hi, I've got one adult Eastern Beardie I've had for about a yr & 1/2 now. Apparently they're harder to keep, not as resilient as Centrals, but I've basically given him the same care as my others. He was never happy inside or confined to a small area outside - he basically didn't move. Of all those I moved into my new outdoor enclosure with heaps of room to move & branches to climb, he was the most satisfying, seeing him moving around & being active. I've never known him to eat veg or fruit, despite numerous offers & having vege plants planted in his area.
He head bobs at my female Centrals he can see, & bullied my male Central when I didn't know u shouldn't house males together, just by sitting there. They're a force to be reckoned with. My fellow tolerates touches from me but is nowhere near as accommodating as my Centrals - aloof. And gets more stressed - but he's got a beautiful calm nature, never even looks like burring up at the kids.
I reckon if u just follow the basic rules as for Centrals, & if u have the availability to give him/her an outdoor or large indoor area, you'll have one happy Eastern. Just as an example, mine is in an approx. 3-4mtr x 2.5mtr area.
PS - remember to give him rough textured bark to climb as c.f. smooth.
Re colour, I thought mine was just dark grey to black, but he changes to very pale occassionally - they're similar to Centrals in that respect - amazing creatures.
Hopefully someone who specialises in Easterns will be able to help u more, these are simply my observations from my own experience

 

[W.T.BUY]

Hey mate this is what information i can offer you:

For tank size you could probably get away with a 3x2x2 foot tank.

Diet: my adults and babies only eat live insect and occasionally canned dog food off tweezers. Mine wont touch vege's but i have heard of them doing it with other keepers. (just depends on indivdual dragon)

Temp: for mine i just use a 100 watt R80 phillips globe (from bunnings) in winter and a standed 150 watt floodlight in summer. You can add a heat mat in winted if you want to keep the animal going and add some condition.

The colour of your dragon sounds normal to me he may be a bit darker because he/she is sulking.

Who did you purchase the dragon off. Just asking because adult easterns that are sold are usually wild caught which usually means that they are extremely skittish and infested with worms which can be very hard if you want to put condition on them.

 

[Lollypop]

the worm thing - yes. I reckon mine was knicked out of a paddock somewhere - he still had the red dirt stains on him!!! (although the store owner swore he was a Central & he'd bought him from a reputable breeder?) And I reckon that's his unhappiness with confined spaces too. This was before I knew there were more that one bearded dragon. Once I wormed mine, he's gone in leaps & bounds, so definitely worm him. I worm any new addition now.

 

[Dotora]

I recently got a 4 Month old Male EBD, hes a beautiful boy but still quite skittish when getting him out of his enclosure he flares up. He has only been here for 3 days now and I have noticed that he is calming down with every handling. The problem was for the first 4 months of his life he was not handled and because of that I have copped a few bites which do hurt slightly but not too much.

Ok anyways back on topic.

I used to have EBD a long time ago and back then I had a 3x2x2 tank. This guy is currently in a 3x2x2 tank and I believe that will be large enough for him. Now remember if you want to keep them in that size tank make sure you take them out and handle them and let them get some exercise.

For heating im trying one of the new "Reptile One" fan forced lights. I must say they are quite fantastic and have gone way past my expectation. When you first see them you think that they are small and wont do much but my light easily takes the tank up to the temperatures it needs to be.

As for heating I have my tank sitting at around 37 - 40 degrees at the hottest point and about 28 degrees at the cool end. My little guy seems content with those temps as he moves around the enclosure constantly from light to dark to hiding under the log.

Finally, try feeding your lizard bok choy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cabbage) the breeder I got my eastern off said that every single lizard he has ever kept can not get enough bok choy, I gave my guy his first serve of bok choy today and by the afternoon it was all gone bar a few leaves. In case your wondering his current feeding pattern is 1 day bok choy 1 day crickets + woodies. So if you are having trouble getting him to eat his greens try some bok choy which is easy to find at your local grocery store.

Also keep in there and handle as much as you can, my guy is slowly getting used to the handling and im looking foward to the day where he will climb on me instead of puff up at me

Hope some of this information helped