I am planning on getting a Bearded Dragon for my boyfriends birthday in July and seing as a new animal is all about preparation and planning, I have started now! I am planning on buying a 4' by 2' tank as this would then cover them from young to adult age. I was wondering how many of you use a seperate feeding tank and the pros and cons of such a menthod. I thought perhaps it meant you would need to handle the beardy a little and that he/she would associate you with something good. Also the fact that crickets arent a worry to stress out the beardy. Does any one have any thoughts? What is a good size feeding tank to get and what sort of stuff should it be made out of. Would one of those 'animal' plastic tub things work if it was large enough. i dont want to have a glass tank sat there with a few crickets in it, taking up too much space to move or hide occasioanlly. Any comments greatly appreciated, thanks!!
Your best bet would be keeping him in a smaller tank to start. They can be overwhelmed by large open spaces when they're very young, which can lead to stress, which in turn can lead to more serious problems. A 10 gallon tank should be available pretty cheaply at most stores. Once he's big enough to move out of this, he should be ok to go right in the larger tank as long as you've got plenty of basking spots & hiding spaces. Yup, using a feeding tub accomplishes several things... 1) There's no crickets running loose around the tank that can chew on the beardy while he's sleeping (and they will if they can). 2) You don't have to chase the crickets mentioned in #1 around the tank for half an hour getting them all out every night. 3) Like you said, it gets them used to being handled and good things happening. We tub feed crickets & other bugs to all our beardies. As long as the crickets aren't too big, or too many at once. Even if a young beardy will eat 50 crickets in a single sitting, you'll want to add them 5-10 at a time until he quits eating. Too many at once can just make him feel threatened and stressed out, and not feed at all (and when they're young, things like this can put them off crickets permanently - although permanently is rare, it can make them quit eating for a couple of weeks, which is very hard for them). If you start off housing the baby in a 10 gallon tank, you can just use a 12qt tub for feeding in (that's about 14"x10"x6" or so)... Then when he graduates up to the big tank, you can use the 10 gallon tank for feeding. Plastic or glass is fine for feeding. Just, whichever you use, line it with something (paper towels, shelf liner, a piece of reptile carpet, etc.) so that the dragon can grip, and chase after the crickets.
What size are you talking of when you say a 10 gallon. 30"x12"x15", thats what size we have for our turtle and its supposedly a 20 gallon, would this be ok or would it be better to get womething with a better depth? I suppose getting a plastic container now and then when he moves use the 10 gallon wouldnt be that bad, my main concern with getting a smaller one now is that when he moves then the other one you have to try and sell and you dont get your money back for the time you have used it. Could we block off part of the big tank somehow to get rid of the overwhelming sensation?
Well, Aside from the fact that UK gallons & us gallons are slightly different, heh I think 18"x10"x10" would be about a good size. I think that's a lil over 8 UK Gallons, which should be fine. An 18x10x10 tank is only about 10 quid, and a plastic tub to feed in is only another couple of quid, so it's not really that big an expense.
Yeah, splitting up a tank with a divider could work, although it's usually a bit harder to get a good temerature gradient that way. So, you'll have to see for yourself how it works out on that score. Good luck
