Care sheet and Guarantee

Dragon room is 80 degrees ambient with 40% -44% humidity, less than this the dragons don't shed properly here. All hot spots range from 90 to 105 degrees based on time of day here in S. FL. 

Base salad: chopped organic collard greens, organic carrot shavings with peeler, organic summer squash shavings with peeler, kale (2 x per week in the base salad), you can top base salad with Nature Zone dragon bites (some of mine eat it some don’t) or RepCal bearded dragon food (some of mine eat it and some don’t) I will offer blueberries and raspberries in season 2x week.

Why organic?  Several years ago I had two sick dragons they were in the 4yr old range..we didn't find a whole lot on the fecal .....we racked our brains with this ..we were literally stumped. After months of supportive care these two dragons died. When the vet the did the necropsy she found tumors within the dragons, these tumors were cancer and responsible for the death of the dragons. Although we can’t pinpoint how they got this, it is logical to assume the same way we get cancer... from pesticides and fertilizer in our food. I had been buying my greens at Walmart  and Aldi and not in the organic section. The vet really counseled me on how pesticides and fertilizers work, what they are made of and the damage they can do.

4-8wk age group:

8:00am 1/8"-1/4" dusted crickets first before salad

9:30am  salad chopped super fine

Every 3 hours after 8am I feed crickets undusted until 6pm.......because they live in groups they feed this often

2-4 month age group: 

8:00am salad 

9:30am remove uneaten salad and feed 1/4 - 1/2" crickets or Dubia roaches (www.buydubia.com) based on size of hatchlings (width of jaw on dragon should be equal to body length of cricket. Dust these crickets once per day with Miner-All .  Every 3rd day I add Vionate to the Miner-All dusting. Feed as much of these as he will eat in a sitting.  Put dragon in separate feeding tub to feed these live feeders. If your new dragon freaks out when you put it in the feeder bin, then just add the feeders to his cage, but watch him eat them and remove if he does not hit them within a few minutes....keep trying this until he is eating a few feedings well and then try him in the feeder bin again.  You can also offer small baby soldier fly larvae/phoenix worms at this time for variety and I will sprinkle these into their cages every couple of hours between meals to keep them busy. 

4:30 pm crickets/roaches as much as he will eat in his feeding tub in a sitting 

6:00pm clean cage Do not let feeders run around the cage with dragon in it...the dragon will become stressed and he will go off feed, the feeders will bury themselves in substrate (roaches) and you will not know and continue to put them in the cage. Dragon will lose his mind, be terrorized by the feeders and it will literally ruin the dragon. Please take care and feed him in a separate feeding bin or monitor the feedings. This age group..especially hypos will drink more water than any other age group. I hand water them with a syringe every 2nd day. You can soak them in a sink with lukewarm water filled to belly..do not leave unattended. 

4-6 month age group: 

8:00am salad (sprinkle SuperVeggie every 3rd day)

9:30am remove uneaten salad and put dragon in a separate feeding tub with medium sized crickets or Dubia roaches about 1/2" - 3/4" dust with Miner-All every 2nd day and add Vionate to the dusting every other dusting day. Offer half grown horn worms too. You can also offer 1/2 grown super worms  or Soldier fly larvae/phoenix worms..the dark crawlers as much as he wants to eat in a sitting in your separate feeding tub.

4:30pm crickets or roaches fed the same as above 

6:00pm clean cage

This age group is put into the soak sink with luke-warm water to the bottom of their bellies every 3rd day. Do not leave unattended if they poo in the water do not let them drink. 

6 month to Adult:

8:00am: Salad (sprinkle SuperVeggie every 3rd day)Salad is the main food source for this age group. 

Replace eaten salad with more until 1pm

Feed dragons that are 6-8 months old every 2nd or 3rd day with dubias and Soldier fly larvae (as much as they will eat in a sitting in a separate feeding tub). If the dragon does not want to eat his salad or feeders every 3rd day that is perfectly normal, metabolism is slowing down on some dragons at this stage, but they should want to eat live feeders at least twice per week unless they are trying to brumate (a dragons natural yearly cycle of slowing down his bodily functions in the winter in preparation for breeding)

 Horn worms are a fantastic feeder for this age group. I try to offer them once a week or twice a week if I have enough on hand.

These dragons are put into the soak sink luke warm water up to belly every  3rd-4th day..they just don't drink more than that usually and putz around in the water swimming but not drinking...LOL 

These guys are kept in large melamine cages with Zoo Med mercury vapor bulbs.

HOUSING:  Our lights are on from 6:30am to 6:30pm. Hatchlings are housed in  melamine cages in a dragon building with an A/C and the humidity stays at 44%.   Our hatchlings are kept on newspaper at first , clean cage before you feed the dragon every time if he is on paper.....and these bins are wiped out at least every 2 days with a Clorox/water mixture and toweled dry, after several weeks they are moved to sifted play sand..I have NEVER had one impaction caused by sand in over 25 years of keeping dragons...I have had many thousands of dragons on sifted sand.....don't offer prey too little for dragon to latch and force him to grab a mouthful of sand. Our dragons tend to grow better and thrive better on play sand...not sure why, more likely the sand gets warm promoting digestion and feed response, the dragons here are constant feeders throughout their day. I have tried bran, alfalfa pellets, corn cob pellets, etc. and all of it is dusty, when wet breeds mold, and not conducive to growing these dragons right. Either paper or play sand can be used. The play sand has to be changed at least every 4 weeks. 

The dragon room is a separate building not attached to my home and has an ambient temperature of 80 degrees controlled by an air conditioner, so I have to change out the wattage on the basking bulbs to fit the season to achieve a 95-105 degree basking spot.  For dragons that do not have a mercury vapor bulb and have a separate heat bulb..I will figure out if I need a 40 w or a 75 w during the year to make this happen, your house may be 75 degrees all year long, so you will not have to do this...but keep checking your basking temp to get to 95-105 degrees.    We have best luck with the ReptiSun tube bulbs 10.0 for the hatchlings and they are placed 13" from the top of the basking area here. 

Sub adults-Adults have Zoo Med Mecury Vapor bulbs, these bulbs have spot heat and UV in one with basking temps of 95-105 degrees and this age group live in 8ft communes for girl groups and 4ft  for lone adult males.  I DO NOT USE GLASS CAGES HERE as they are too hard for me to clean and the dragons look ugly in a glass cage , it is fine if you have a glass cage but, they do far better in melamine, ABS, Vision, or wood. They will not look as pretty in a glass tank as they do in these previously described.

PARASITES:  We do not routine de-worm the dragons here. Fenbendazole even in small doses causes liver damage in a bearded dragon if used too often. Years ago I de-wormed everything 3 months old and older routinely for a while and this shortened the life of the dragons. I had created a problem that did not exist trying to treat them as we do our horses and mammal pets and to see if this would be a benefit to these reptiles.  We had no data on this at the time and as a pioneer breeder we supply the information to the colleges of veterinary medicine and public on these trial and errors. It was far worse to routine de-worm a dragon than to treat an infection that can pop up. Now, we do not de-worm or routinely administer anything other than vitamins and minerals to any dragon unless we spot questionable behavior and then a fecal or blood work is performed by my licensed reptile vet to identify and properly treat a problem found. 

The absolute best thing to prevent infection of a healthy dragon ...of any kind really is.... wash those greens, keep his cage clean and do not have water bowls in his cage! Try to get dragon off crickets as he ages and onto a roach/worm feeder, NO crowding, lots of ventilation, correct temps, proper feed, and LOW stress environment. 

When your dragon arrives it could be dark in color and not look like the picture, this is generally due to stress of relocation. Put the baby under the hot spot and allow him to come to cage temp. If your housing is not like described above, or you have a glass cage (dragons do not look pretty here in glass cages and are darker in them...we don't use glass cages) you may want to make some changes to your enclosure so that it is somewhat similar for a while until the dragon adjusts. 

We do not put hides of any kind in the cages, this promotes squirrely behavior here and the dragon sometimes wants to stay in this thing forever. 

Guarantees:

Live Arrival Guarantee: The dragon is guaranteed to arrive alive. The animal must be retrieved from the delivery person's hands and not left on door step at all. Fedex will leave this dragon on door step and may not even knock or ring your door bell there is no signature upon delivery as I do not want this dragon to go back into the truck and ride in the extreme heat or cold all day until 5 or 6pm when delivery person returns to the Fedex warehouse...the dragon will not survive this. You MUST make arrangements to be at the location where dragon is delivered and you MUST be waiting and on the lookout for this dragon. The tracking number is provided to you via a photograph of label sent to your phone on day of ship out with a confirmation response from you. It is your responsibility to wait for animal and track the number if he does not arrive on time and then notify me if there is an issue with the Fedex delivery.In the extremely rare instance that a dragon may be found deceased when you open the box, and I can't stress enough how very rare this is.....you must notify me by text or phone call to: 561-309-9956 with accompanying photo within 15 minutes of the delivery time that is noted on my Fedex shipper's notification panel and I will refund the purchase price. ( If I trade or purchase a dragon from a fellow breeder..I retrieve dragon from delivery person's hands and I open the box immediately without delay...My customers are required to take the same care and dedication to these animals as I do on arrival day).  If I am notified about a death more than 30 minutes after arrival and again rare........I will understand that you left the animal out on your door step.... it over heated or became cold because you did not retrieve dragon from delivery person's hands and open box immediately as agreed and you will not get a refund.

Late Arrival: There are no refunds from Fedex  of shipping fee for late deliveries due to inclement weather ......this does not happen often.    If there is a mechanical issue with plane and it is noted only then will Fedex offer a refund and I will forward this to customer.  I have not seen that happen yet. 

Health Guarantee: 

If you have followed this care sheet and your dragon is ill within 2 weeks of delivery and this is rare, but I understand things can happen..... I will refund the purchase price, but the not shipping fee of the animal and animal must be returned to me at my expense for medical treatment.  I do not give refunds because the lizard does not like his cage, is stressed because of this, etc.  

Holds:

Dragons can be held for up to 5 days if paid in full.  No holds without full payment. 

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