Bearded dragons and their ladies

Maybe you need a new quiet friend who eats bugs

Dec 01, 2022

My friend Liz (not a thematic pseudonym) got a bearded dragon a few years ago, which tickled me because I’ve known her for a long time and never thought of her as a “lizard person.” Then I visited Liz this spring and met Sunny the dragon IRL and I… got it?

He is captivating.

Then I learned another newsletter reader has a bearded dragon and soon enough I was low-key obsessed with hearing about the comings and goings of her dragon, Vance, as well. I understand the bond between a mom and a non-talking pet, so I appreciated her love for him. She has three kids and a cat and two dogs, so Vance must be pretty special to have a place in her heart like that.

So, as the holidays approach, I present to you three ladies on their bearded dragons—real talk about what’s a pain about them and what’s great about them Maybe you want an interesting present for your kids. Maybe you’d like a pet that doesn’t shed and can live a long time (10-15 years!) If you end up getting a bearded dragon (or have one) please send me a photo of it. But please do not get me a bearded dragon as a gift. Like fun childfree-by-choice aunts and uncles I enjoy yours, but don’t want my own.

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A chat with a reptile lover in Waukegan, IL:

I was probably 19 or 20 at the time I was first interested in getting a bearded dragon, and I went to this one pet store after I’d done some research on them. I was talking to the owner, and he asked about my lifestyle. I said, “I’m a student, and I commute,” and he said you don’t have time for one. He said to get a snake. I got a corn snake that I had for a really long time, that I loved. I wondered at the time why he told me that. But I’m 38 now, and I got my first bearded dragon about 1.5 years ago. He was 100% right.

Originally I had read all these stories about people hanging out with bearded dragons on their shoulders. They’re very chill and docile in nature. I was like, “Oh I love that. They’re a substantial size where you’re not worried ‘I’m going to break you,’ but they’re not too big that they need an entire room in your house. They’re super personable, they have these really quirky personalities they’ll just hang out with you.”

But bearded dragons have very strict requirements in terms of heating, lighting, what food they eat, supplements, and vet care. You have to have the right temperature, UVB lighting and calcium supplements because they’re very susceptible to disease where their bones disintegrate from the inside out, and they can’t move anymore, and it twists their spine and legs. It’s super easy to prevent if you have all the right stuff. Those lights are not cheap, and the light bulbs need to be replaced.

In terms of food, you’re giving them a wide range of veggies and different greens, and you have to feed them live bugs, which not a lot of people want to deal with.

When we had our first dragon we were buying dubia roaches like crazy. We now have a breeding colony in our basement which a lot of people probably aren’t fans of. But when they’re babies bearded dragons need to eat multiple times a day every day of the week. As they get older it’s easier.

Also they need a 2 x 4 x 2 enclosure when they’re adults, minimum. Those aren’t small enclosures. Some people go the minimalist route and go a rubber mat for the flooring or tile; slate’s great because it heats up nicely. You can have live plants in there, but you also have to have cleanup crews so you’ve got isopods and springtails and you have to feed them too. You can go crazy, or you can go really simple.

My female is named Cheese Puff, and my male is named Pizza Puff. They’re in different rooms because if Pizza Puff smells Cheese Puff, he gets very excited and wants to potentially mate with her or show that he’s a big stud. They can never breed because Cheese is fixed. A month after getting her, she started to develop eggs. They’re just like chickens; they can develop infertile eggs when they hit a certain age. She was a little young when she started developing eggs, and she couldn’t pass them. They did a hysterectomy on her. So she’s incapable of breeding which is fine, since there can be a lot of issues with egg laying down the line.

You said they’re quirky--what’s something quirky about them?

Cheese, my female, she’s very particular about things. I feel like she’s constantly judging me, the way she looks at me. At the same time, if I have her out with me, she always has to hold my hand. It’s a weird little thing she does, even at the vet. They were drawing blood to check her liver levels, from her egg issue. The vet came back and said “She held my hand the whole time.”

Are they social at all?

They kind of do what they want. Sometimes Cheese wants to go run around downstairs, and she’s exploring. Sometimes she’ll find a nice place to snooze and take a nap under a piece of furniture. Sometimes she’ll come over to me and climb up. They trust you, they know your scent, your voice. They steal your warmth. I have a Uromastix as well.

I’m googling Uromastix, and I notice that these are lizards that people do not dress up whereas the first image that comes up when I google “bearded dragon” is one wearing a harness that says “Mr. Steal Your Girl.” Why do they get the outfits?

It’s how chill they are. They will let you dress them up sometimes and tolerate it. I have fallen into that trap. Halloween costumes, Christmas outfits, little bandanas, they have little customized leashes. They’ll let you take some pictures. I won’t leave them in the outfit, though.

The not-so-pretty side is the nature of the breed in the US right now. They come from Australia, and Australia has banned the export of their animals and so the breeding pool is getting a little shallow, and so a lot more issues are starting to come up, especially with the fancier dragons. You see some that are bright orange and bright red.

You need a good exotic vet that works with reptiles. You need to do checkups. They need to do stool samples. All these things add up.

But they’re amazing creatures. I recommend them, and I love them. At the same time I’d be cautioning people to do your research.

How much do bearded dragons cost?

If you get a baby and you don’t care about the morph or anything like that, as little as $150. I’ve seen them go up to a thousand dollars. There are so many in rescue situations. Look at reptile rescues before you buy a baby. They might have perfectly healthy adults that just need a home, and they’re already established, and you don’t have to go crazy to make sure how many bugs they’re getting each day. They just need a good home.

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Anton, in Alabama:

My oldest son Pete is really interested in lizards, so for his birthday, we got a terrarium with a lamp. First we tried to catch and breed anoles, but it wasn’t the best idea. We went to PetSmart and got Vance. I was really pregnant when we got him. My mom told me, after we got him, “I saw you waddling down the driveway with that lizard.”

Go to a breeder or a reptile show and do NOT get one from the pet store. He was really emaciated when we got him. He was unexpectedly a lot of work at the beginning. He didn’t poop for a while. We took him to the vet to get him an X-Ray. and it turned out he had two kinds of intestinal worms and an intestinal infection. This was on a Friday. On a Tuesday I gave birth.

He seemed like he was going to die, and in some ways I wish he had just closed his eyes and passed on. He was skinny and pitiful. I came home still wearing the diaper and my parents were giving him medicine through the syringe. My son was like, “Isn’t this fun?” I was like, this wasn’t exactly what I think of as fun.

Now Vance is very fat and happy, and he eats a lot.

Bearded dragons are really nice in that I’m never annoyed by Vance. I love my dogs, but I’m really annoyed by them. Vance is really gentle. Bearded dragons are from Australia, and I don’t know how they survive in the wild because they’re so nice.

The downside is I spend $200 a month on his food right now. I order food online because the crickets you can get at the pet store are not considered a great food for them. I get little roaches and worms. I feed him dubia roaches—a company sends them to me. Some people grow them in big bins, but you can get a dubia roach allergy. I just don’t want to grow roaches.

That will apparently change after he’s a year old. He’ll be 80% veggies and only 20% insects then. So right now he’s my most expensive pet. He’s supposed to be about 6 months right now He will need it a much bigger terrarium which will be $400.

One nice thing about Vance is that he only poops once every 4 days. It is gross, and I use a glove to clean it up, but he’s very neat, and he only does it in his terrarium.

What’s their poop like?

Like bird poops. The genitalia is a vent that is just one opening. Vance might be a female. I hope he’s a girl because then he’ll be smaller.

Do bearded dragons show any sort of affection?

He nuzzles in my son’s hair, but it’s hard to say if that’s because of the warm spot on my son’s body, he’s trying to get high on his head or if he loves my son. There’s a whole video collection on Instagram too of people who call their bearded dragon and it runs to them.

I spend so much of my time in my office writing, and I tend to look at Vance a lot.

Does he make any kind of noise?

No. He turns black when he’s irritated, and they puff up their beard when they’re upset, and he did do that when we took him to my younger son’s preschool. The kids petted him with their two fingers, and I held his face the whole time in case he decided to take a bite. He’s never taken a bite, but I don’t know what the sign is. Bearded dragons’ bites don’t break the skin.

At night he’s especially chill, and he tucks himself in at night. He goes up to his hammock and puts his arms behind him and sleeps.

Does he have any outfits?

My mom and my son Pete made him a taco costume. It was too big, and it was more of a taco blanket.

Pete wants a leash for Vance for Christmas so we might become those people that walk around town with an exotic pet. I hope not to become those people.

***

Liz, in New Orleans

I think all the people reading this should know I’m pro-lizard.

My son has always had a fondness for lizards and because of where we live, he’s good at catching them. Once at daycare the director was afraid of one running around and got Nolan at the age of 4 to get it out.

We hired this wonderful guy who lives in Louisiana to do Nolan’s birthday party a few years ago who he brings all these reptiles and it was a total hit. Meanwhile behind me is a husband who knows a lot about animals and is secretly doing research.

We end up surprising Nolan with Sunny on Twelfth Night. When my husband first got the tank I was like, “Oh my god, it’s enormous.” The stuff lining the bottom looked like rabbit food, and it smelled and my husband can’t smell. We only have four rooms in this house plus two bathrooms. We can’t have something that’s smelly. I was not sold on this. I was like, “This is insane, I want to kill you.”

Over time, especially over COVID, we ended up really socializing him. We’d take him out, let him run around, and have him do little mazes. He’ll tolerate putting little costumes on you. He grows on you.

We have friends who watch him now regularly when we go out of town. They let him out of the cage so much that when we get him back, he’ll bang on the glass and say “It’s time for me to come and play.”

The first year we gave him either crickets or mealworms to eat. I did not participate in that. We still give them to him, and he loves them to death. He loves kale and blueberries. He looks especially cute when he’s eating blueberries.

My lizard chills. I’ve taken care of fish and they required a lot more work. I had a friend who has a spiritual connection with Sunny. He’ll just chill on you. He’ll be still on you in a way that people are like, “I need to be still, too.”

I brought him to the blessing of the pets this year. I’m deranged. He was a real hit. He has yet to bite anybody.

Sunny scurries around our house. We have a chill dog. I don’t know that I would trust other dogs with a bearded dragon running around. I am fundamentally a dog person. A dog is close to having a child. You’re walking them, you’re bringing them to a doctor. Sunny’s significantly less trouble. He won’t die if you don’t feed him. He takes up less space. He’s just a different sort of entertainment. We’ll occasionally give him warm baths. He’s a lot quieter than a dog.

I didn’t think I’d ever do an interview about being a bearded dragon mom.

Hi Chipkali GIF - Funny Lizard Computer GIFs

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The archives live here, and some prior issues on pets cover behavior, euthanasia, getting a pet despite swearing you never will again, and dealing with pets you didn’t want in the first place.