How to Quarantine Bearded Dragons

Series Summary

Bearded dragons are exotic, quirky pets. For years people have had rare or unusual animals as pets, but they can pose a challenge to most because they require more dedication and time from their owners. Taken care of properly, however, bearded dragons and other exotic pets can bring just as much joy as a cat or a dog. Most exotic animals require a more particular environment, and one should be well versed in the needs of the type of animal before they bring it home. Some types of animals may need to be domesticated while others might pose some types of health risks. It is important to know all the possible problems that might arise with your exotic pet.

In this free video series on bearded dragon care, expert Nichole Bragg shows you how to take care of your new bearded dragon pets. Nichole gives you a lesson on the anatomy and habits of bearded dragons before showing you just how to take care of your new reptiles. You will learn how to feed them, what diet supplements they need, how to arrange a terrarium, and when they are active. Nichole also gives you tips on heating and cleaning your reptile terrarium. It is all here.

Video Transcript

"This is my Bearded Dragon. He's a juvenile. He's in quarantine right now, which is why he's in a small cage. He had an illness. What happened was I allowed him to gorge himself on meal worms, which, they, I have heard from several different sources that that's what you should do with juvenile Bearded Dragons. I believe I may have got a bad batch of meal worms, because the next day he had thrown them up, and with the vomiting, he also began having seizures. Now, I looked it up, and I did as much research as I could on the seizures, and what I found was that the main cause of seizures in Bearded Dragons is a calcium deficiency, so I've been treating him for that. In the mean time, I have him in this little cage. I have him on cage carpet, which is, I think it's better because that way none of the substrait gets in to the food. I'm able to exam the fecal matter very closely and make sure he doesn't have anything strange going on with that. I'm also able to see if he's eaten all of his food or not, none of it gets buried in the sand, I don't have to do any searching for it. And this allows me to maintain a temperature gradient that I feel is necessary for his getting better from his illness. So, what I've done here is I put the cage carpet in. There is a rock heater over here for the basking area. He needs to be very warm, especially with an illness, you need to keep your reptiles extra warm. I also have a thermometer on the side right there, so that I can monitor the temperatures, and make sure I don't overheat him. I do have the basking lamp over head, so he has heat coming from both directions, and he can really warm himself if he feels he needs to on that side. Over here, I've been keeping his food and water dishes. It's a cooler area, it's a good 20 degrees cooler on this side of the tank, so right now he's trying to cool off a little but. He feels it's a little bit warm in there, so. If you see here, there's little bits of skin on the bottom, and that is shed from him. His, with his illness, it's a little bit more difficult for him to shed. So, what I've done is, I soaked him for about 15 minutes. Bearded Dragons you don't usually soak, if you do, it's for very short periods of time, but I have, I soaked him for about 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes, and it seems to be working quite well. You can see the skin here, and it comes off in little patches, it's not expected to be in a very large piece. He's also got some fecal matter in there, and that's the first one since his illness began, so that's good. I'm going to need to be able to exam that. So, this also allows me to see that he has eaten the vegetables that I have put in here. I've dusted them with a supplement for added minerals to help him recover. And he's also go his little water dish over there, which he's been drinking quite a bit. Keeping your animals in quarantine like this when they have an illness, or are recovering from an illness, is very beneficial for the reasons that I mentioned; the monitoring, and that way you can really maintain a temperature gradient that you feel is necessary for your ill Bearded Dragon."