water dragon or bearded

[bulldogod]

What are the differances, pros and cons of each, come on people who own one, give me some feedbac please

[livingart]

From my personal experience, both are good to keep, water dragons need constant handling to make them tame whereas beardies are really laid back and take to handling well.

if they escape from cage, beardies are easier to catch, water dragons are fast, real fast and excellent jumpers.

Its cheaper to build a large beardie enclosure as the waters need a well filtered water area. (they defecate in the water) means adding a tank or pond and filter or pump to cage cost, also building materials need to be able to take higher humidity.

The waters being slightly bigger require a bigger enclosure.

Water dragons are tough and really resistant to bacterial infections. Also as youngsters they are less inclined to eating each other.

The beardie makes a better pet but i prefer the water dragons. My wife prefers the beardies, more interactive and better to cuddle.

these are only my personal views.

[repto]

both have their good points,waters get more interesting to me when they get a bit of size,but I am an impaitient bugger.Hey Mark bred any beardies yet?

[livingart]

plenty of eggs, but i think either the male is infertile or my brothers incubation methods arent correct,

we got ourselves a nice red male and yellow female off kim, female is gravid at the moment so will be interesting to have a go myself.

[repto]

have a good fertile one here if you want/need to try another male,67 eggs ...2 clears this year,hes a yellow,well marked.let me know if you want any ideas,cheers.

[livingart]

LEAPING LOCUSTS !! thats a lot of hungry mouths to feed REPTOMAN

[repto]

managed to farm a couple of clutches out for rearing which basically saved my bacon on the feeding,touch wood have not lost one toenail,tail tip ....yet?Alot more work than most people realise,have not had much time to enjoy the big ones??

[livingart]

Well done, the end result shows the degree of care,

the sad thing when keeping large numbers is that sometimes you lose part of that relaxing and enjoying the animals

[Guest Anonymous]

I agree with whats been already been said. I like both. I prefer waterdragons...takes them longer to get large, more challenging - you gotta put the work in if you want a tame reptile.

[broms2]

Just wondering what colour/pattern variations we have in NZ for the beardies, I see red and yellow, are any of the others available or kept here?

Also what age do they start showing?

[bulldogod]

What do you mean by put the work into it?

[davidb]

handling them often

[livingart]

generally speaking like most animals the more handling and the younger when you start the more passive the animal.

i have never had either of these species bite me

[Guest Anonymous]

I have many waterdragons. One I have had in a cage by himself since day one, hardly been handled. 3 Years later he is every active in his cage (infront of people) doesnt really care about people outside of his cage. He will eat in front of you, even head nod at you. But he is VERY aggressive!! Cannot place other dragons with him for more than a couple minutes, in or out of the cage. In no way can he be handled. He will bite and tail whip the handler. He is by far the largest dragon I have.

Most of the others I have get handled a few times a week. Hand fed sometimes. Let them roam around the lounge, do what they want. (closed doors). Not quite as large, not quite as active in the cage for some reason, but very tame when it comes to people. The tame ones even seem to act different around people who havent been around when they've been out before.