free roam bearded dragon
I am going to give you a warning now so you don’t have something horrible happen. The basking lights/temperatures required for them make having plastics/wood anywhere near it a bad plan. You also don’t seem to have a thermostat regulating it so it is extra dangerous. What are the ambient temps/humidity in the room as well? Those are just as important as a hot basking spot. More rocks for him to climb on to file his nails down/exercise would also be good. Free roam is nice, but only if you can do so safely and keep the proper parameters for the animal.
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completely agree with what you said. in my opinion the benefits of keeping them in a enclosure versus being a free roam animal is drastic because i just feel that the reward greatly outweighs the risk, but this isnt to say that a free roam space isnt possible, you just have to do it correctly.
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I don’t agree with keeping any reptile and allowing free roam.
If you can’t house your reptile correctly and provide it an enclosure suitable for its needs, I don’t think you should be allowed to keep reptiles.
I believe you can successfully allow free roam, if that entire area where the animal would free roam is set up properly to allow it to thrive and be safe at the same time.
I just see to many problems with free roam and think it’s not responsible to do it.
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Now if you had something like a tegu, monitor, or something else large that basically needs a whole room in a house then I could see a reason for it. Only if you could get the parameters correct safely without impacting the health of the animal. In the future once my dogs pass away, I plan on getting a Argentine tegu and setting up a room for it once it is big, or at least an enclosure that takes up half of the room. Large scaley doggo ftw. I will even leash train it like what Clint from Clint’s reptiles does with his tegu.
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I would agree with that in regards to those species.
I plan on doing the same thing down the line when I find a alligator or anaconda. I would devote an entire room to them, so basically “free roam” but controlled as one giant enclosure. Locked doors, no air vents on the floor, etc. But allowing a species to just free roam a room set up for human living I can’t agree with.
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now that i look at the pic more i noticed that there are legos??? those could easily melt and create a new hazard altogether
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Those were the first things I noticed. They built a basking pad out of legos, and there isn’t a thermostat in sight. On top of those lamps being very close to that plastic tub.
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I just really want to know the thinking behind it because it really just does not make sense to me at all. i really do hope this person has a enclosure for it and if not then that is not at all responsible. If you cant afford to create a enclosure for the animal then you shouldn’t have it.
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I had a lot of people tell me on this site that free roaming him was bad. First of all he used to live in a 30 gallon tank and i thought that was way to small so i decided to move him into my closet. The second thing was the Lego basking spot is also a cave for him to sleep in.
my closet is pretty big so he has like 5 times the space. Also the bearded dragon’s name is nova.
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The thread has now re-opened all parties may now argue their side and pros and cons.
Thank you.
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Lovely dude you have there.
Before anything, please dont see this as a attack, just some advice. Whether you take it or not is down to you, in the end it’s your pet not mine. 
I don’t know enough about bearded dragons to argue for or against free roaming so I’ll leave that be and hope you nothing but the best of luck with it 
.
However I do know that as useful that Lego cave is, it IS a hazard. Not only for your Beardie but for yourself, your property and maybe even your neighbors.
Without a thermostat (not thermometer) there is nothing regulating the heat from that bulb and it can and most likely will heat up enough to melt them or at least cause some type of unwanted fumes.
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How is he or she getting the uvb he needs and the right temperatures in the room.
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That is when you buy a larger enclosure. A 40 gallon breeder or 75 gallon are recommend because of the extra floor space. Your closet is unlikely to be able to hold the right temperatures and humidity for him. On top of if you have the same kind of setup without a thermostat, then it is a serious fire hazard. There is a reason that glass enclosures are always recommended for beardies.
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although a 30 gallon is sub par for a bearded dragon you cant just change its necessary habitat just because “you think its too small”. I am in no way trying to attack you but please, for the sake of the animal just get a 40 or 75 gallon tank! I assume you are of the much younger generation so you may think you are helping the animal by doing this but this really isn’t helping him at all. There are also a fair amount of newbies and younger people on here so by seeing this they may think it is fine to care for a animal like this. So again, this is not a attack towards you, just telling you what is best for the animal.
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I think this statement is very important.
All we care about is the safety and health of your bearded dragon and yourself. None of us are attacking you or how you do things, we just voice our opinions on this subject as we feel strongly about the concerns of this type of “setup”.
And I know equipment is expensive, I can’t even tell you how much I’ve spent over the years buying the CORRECT equipment. But please don’t use legos for hides or anything reptile related. The plastic alone isn’t meant for reptiles and the safety concerns outweigh the amount you’d spend buying a proper hide or basking area.
General rule: If you can’t afford to house and keep a reptile correctly, don’t keep reptiles.
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