Central bearded dragon - Crystal

Bearded Dragon – Night-time Heat?

Should you provide night heat, or not?

People are unnecessarily obsessed with providing a night heat source for their Dragons.
So they won’t “get cold“.

Stop and think about this for a second.

99% of the time, this is human sentiment towards many animals, certainly cold blooded animals, based on the fact that they can not tell us when they are cold. And being cold blooded, are ALWAYS cold to touch regardless. So don’t use that as a guide  .

That being said. Do some research. Our dragons for example. I’ll use Alice Springs as an example of a common natural residency of our scaled friends.

During the summer months, the average night-time temp here is around 11/15c (51/59f). Still with lower temps of around 8c(46f) a very common summer occurrence.

But in the winter months, where they would seek shelter, burrow, and brumate. You are looking at temps averaging around 3/5c (37f).

So, i suggest using the summer months night average as your “guide” of reference and necessary action.

Most of us in our homes when cold set the central heating to come on. This keeps the home/room temp at a steady 18/22c (64/72f). This of course will be the minimum temp within your setup for your dragons.
Unless near an open window, it’s never going to go below YOUR room temperature.

So stop with the nonsense “it’s below freezing tonight in my home town”.
The dragon doesn’t care what the temperature is outside. The dragon is in your home. NOT outside. So this outside temperature is totally irrelevant.
Again, most homes have central heating systems.

It doesn’t matter if it’s -5 (23f) outside. This is outside, NOT in your home. So it’s totally irrelevant in this case.

You also need to realise just how important that night-time temperature drop is for our dragons.
This drop allows for proper body thermoregulation. Too hot at night, and your dragon has no need to get up and bask. To get energised. Resulting in a lazier dragon. Thus, overtime, resulting in possible health issues due to such.
In wild conditions, they would Naturally sleep. Get up. Bask for heat and UV energy, ready for the day ahead.
We must replicate this in our vivaria conditions. This is what they have done for millions of years.
They have evolved to utilise this method for their daily survival. A few decades of captive breeding will NOT change this natural requirement.

So please. Emulate and replicate their actual requirements. Don’t let your human nature regarding our own interruption of cold, effect the needs of the dragon.

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Pete Hawkins

Award winning Published author of Herpetoculture.
Featuring articles on many species within,

Practical Reptile Keeping magazine (some linked on site as .pdf files)
Canadian Hobbyist magazine
Reptiles magazine

Also, Reptile/Amphibian blog article writer and reptile specialist for;

Exotic Direct (links on this site)
Reptile Apartment

Public talker at Reptile meetings, for various organisations.

Founder of several huge Reptile and Amphibian related Facebook groups (links on this site)

Reptile Reports - "Lizard Personality of the year" 2016 & 2017

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