The complete
bearded dragon guide.
Pogona vitticeps — a desert animal built around the sun. Fifteen chapters on housing, heat and UVB, feeding by age, temperament, morphs, and health — reviewed with Kevin McCurley of New England Reptile, with the reasoning behind every call. Free to read at launch.
Everything bearded dragon keeping asks of you.
Get the sun right — heat and UVB — and you have solved most of bearded dragon keeping. The rest is here too: from the first enclosure to reading the animal’s body language, taught with the reasoning behind every call.
Reviewed with Kevin McCurley.
The bearded dragon guide of Citadel Culebra, the school for reptile keeping, was written and reviewed with Kevin McCurley of NERD (New England Reptile) — including five “From the NERD rooms” field notes drawn from the animals he rehabilitates on camera in this very footage.
Kevin McCurley
Founder of NERD (New England Reptile) — decades of keeping, breeding, and rescue behind every field note in this book.
Almost everything that goes wrong was preventable.
The bearded dragon is arguably the best first reptile on earth — and the most misunderstood common reptile in the hobby. Bad information spreads fastest about the animals the most people own. This book puts the knowledge in front of you before the mistakes.
“The pet store said a small tank and a coil bulb are fine.”
This is how dragons get sick in slow, preventable ways. The book shows the lighting and heat that actually work — real UVB, real basking numbers — and why almost everything that goes wrong was locked in before the first symptom.
“My dragon stopped eating and sleeps all day — is it dying?”
Maybe it's brumation — a normal, healthy winter slowdown — or maybe it's illness. The guide shows you how to tell the difference, what to check first, and when it's genuinely time for a vet.
“It's glass surfing and its beard turned black. Stressed?”
Waves, bobs, black beards, glass surfing — the dragon is talking constantly. A full chapter on body language teaches you to read what it's actually saying instead of guessing.
“‘Feed all it can eat in 10–15 minutes,’ right?”
Debunked, with the reasoning. A dragon's diet flips as it grows — insect-heavy baby to salad-first adult — and the age-based framework makes each stage simple to get right.
“The store kept five in one tank. Can I keep two together?”
One dragon per enclosure — always for adults. The book explains why (including why adults eat babies), and where the “but breeders group babies” objection actually comes from.
“Everyone online tells me something different.”
Good keepers succeed with different rooms, tools, and animals. The guide shows the range, the tradeoffs, and the reasoning behind each call — so you can fit the care to the dragon in front of you.
Get the sun right, read the animal,
and the bearded dragon gives you everything it’s famous for.
The whole guide is free at launch.
All fifteen chapters, the cinematic scenes, the tables, and the NERD field notes — open in the reader today. The $9.99 keeper’s edition follows when the launch window closes.
Read the whole book tonight.
The newsletter is where the school keeps the conversation going: published opinions, care ideas, topic deep dives, research finds, stats, trends, and practical notes from the reptile community.
Prefer to skip the form? Open the reader directly →
Own the complete guide.
When the launch window closes, the complete guide becomes a one-time $9.99 — with every future revision of this living book included. Until then, read it free.
The paid edition isn’t on sale yet — nothing to buy today. Reading is free while the launch window lasts.
Fifteen chapters. One well-kept dragon.
From the species snapshot to the conservation story — plus appendices, a quick-reference card, and a glossary. Written and reviewed by working keepers, breeders, and field professionals.
Species Snapshot
The most popular pet lizard in the world, and why it earned that honestly — hardy, expressive, day-active, and genuinely interactive when kept correctly.
Scientific Name and Why We Use It
The animal in your enclosure is Pogona vitticeps. Common names are slippery — and the wrong one gets you the wrong care information.
Life in the Wild
Inland Australia — sun, scrub, and heat. Every choice in the enclosure is an attempt to give the animal a working version of the place it actually comes from.
Taxonomy and Family
Where the dragon sits on the tree of life — an agamid — and how that placement tells you what kind of care it needs and which animals its needs resemble.
Temperament, Behavior, and Handling
Where the bearded dragon shines. Body language — waves, bobs, the black beard — real handling technique, and why it's one dragon per enclosure, always.
Enclosure and Setup
There is no single best enclosure — there's the one that fits your animal, home, climate, and budget. Glass, PVC, and DIY laid out with honest pros and cons.
Feeding
The diet flips as the dragon grows — insect-heavy baby to salad-first adult. The age-based framework, honest feeder rankings, and the myths debunked.
Morphs, Mutations, and Notes on Genetics
Color, pattern, scale, and size morphs — what a morph actually is, a buyer's-eye view of genetics, and where welfare enters the conversation.
Health — Illness, Parasites, and the Vet
Reptiles hide illness. MBD and how to make it impossible, impaction, RIs, parasites reframed — and what a vet can and cannot do once damage is done.
Common Misconceptions
The most misunderstood common reptile in the hobby — because bad information spreads fastest about the animals the most people own. Corrected, one by one.
Personal Opinion on Keeping Bearded Dragons
Every other chapter lays out options fairly. This one says plainly what we actually think — clearly labeled as opinion, because that's what it is.
Resources — Coming Soon
A deliberate placeholder — this book updates as the vetted resource list is built, instead of shipping links that go stale.
Notable Breeders, Producers, and Contributors
The keepers and breeders whose decades of trial, error, and shared notes produced the husbandry this book now presents.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it a good first reptile? (Yes — arguably the best, when the setup is correct.) The questions every new keeper asks, answered straight.
Keep Going — Join Citadel Culebra
You now know more about keeping a bearded dragon well than most people who own one — and you know why, which is what lets you adapt. Here's where the education continues.
Fifteen chapters. A complete bearded dragon education —
from the first enclosure to the conservation story.
Read it like an app.
The guide opens instantly in your browser — a cinematic reader with full-bleed NERD scenes between chapters, day and night modes, and real care tables. Save it to your home screen and it reads like any other app. No App Store, nothing to manage.
This guide is one volume of a whole education.
Citadel Culebra is the school for reptile keeping — courses, the Care Library, and a faculty of working keepers led by Kevin McCurley. Founder’s Tuition puts the entire school behind you for $79.99/mo.
Filmed in the NERD rooms.
Not stock footage — Kevin McCurley’s own animals and rescues, filmed at New England Reptile the way the work really looks. The same footage runs through the book’s cinematic scenes.
Start reading tonight.
The complete bearded dragon guide, free during the launch window — before your dragon pays for a myth you didn’t know you’d been told.