Hello, a friend went down to our local reptile shop (Moss End Bracknell Berks) and was given the following advice from Laura and Tamara, can any one give their opinion so as I may show her (she is not net connected)

a) you cannot keep Bearded Dragons without having kept Leopard geks
b) 2 sub adult Basilisks (in stock with viv only £400 would be better than BD for children
c) BD should never be fed Veg

Taking her advice she bought 2 leo's male about 6" female 3-4" male ate female, she went there and was told she was not feeding correctly and it happened due to her neglect, she should have been feed ing the male on flying locust f/male on large. Due to her neglegence no refund!!

One of them told her brother he could easily keep a royal python and a blood python together, i have only had a corn so my knowledge is limited on this!

Your local reptile shop is full of it! Thats a whole lot of nonsense!
This person has either not got a clue on reptiles or is deliberately misleading people.

Bearded Dragons and leopard geckos are both excellant starter lizards. I actually prefer Bearded Dragons to leopard geckos for children since the leopard geckos will sleep all day and never be seen whgile the bearedie will be out and active. Additionally Bearded Dragons are larger so there is less chance of injury to the lizard when handling.
Basilisks are flighty and not very good for handling even by adults. Bearded Dragons are quite docile and most of them seem to actually enjoy interacting with people. Sounds like she is trying to unload something that she has in stock that isn't moving!Beaded dragons are omnivores. Babies eat more bugs but still need veggies. Adults eat mostly veggies and a few bugs. A quick scan of the simplest care sheet will have shown that.BULL! Housing a predatory species with a smaller animal has easily foreseeable results. It has nothing to do with the size of the insects!
The neglegence was the shop owners for saying they could be kept together. SHE owes THEM a refund!

Bloods and Ball pythons are two different species from two different continents and vary different habitats. They should never be kept together.

This person needs to not be in the reptile business!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Wow! Are there actual living animals in this pet shop? Cause with that advice it seems amazing that ANYTHING could possibly survive there! I have never owned a leo but have successfully owned 2 Bearded Dragons. As for the veggies, it's actually important that they get veggies cause this is where they get a good portion of water from.

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I was wondering the same thing.

If you want my opinion, don't go back there to buy anything at all - not supplies and certainly not the animals - if there's any way to avoid it.

Pet store employees, in general, can't be trusted to have entirely accurate information. Usually it's simply because they aren't trained to deal with reptiles, and especially not in each different reptile they sell. So they end up giving reasonable-sounding advice, but not accurate.

However, in this case it sounds like this person was deliberately trying to mislead you. Probably just trying to sell more stuff.

Honestly, I have never read such rediculous advice in my whole life.

Next time, it would probably be a good idea to do a little research before even going to a pet store. For now, here's the caresheet for leopard geckos: http://reptileguides.herpcenter.com/...122.html?t=122 and here's one for bearded dragons: http://reptileguides.herpcenter.com/...-t15.html?t=15.

That should get you started with much more accurate information.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

wow, what a horrible shop.

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My name is Liz
Do what's best for the animal, not what's best for you.

Yikes! There's just more proof that you can't trust pet store employees. Print off those caresheets for your friend, they are at least worth their weight in gold when going up against someone with such terrible information.

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Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

~*~Lacey~*~

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Thanks to all, i have now lent her a book on bd and is very upset at the shop cannot believe she listened to them. I have been down there and found the lizards vry well cared for even to the point of giving which ever lizard at the time in the first viv you come to its own disco in the form of a red light on a pulse stat isnt that sweet!!?!!!?!!!
Since posting I have spoken to a few friends in the herp trade and ive discovered "princess Venom" has actualy been black listed from a few forums for bad advice- now why does that NOT come as a surprise????
Thanks again to all and have a good xmas.
PS I know more about the pythons and as I guessed you cannot put them together unless you want a fat Blood, now learning a bit more on snakes just for fun (quite fancy a ball python!)

From the little bit I know about bloods and BPs they are quite different. And maybe just this case, but I think its a general thing, BPS are calmer. I work at a petstore and had out a BP. This guy is fat. So we compared him side by side to the Blood and noticed they had the same body shape. Well the blood didn't like this and struck at me. He caught my finger but didn't hold on. The BP was freaked but didn't do anything. To me thats enough proof that they are very different animals.

Oh YES! The blood and the BP are vastly different in temperment!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!