We all know that dragons have teeth in order to fight off evil and protect princesses from inadequate suiters, but do bearded dragons also have teeth? It doesn’t look like it, but looks can be deceiving. In this post, we’ll dive deeper into the topic of bearded dragon teeth, if they have them, and how you can care for their teeth properly.
You brush your teeth twice a day and hopefully visit the dentist regularly too in order to ensure proper oral hygiene. This post will ensure that your bearded dragon can enjoy proper dental hygiene too!
Table of Contents
Do bearded dragons have teeth?
Yes. If you didn’t quite catch the spoiler in the intro, bearded dragons do have teeth. As a matter of fact, their mouths are filled with them. Bearded dragon teeth are also quite sensitive and prone to health issues which can cause issues when caring for your beardie. Taking proper care of their teeth is vital to good overall health.
Bearded dragons aren’t born with all their teeth but actually develop new ones as they grow, much like us humans. Teeth aren’t meant to fall out though, at least not in most cases like ours do once we start developing our adult teeth. More on this in a bit!
If you want to lear more interesting bearded dragon facts, make sure you don’t forget to check out our post on the best facts about bearded dragons!
How many teeth do bearded dragon’s have?
Bearded dragon’s have between 20 and 40 teeth depending on genetics, dental health, and a few other factors. You might be thinking why your bearded dragon doesn’t have teeth, and it would be a legitimate question. Some bearded dragons might not have any visible teeth, but they should be in there somewhere!
When checking your bearded dragon’s teeth, make sure you look very carefully as they’re not always easy to see. If your beardie really doesn’t have teeth and you haven’t noticed them falling out, it may be the case that they’ve just been worn down. Look closely before drawing this conclusion though, their teeth are very hard to spot!
Obviously, the older beardies get, the more vegetables they eat, and this can take quite a toll on their teeth. Vegetables wear their teeth down faster than other foods, like insects. Fruit is generally softer but then again, it can cause issues with the health of the teeth too so it’s no better. The high sugar content isn’t all too good for the rest of their body either in large quantities.
All-in-all, eating is an important thing for every organism. There’s not much you can do against your bearded dragon’s teeth naturally wearing down, especially since you have to provide them with the nourishment they need. However, you can keep their teeth as healthy as possible if you put in some effort!
How to care for bearded dragon teeth
That’s all well and good, but caring for your beardie’s teeth doesn’t sounds very easy to do. Surely you can’t just brush your beardies teeth, can you?
As a matter of fact, you can!
The best way of “brushing” your beardie’s teeth is to feed him or her hard bugs and vegetables. Hard food helps to clean a beardie’s teeth and can help to prevent oral health issues. This helps to mimic the effect that we see when we brush out teeth, but without having to reach into your beardie’s mout with a beardie-sized toothbrush. Go for crickets and cockroaches instead of soft worms as food for your bearded dragon to keep their teeth as healthy as possible.
If all else fails, you can brush their teeth too but this isn’t really ideal. It’s best to visit your vet if your bearded dragon is having issues with its teeth or mouth. They can always advise you further on things like brushing, or whether they need to intervene.
In this youtube video, you can see how a vet cleans a bearded dragon’s teeth if you’re interested in what that would be like.
What’s bad for a bearded dragon’s teeth?
There are a few things that aren’t great for a beardie’s teeth. We’ve already mentioned the first one, this is fruit. Fruit is normally soft and has a lot of sugar in it. Just as with us humans, sugary foods should be left as a treat and not become a staple of your beardie’s diet. You get toothache when you eat too many sweets, and it’s the same for bearded dragon’s when it comes to fruit.
Too much soft food is also not so great for your bearded dragon. This could be things like worms, but also soft vegetables and fruits. It’s best to feed your bearded dragon more “hard”/crunchy food to keep their teeth in check, as we discussed previously.
Bearded dragon losing teeth
If your bearded dragon’s teeth are falling out, then it’s time to take them to the vet. There are a range of different causes of tooth loss in bearded dragons, but the most common is periodontal disease. Whatever the reason, it’s best to get them checked up on before trying anything yourself.
Here at Urban Reptiles, we’re not vets and we like to advise reptile owners to visit the vet if their pet has any health issues. A lot of reptiles die prematurely, and we’re sure much of it is down to pet owners not taking their reptile to the vet when they’re sick or showing signs of health conditions. If you’re bearded dragon is showing symptoms of any of the following health issues, please be a responsible pet carer and take them to the vet.
Periodontal disease
Periodontal disease is becoming increasingly common among bearded dragons. Here at Urban Reptiles, we like to stick to what we know best. We’re not an animal hospital and don’t feel like we’re the right people to be giving medical advice for bearded dragons. We do feel like we’re the right people to constantly be telling reptile owners to visit the vet when something’s wrong though, so we’ll just stick to that!
A lot of pet reptiles die in their first year unfortunately, and we’re sure that a good percentage of these cases could be avoided by some research and a visit to the vet.
This PDF by aurora animal hospital is a great place to learn more about periodontal disease and read about the symptoms!
This article by vetmed is another great place to learn more about conditions like stomatitis and gingival recession.
Conclusion
Bearded dragon’s have teeth and it’s important that you care for them properly. This starts with their diet, but occasional check-ups at the vet are also good practice. We hope that this article has been helpful to you, but if you have any way we may be able to improve it, please send us a message. We’re always happy to hear from our readers!
–
Sources:
