A few things...if you do decide to get a "compainion" make sure you wait until this guy is established, eating well, pooping, and is not sick.



As far as keeping beardies together...some people od it and have no problems, most people agree that its not a good idea. They aren't exactly communal(sp) animals and don't suffer and feelings of lonliness if they are kept singly. Humans have a habit of "humanizing" their pets...attributing human qualities to them that they dont have.



There are several problems with housing mulptiple beardies together...



1. If you have a male and a female they will breed wether that is your purpose or not, and if they are kept together from the time they are young they will probably breed to soon. It is impossible to keep them together and prevent them from breeding, and breeding a female to young can be fatal to her. Also, keeping a single male with a single female can cause the problem of over breeding, even if they are of breeding age. The male has no other females to divert his attention and he may spend all his time harrassing the female. This can lead to a bunch of problems, anywhere from actually problems with having too many eggs and not enough calcium to produce them, and also just generally stressing the female out. It is generally recomended with any lizards that if you keep both sexes together, keep one male and at least 2 females, this way the male will not spend all his time harrassing one of them.



2. Illness is harder to isolate and treat if your lizards are housed together. If one gets sick, the other is sure to follow. Also, you cannot always keep tabs on who is doing what. If you find a suspicious looking (runny, foul odored or otherwise not normal) poop in the tank you dont know which beardie is having a problem and you will probably have to bring them both to the vet.



3. Beardies housed together, especially young beardies frequently get stressed by the presence of another. A lot of people want their buddy to have a "friend" so they get two and one grows like a weed while the other usually doesn't do so good. Although no signs of disease are apparent they tend to not fair well...they may not eat as much, be as active, get the good basking and they may get parasites.



4. There is also the problem of space, although having two beardies doesn't require as much room as say having two iguanas, it still means you will need a very large tank.



If you were to house two together i would recomend going with two females (which you cannot do if you already have a male) or not putting them together until they are old enough to breed. Remember also that the new beardie must be quantined before introducing her to yours





This is all a very abbreviated version of some of the reasons why I personally don't think its a good idea...im sure others will elaborate.



Hope this helps!
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