Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a female bearded dragon out of great genetics, she hasnt grown much at all and is always in attempt to breed with males. She is 15 1/2 - 16 Inchs in length and 290-300 Grams in weight, she is a stunning Chris Allens Red X Orange. If i find a smaller male do you think she can be bred?

Hi
how old is she ??
never breed under the 1 1/2 years old .
if she is that age then you should find a nice smaller male .
byeeeee

www.dragoncave.nl

She is deffinitely too small to breed, especially if she is already over 15 months of age. If she is still under 14 months old, I would suggest concentrating on getting her bigger by offering a well balanced diet and making sure she is parasite free etc, to hopefully get her to grow more.

Though she may have good color etc. if she is already an adult and all her past husbandry was perfect (thus eliminating this as the reason she isn't very big) her smallness is most likely due to genetics, either a defect in her genes itself, problem with incubation, a late bred female (mother) etc. Though her babies may be more normal sized, if the cause is genetic and you find a male the same size, the babies could be just as small if not smaller. Thus you will have under sized babies.

To determine if she was just the runt of the litter, see if you can find out how big her parents and siblings were. If they are all quite large, then breeding her may not be a problem. If they are all or the majority are on the small side, it would not be a good ideal to breed her.
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PHLdyPayne

Her mother was 15Inchs 340 Grams and her Father 16 Inchs 420 Grams, probly due her parents size. Ill get what i can of weight on her, she is a Wide female not really long though ive her wide ones breed better

Hi
i think PHLdyPayne, is right then the genetic thing .
then maybe she get not so big to .
byeeeeee

I don't know if wide dragons breed any better than slimmer dragons but that isn't really my concern. With small dragons breeding, they produce young predisposed to being small as well. You can see that even with your dragon, as the parents are also quite small.

Though in itself, there is nothing wrong with breeding small dragons, some people may like dragons who are smaller than thus, require less space as adults. Its just the fact bearded dragons in the wild are much closer to 24" than what is currently available in the pet industry. I don't know for sure if small dragons could mean unhealthy dragons (genetically speaking that is), or just a step towards seeing 'dwarf dragons' in the future. Personally I would recommend not breeding your dragon due to her small size, instead going for larger more robust draogns. However, it will be up to you to decide to breed her.
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PHLdyPayne