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I am probably getting about 6 female double hets next year. Het for Hypo, Het for Trans. Does anyone know what male I should get to breed to these females? Should I get something like a translucent male? Hypo Translucent male? What should I buy to make the most money off the babies?

Thanks,
Darien Drollinger

Any input would help
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"What should I buy to make the most money off the babies?"

Don't breed to make money off of the babies....if you are waiting until next year to get your stock...and i'm assuming that you are getting babies...it'll be two years before you can breed them properly...the transleucent fad will be over by then...no one will be paying more than $100 for a pure transleucent. just look at how fast the hypo-pastel fad passed. hypo pastels are still beautiful dragons, it's just that everyone is in awe to the transleucents now.

the way you asked your question is a little funny. You should definetly do more research before you start a responsible task of breeding. which is what i hope you meant by posting here.
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a free range dragon is a happy dragon

If you are trying to get double morph babies, you will need at least, a male which is het for hypo and translucent. Or, a Translucent male het for hypo or the other way around..or to get all hypo translucent babies, you will need to get a Translucent Hypo male.

However, don't expect to make money in your first year of breeding. The first year is always the most costly, as you have to buy cages for babies, incubators, incubating medium, tons of crickets, UVB bulbs, heat bulbs, feeding dishes etc. And, assuming you can afford to advertise the babes properly, arrange for shipping etc, it is very unlikely you will make money off the first year.

It also depends on how strong the market is for translucents. I haven't seen any for sale up here in Canada, color seems to be the more desired than seeing the innards of a dragon. But the market in the states is much different and more diverse than what is up here in Canada. Check your market, talk with other translucent breeders...check their websites (if they always have babies for sale or young adults if they are from last year available, chances are there isn't a big market for them, or they are asking way to much for each baby).

It always worries me about people who go into breeding animals solely to make alot of money. Unfortunately, unless you are able and willing to put in alot of money, time and effort into breeding, and love the animals you are working with, the 'big bucks' are not going to happen. Putting a pretty male in with a pretty female and having pretty babies, doesn't guarentee success in the breeding market. Presentation, advertising, excellent customer service, arranging a shipper ahead of time to take your animals and ship them all over the place with reliability and speed is also important. Building that trust with potential customers so they want to hand over hundreds of dollars for your babies. Taking the time and money to go to shows and expose yourself to the world etc. Willing to explain proper care of bearded dragons, of receiving and returning calls and emails from customers both future and current, in a timely manner is also important. Also, you need to totally understand how to care for your dragons too, before even considering breeding. It looks bad if you are asking questions on what to do with eggs after they are laid, or what does it mean when the female stops eating is trying to dig her way back to Australia through the glass bottom of her cage etc.

Breeding dragons can be fun and interesting to do, but remember these lizards are big layers. If you want to know what it is like to breed a lizard and hatch babies from eggs, I recommend getting a gecko,such as a leopard or crested gecko. These are easy to care for and have very small clutches, typically two eggs per clutch and maybe up to 6 clutches a year...thus only 12 babies to deal with, instead of anywhere between 45-125 babies per year.

If you have done tons of research, have kept bearded dragons for several years, have a good $1000 of cash right now plus a steady income from some other source, fully prepared to be stuck with 20 extra dragons by this time next year, should you not be able to sell all your babies right away, have the time to travel to local reptile shows (and know to book a table early enough not to miss out and understand that many shows will turn away from a newbie breeder in favor of a bigger well known breeder (especially a regular)) understand the shipping regulations of your local plane companies etc (not all airlines or shippers will accept reptiles, and those that due, often require alot of effort on your part to get them to accept your animals for shipment. And all this has to be arranged before you arrive with your animal ready to be shipped). Then definitely give it a shot but again, don't' expect to make back your initial investment in the first year. Some may take a few years to make back all the money they put in, and even then, the market fluctuates so much, what may sell great one year may not sell at all the next.

If you want to know how much it costs to set up incubators and cages for babies, consider the following:

A single female bearded dragon can have as many as three or four clutches in her first year. Each clutch can have anywhere between 12-25 eggs, depending on size of the female and bloodlines (german giant bloodlines tend to have more eggs, as much as 35 or more)

Each baby needs to be housed in a cage, with no more than 5 other cage mates (thsu about 5 per cage). Of course you can cram in as many babies as you can,but the more babies, the more difficult to ensure all are properly fed, all retain their tails and toes and not be overly bullied by each other....Thus, smaller cages, with no more than 5 babies per cage, seems to work best..as you can make sure all are eating well, basking well etc.

Fortunately, you can house babies in rubbermaid containers, instead of glass tanks, so cost of cages is greatly reduced. You can also run long light fixtures for your UVB bulbs, instead of individual uvb bulbs per cage.

So, single female has 3 clutches for the first year, each clutch contains 15 eggs on average. Thus for a single female, you will have 45 eggs. Thus you need 9 rubbermaid cages big enough to house 5 babies each. Good to have a few extra, as babies will grow at different rates and you need to separate the bigger ones so they don't bully the little ones or worse.

Incubators. One should be enough to hold a few clutches. Or you can build yourself a fridge/cooler incubator to house all your clutches (and I remember you said you will have 6 females so I suggest researching on how to build a large incubator...or you can buy one but this will cost alot of money, much much more than building one out of an old fridge (doesn't even need to be a working fridge) It being spring, drive around the day or night before garbage day and you have a good chance of seeing somebody with a fridge sitting on their curb for pickup).

UVB bulbs: Have to replace these every year...as they wear out. Long ones such as the 4 foot ones can be as much as $25 though if you buy in bulk, tend to be cheaper (big apple was having a sale on them, not sure if they still are, pitty they won't ship to Canada...)

Feed dishes and basking spots...these can be picked up cheap at a dollar store...A plastic low flower pot tipped upside down with a ramp will serve great as a large basking spot...use your imagination.

the biggest expense after the cages, lights, incubators etc, will be food. Find an online source of crickets that is near you to cut down cost of shipping and have good prices for 1000's of crickets and are always in stock.

ravenous baby dragons can eat as many as 30 or more crickets per meal, and they need to be fed at least 3 times a day for their first 6 weeks, if not the first two months. They grow fast so the size of crickets can increase but often the numbers don't at least not till they are about half their adult size...tend to slow down a bit then on number of crickets and frequency of meals...and greens can get introduced to take that edge off hunger.

Thus, if you have 45 ravenous babies eating three meals a day and they each eat at least 30 crickets per meal...you are looking at nearly 100 crickets per day per bearded dragon...that is 4500 crickets a day! If it costs you $10 per 1000 crickets, you are looking at $45 a day just on crickets. Since you are getting 6 females that will be 6 times the cost for all their babies....if each female has 45 babies per year. That means using up about 2700 crickets a day, costing you about $270 per day on food.

Of course not all clutches will hatch at the same time, so you probably won't have all those babies out of the egg at the same time. Most likely you will have the first clutch of each female hatch at about the same time, with about 2-4 weeks cap before the second clutch hatches...however, you will still find yourself spending nearly all your money feeding babies and you have to do this for about 6 weeks before you can even start selling the babies from the first clutch. If you are very lucky, you will have all of the first clutch sold before the third clutch hatches.
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PHLdyPayne

You are so right. I am glad that you are posted that. IT is a lot of work and money and a lot of reading. We did a ton of research before hand but still we run across situations where one may not be sure what to do... like when some of our eggs collapsed 10 days before hatching even though the humidity is at 100%. The collapsed eggs still hatched (or are in the process 4 are pipping) It is a learning experience. And you do have to be ready for the possibility that you may not sell them all right away. Or in my case want to sell, because now I am worried about the homes they may be going to.
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----ALICIA ROTH----

wanting to keep all the cute little guys definitely is one worry to consider LOL. I know I have the same problem with my baby crested geckos, they are soo cute...hard to sell them to new homes once they are well established. It wasn't easy to find homes for the 8 crested geckos I hatched last year, still have one hold back from that batch. This year I am hoping to get a table at a reptile show to help sell this years babies. I could have taken a table at a show last year but with only 8 crested gecko babies, seemed insufficient amount of animals to pay for a table for a whole day. My luck would have been to sell them by noon and have an empty for the rest of the day...not good at all.

Cresties are popular and easy to breed, and a great beginner lizard to try your hand at breeding first. Bearded dragons are good too but its the sheer numbers of babies a single female bearded dragon could produce that I think alot of first time breeders don't realize. A particularly large female may drop 30 eggs in a clutch, then go on to have 2-4 more clutches of around the same size...even if the male was not put back in with her after the first clutch. A really prolific female could have 150 eggs and if only 100 hatch, that is alot of mouths to feed for 6 weeks per clutch or longer. If all ate 100 crickets a day, thats 10000 crickets!. If it costs $10/1000 (though it may be cheaper giving the mass amount ordered at once) you are spending $100 a day just on crickets. And the babies may not sell for more than $100 each...depending on color/morph/market value. The cost of feeding all the babies per day is covered by the sale of a single baby...in the end you definitely won't come out on top. Maybe in subsequent years, after cost of setup is covered.

Oh one thing I forgot to mention above, is the cost of keeping/gutloading the crickets LOL. Need containers for that too, as you don't want to just feed the babies crickets the moment they arrived, they would have been starving for at least 24 hours, which burns of most of their food reserves and makes the crickets rather low on food value..so you need to feed the crickets at least one day on a good gutload...etc.
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PHLdyPayne

n/p
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a free range dragon is a happy dragon

Hi
i think it start with love for the animal at first .
you should be grazy from bearded dragons.
and then if you make money then you r lucky to buy stuf for them ,like new uvb/uva lights,new sand,food,and other things.
but first you must be grazy from them and do you make money then you r lucky
byeeeee
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www.dragoncave.nl

Well I am 14 and got my first dragon when I was 7. Ever since then I have liked dragons and have done at least an hour per day of research since then. I know quite a bit about care and breeding and stuff, but just wonder what would be the best to breed. I am currently breeding orange colored dragons but want to get into something better for next year.

Thanks for all of your input,
Darien Drollinger
www.djsdragonranch.com

darien
judson here, you just bought pebbles from me. like i told you, im getting out of dragons, but i just did get a trans female. im planning to breed her in the future possibly. ill let you know how it goes.

a few good people to get in touch with is Josh at Pdragons or Phantom Dragons and rob and vicki dachiu, they have great trans dragons. hypo trans are great too and more rare
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Beach Beardies

2.4. bearded dragons
1.0. Turquoise x Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*