Reptile & Amphibian Forums

how can you tell if your beardie is pregnant or just gaining weight? and what is the earliest age a beardie can get pregnant?

sincerely Papa G

A female beardie can get prego before the age of 2 but this is not a good thing due to the fact that it can harm your beardie and shorten the life span. The prime time for a beardie to reproduce is 2-5 years of age. If you think your beardie is gravid you can soak them in the tub (or however you soak your beardie) and feel the under belly and see if you can feel any eggs. I assume you are housing a male and female together to be asking this question. If your beardie is prego and you do not want to keep the eggs I hear you just take them and freeze them in the freezer and then simply dispose of them. If you are looking to hatch the eggs please look further into this because it is not very hard but there are many very important things or you will have no luck breeding. Enjoy and please take pics and upload them with the progress (This is from what I have read on the website or other websites)

I've had a couple Beardies lay eggs at about 8 months. Even without a male they may still develop and lay infertile eggs. it's hard to tell of a BD is carrying infertile eggs. How lang and heavy is your Dragon? How old is she?

my female is actually a year old, she was hatched the same day I was born. she has almost doubled in size, weight wise, and really is not getting much larger in length. I will upload pics soon!

sincerely Papa G!

Will need actual lengths..doubled in size..doesn't really tell much if we don't know the length she was before she doubled. A hatchling is typically 3-5" in length, nose to tail tip. Doubled would mean only 6-10" length which is very small for a one year old dragon.

If you bought her from a breeder usually they are sold at 6" or more, but 12" overall length is small for a one year old dragon. Hence it is important to know the actual length to get a good idea if she is a healthy size/weight or even gravid.

She is also old enough to be gravid, though not all females produce eggs in their first year, or ever, when never housed or mated with a male dragon. I have heard of females laying eggs as young as 8 months.

Getting an accurate length and weight is a good idea. Her behavior is also another good indication if she is gravid. If close to laying eggs, pregnant females will start digging around frantically looking for a suitable nesting area. They also tend to go off feed a few days before egg laying.

Give us much more information about your dragon. How has her behavior been in the last month? How much does she eat and what does she eat? Is she housed alone, with a male? Another female? Details about your setup can also be important, especially if she's acting oddly (ie restless, lathargic, no longer eating etc.)
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PHLdyPayne

Yeah all that will help if you have a picture you could post up that would be a good thing. Picture of the setup i mean!

Ok, so I got her from a reptile expo in November, and she was kind of skinny, and was 12" long. She was only seven months old when I got her. Now she is 15" long, and she is a year old, and she has almost doubled her weight. She is kept with a male that is two years old, and I feed them live foods every other day, and I feed them greens everyother time with the live foods. For the live foods I feed the dusted crickets and superworms, and occasionally pinkies, and for Greens I feed them dusted and misted romane lettuce. She likes to eat the live foods more than the greens, and she really is not that active, she usually sits in the opposite end of the cage, away from the heat lamp, on top of one of the logs I have in there, where there is a heat mat placed. Also her and her mate are kept in a breeder twenty right now, I had them in a 55 gallon tank, until the tank broke, and I am trying to get a bigger tank for them soon. I hopes this helps

sincerely Papa G

Wow I need to take a deep breath for this one. First off if your beardie is small and it is housed with another beardie most of the time it is because it is not getting proper life style. Now first off the tank is way too small and you know that. So that would be your first fix now you are saying you are getting a 50gal tank. Please realize one beardie needs the space of 4’ x 2’ x 2’. So putting two together you need more room. I hope you realize that a 50gal tank will not be enough room but really anything is better than the 20gal tank you have them in right now. Second off if you had one single bed and two adults and said good night what is going to happen? The bigger one is going to be sleeping in a bed and the other is on the floor. So in this sense if you have two beardies you have to have two basking spots. Third you do not need a heating mat in a beardie cage. Unless you live in very cold temps and the heating mat helps keep the temps around 70-80 you do not need this. The heat lamp does not just heat your dragon the light stimulates their eating habits. Fourth romane lettuce does nothing for their diet and you need to change that to a nice collard green or mustard green you can use other things but theses are at the store always next to the romane lettuce. Do not use spinach please. Besides that I hope you are using a nice UVB light which will help colors and growth and digest food. I hope this will help and realize this is just a start. Good luck and please update with your sucess. I would say you do this and you may find your beardie to grow around 3" over the next 6 months

I must have missed this reply.

20 gallon tanks are no good for even a single adult dragon. You need at least a 50gal breeder/long tank for a single adult dragon.

Definitely make it your top priority to make or buy two 4'x2' cages (larger is better, but with two, you can keep them separated except to breed and you only need to have them together for a day or two to get several clutches of fertile eggs).

Romaine lettuce is a poor choice for salad greens. Use collard greens, dandelion greens, mustard greens, endive, escaroli and other greens mixed together. A little romaine mixed in with several higher nutritious greens is ok...but by itself its pretty much useless. About the only green besides romaine that is useless nutrition wise is ice berg lettuce.

You didn't mention your basking temps etc. Basking temps need to be set up over a wide basking area which allows access to a range of temperatures...with the highest accessible point of the basking areas being 120-130F with lower areas ranging between 100-120F. This ensures your dragon has access to the temps they need. Ambient (air temps) in the basking area should be 80-90F and the cool end of the tank should be 70-80F during the day. At night they can drop to 65F without any concerns.

Bearded dragons need light intensity so their basking heat source needs to be a bright light. ALso they need a UVB light, one that stretches the entire length of the cage...for a 4' long cage, you should get at least a 3' long fixture. A 5' long cage, a 4' long enclosure is good.

As your female is just lying around in the coolest part of the cage, this is a sign of stress, possibly illness. Not a sign of being pregnant. The male is obviously dominating her, keeping her away from what she needs to thrive. You need to separate them and house them larger setups. Otherwise she can go down hill fast...especially if she is gravid.

www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html - great site to choose proper greens etc to offer your dragon.
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PHLdyPayne

Ok, first thank you so much for pointing out how to help me with the minor problems with my herp keeping that could possibly be disasterous for the beardies.

Second, the male does not bully her away from anything, if anyhting he is the one who is being bullied. She steals food from him all the time, and pushes him out of her spot. Knowing this I still need to get a bigger tank with much more room and feed them more often with a better set of greens to help with their diet.

And about my setup witht he lights, yes I use UVB and frouecent lighting in my cages. I have a heat pad and a UVB light at one end and a heat pad and the flourecent light at one end, inspite of their being two beadies, she and the male stay at the flourecent end andoccasionally go to the UVB end. The reasons for this I do not know, because the temperature at tat end is perfectly at 92 degrees, and the other end is at 83 degrees.

Knowing this I still have a lot of work to do, and I hope she isn't because I don't want her to have a clutch in these conditions!

Sincerely Papa G

Best way to prevent her having a clutch is to separate her from the male. While they are together it is inedible she will get pregnant.

For the lights, it is best to have the UVB bulb running the entire length of the cage or as much as possible (2/3rds the total length should be a minimum). The basking light needs to be bright and at one end of the cage, over the basking site.

Your setup has UVB at one end and the basking site at the other, which ensures your dragon will not get good exposure to the UVB. They by instinct, will go to the brightest 'sunniest' spot to reach the temperatures they need, even if the dimmer area is actually warmer. This is why under tank heaters, heating pads and other non light producing heat sources, are completely useless for bearded dragons and other diurnal reptiles (active in the day time). Non light producing heat sources are ideal for nocturnal reptiles such as most snakes, leopard geckos, ground/sand boas etc.

What is important is for you to get two appropriate sized cages for your dragons with proper light setups. Glass tanks will do but I personally find they are useless as they are harder to heat, are heavy, and tend to be too narrow. Custom made cages are the best, either bought premade or build yourself.

As it takes a little time to build a cage, cheap temporary enclosures can be set up. Large sterlite or other clear plastic totes/tubs can be used...These are not as good on the long term as I have yet to see any large enough for adult dragons that are not opaque. Most are nearly clear or translucent. It is easy to get a 4' fixture from Home depot, for a UVB tube and a clamp hooded fixture (make sure its rated for at least 75 watts though 125 watts would be better.) Make sure the bulb isn't in direct contact with the tub. Plastics do have a fairly high melting point but its not extremely high so a hot bulb can melt them.

This sort of temporary setup only works if you don't have young children or other pets roaming loose in the house...as it is open topped. But this is a cheap way to get your dragons separated and housed in larger accommodations for a few weeks or a month while you buy or build a more appropriate enclosure.
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PHLdyPayne

http://www.reptiletubs.com/

Model #VE175 would make a suitable temporary/permanent cage for an adult dragon. Pretty darn close to 4'x2' dimensions.

Purchase with the lid. All you will need is a razor-knife, mesh screen, and whatever method you choose to fasten the mesh to the lid, ie..glue gun, tape, staples or screws.

Using the razor-knife make a cut-out for a circular dome lamp for the warm end. Cut some mesh to size and fasten.

If your supplying UVB, make a cut-out for a flourescent fixture to run the length of the cage. Cut some mesh to size and fasten.

Wow. I'm surpised you can type already at only one year old. lol.