Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 9 month old male bearded dragon that is 16 inches long and 251 grams. I also have an adult female that is 18 inches and 456 grams. I know it is recommended that breeders should be at least 300 grams but i think 300 grams might be a little low to be put with 456. How much should the male weigh before he can safely be put in with the female.

Thanks,
Justin

Your male should also reach adulthood and be of similar weight and size.
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www.classylizard.com

Why do you recomend males be adults? They can reach maturity at 9 months or younger. What is the purpose of waiting so long for males? As for size, generally I agree. If the male is substantially smaller, they probably could not breed as he could not grab the female properly to mate. She might also intimidate him unless he is an aggressive breeder.
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Bennett

Home Of The Florida Orange
www.beardiedragon.com

...and I'm glad you asked it. I was wondering the same thing myself.
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me
"The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense,
not between right and wrong." - Carl Jung

they may be sexually mature, being able to mate, but there is a higher percentage of prolaspes, infections due to failure to fully retract immeidately and abrasion injuries in young males than in fully grown males. They may not have the muscle development or strength yet. Also some males tend to stop eating due active breeding and that usually is not good for a growing young beardie that still needs his food intake and nutrients for his growth developement.

On the medical forum we just had a guy that breed a male and a female under age 12 months, the male died shortly after and was found to have a infection in both hemipenes, the owner noticed he had not fully retracted for several hours after breeding, but then did so they thought everything was fine, 6 days later the male was dead with a gram negative infection in his hemipenes.

If that was not bad enough, the female died a month later of egg binding. What made this so frustrating, was then the owner wanted to blame the breeder that the dragons came from. Stating that they had genetic problems in their dragons, when in fact, after talking to the owners vet (the orginal breeder of the dragons in question who sold them to the owner) found out what really killed the dragons....... the owner listening to others that it was safe to breed ones that young!

OH, they can breed, and some will be lucky and not have problems, but is it worth the risk?
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www.reptilerooms.com

some excellent info there that I never heard before. How common is this with males? Thanks. This why I love this forum, so much to be learned.

(yes I know everyone has there own, not looking for arguments)
So to get your opinion what size and age do you recomend for breeding both males and females? ie females should be 350g 16" and 18months old, males the same?

And for those of you that breed by size and not age, what size do you go by?
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Bennett

Home Of The Florida Orange
www.beardiedragon.com

when have reach their own maturity and growth and do not need the nutrients so much for themselves, can go the lean times that the males of some species experience when active breeding and the females can support the additional strain of being gravid, pregnant and birthing or egg laying.

We had two female GG dragon that did not stop growing until they were almost 2 1/2 years old, another regular that stopped at 14 months and they all are near 600 grams now. I think they signal when they are ready in many ways. All bounced back from being gravid within a few days and are very healthy.

The two older ones were put with males at age 18 months-2 years and were not interested in breeding, the males could have forced them, but we do not think that is best for them, but at 2 1/2 years they were jumping on the males, they were ready then.

Kevin Dunne had a female that was not breed, but laying at 8-10 months, so in that case it was better to breed her for fertile eggs, which is easier for them to lay than to allow her to continue to lay infertile ones.

It really depends on the dragon or any animal. The above is the ONLY time I know of that a female under 18 months was ready and she signaled that by producing them on her own without breeding. With all the females we have, we have never had one lay eggs on her own without breeding under 18-24 months. I think that is most breeders experiences and an indicator of what the average age is most are mature and ready. Average, but not all.

Another factor is the health of the eggs and the viablilty of the hatchlings produced. I think most breeders would agree that too young females have a higher statistics of failed eggs or failure to thrive hatchlings when breed.
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www.reptilerooms.com

this may sound stupid but how do you determine when they stop growing? do you say ok if they have not gained 20g this month they are done? I had a German I got from Kevin that hardly grew from about 6 months to 10 months then in 2 months nearly doubles in size. Several of the yearlings I got from Sandfire came here and went into brumation. I would have thought at a year they were pretty much done growing but Bob told me they had a lot of growing to do. sure enough after they woke up they grew by leaps and bounds.

I believe in better safe than sorry and would rather not risk the health of my BDs. I have Females here, less than a year old that are pushing 500g and have not grown in the past month. Does that mean they are ready to go?
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Bennett

Home Of The Florida Orange
www.beardiedragon.com

I've heard of rescue dragons growing past 18 mo. of age, ones that were malnourished and then given proper food and UVB.but Otherwise, most dragons are done by 18 mo, at least their bone structure. They can always gain and lose weight.

I also know of someone that bred a 10 mo. old dragon, the hemipenes didn't retract, long story short, they were amputated.
Like Cheri said, this doesn't happen everytime, but often enough to warrant being safe and waiting.

As you mentioned, size of the beardie does matter. For the same reason we don't house different sizes together. A large PO'd female can do some damage to a scrawny male that can't hold his own.
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www.classylizard.com