Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I keep my male and female pair together ALL of the time! She is just fine and she hasn't layed eggs in 4 months. She is not stressed and either is he. They both weigh in at 400 grams. Why do you people say that housing them together is bad?

There are a lot of variables that can contribute to keeping a pair (male/female) dragon together. Some males are not very dominant and can be kept together fine with the right female, or even a female could be more aggressive and intimidate the male with certain dragons.

They key to look at is the whole picture. Your having success in 4 months.. wait 4 years and see what happens... hopefully they will be great together their whole life and have no problems which would be awesome.

However, males as they get older can be very aggressive.. especially after brumation and when they reach sexual maturity.. so the key is to keep an eye on them. If your female continues to eat and grow and so does the male your good to go.

However, there are many people even here that have housed males/females together with bad results. Again, the key is to look at the whole picture and just bc your pair works doesn't mean the majority will.

Glad to hear your pair is doing well.. just keep a close eye on them for the next year and see how they do once your female is ready to produce eggs.

Goodluck,
brandon
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Dragons by Nature

No, my pair are 3-4 years old and have been together since they were 18 months old. The male is not aggresive at all and neither is the female.

Who says that? i keep my pair together all the time too... ive never heard anyone say that housing a male/female pair that are of breeding age together is wrong...
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sincerely,
Jonathan D. de Kluyver
JDDK Reptiles
Quality Reptiles and Amphibianswww.jddkreptiles.com

You're kidding, right???? So you agree with putting your girls through the constant stress of being gravid all the time and having a male around with his "needs" all the time stressing her out even more.... Is this what you're saying????

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

okay. mabye in your experience your pairs have not worked well together. My female is not ALWAYS gravid. and she is not under any stress at all. alot of breeders keep pairs together all the time. i had to seperate them once because they wernt used to each other but now there fine. they are both very healthy and eating well (except that there starting to go into brumation and are eating a little less now).
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sincerely,
Jonathan D. de Kluyver
JDDK Reptiles
Quality Reptiles and Amphibianswww.jddkreptiles.com

My female isn't gravid all of the time either. She isn't even stressed. She eats a lot and always has good weight.

I think the problems start with the number of folks who are new to herps, don't have a clue what the problems might be.

the folks who post with things like "Why is the male chasing the female?" or "Why is the female digging?" and so on...

this goes along with the "why can't I keep X and Y in the same tank?" and other such questions.

sure you have the cases where things work out ok.

but a good starting point for us is to tell others the safest practice first. To make it clear when one of us is doing a certain thing that we advise others to not try this unless they are able to use caution and so on...

that way we will hopefully have less of the posts with dragons that have been abused and mutilated by poor care and housing.

I think that is why this is a "hot topic" around here.
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I have had my male & female together for the year that I have had them. I got them when they were around 7 months old from a lady that was not caring for them what so ever! They were 40 grams (f) and 50 grams (m). When I did try to house them apart they both stopped eating and did nothing but race around and freak out. So they are together and doing great. I have only had one clutch and the male doesn't seem to bother the female. They are equally happy together and haven't seen the dirty deed being done. If I saw any signs of this they would have to be housed apart. But so far so good with them. On the other hand, I would have never housed my older beardie I had for 6 1/2 years with another since I know she would have surely killed another. I belive it all goes by the dragon itself. I will never put my new beardie with another either. And to be honest I normally wouldn't keep any together but since Cajun & Creole seem to only thrive while together what is why they are together.

I agree with you that some will work and some will not.

thats the thing is that you have the basic under standing that this is true and that you must keep an eye on them.

also I suspect from what you just said the inital lcak of good care proably has something to do with how that pair get along.

I do think that bd's seem to be closer to "social" than most herps are. and they do seem to have more behaviors related to humans and suroundings than some herps.

but the beginner should not take this as the "norm" and try to keep other herps as "casual" as we sometimes can with bd's

and as you sais there are some bd's who will for sure get nasty and mean to another bd for beeing to close to him / her.

thats the thing, learning to read them and what to watch for.

one other issue is the spread of any parasites or other problems. many folks will have a hard time dealing with one sick bd much less a sick pair and eggs hatching.
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I couldn't agree with you more!! Most will turn out to be a disaster! And I will never advise someone to just house more than one together. It can be done as mine are great together, but they have been through hell together their first 7 months and do poor with out each other, But it's not the norm and that should be known. Zatarain would have killed another dragon with out a thought, as she was big enough to do it, and baby Bayou will never see the others just because it's not worth the risk. It just so happens that Cajun & Creole do well. It's a Huge risk having more than one per tank, and someone that is new or even fairly new should not ever try it! I just wanted to make that point that I don't belive most will be ok housing more than one per tank. It's too high risk and can result in many vet visits and huge bills.

Bearded dragons all have different personalities and sociability. On average keeping a male and female together leads to lots of eggs, frequent mating attempts by the male to breed her and alot of stress on the female from his attempts not to mention producing eggs.

From my reading on this forum there have been alot of incidents even with experienced breeders putting males in with females just to mate, where the female and even the male came out with injuries. There is a reason why these critters can run fast if they need to. Unfortunately in a 5'x2' cage, (or whatever size you have) they can't run far enough. Running around in a cage in a panic can lead to just as much if not more injury than a fight with a cage mate.

It wasnt' too long ago (a week maybe) a person posted that he had put his new female in with his male and he attacked her, injuring her neck and damaging her arm, maybe even broke it. Before the two had gotten along well on the floor together and even after he first added her to the tank. They were fine for the day or a few days (can't remember exactly how long they were together before the injuries occured). Then they came back home one day to find the male trying to mate with the female and had caused or was causing the injuries. I don't know how this dragon is doing now, don't think the poster has updated lately, or at least not that I have noticed yet.

Though I agree some males and females can be housed together with little or no stress, it most certainly isn't the norm. I also doubt it will be much longer before you do get eggs produced. Unless you actually have two females and not a male and female together. Sometimes it's not worth keeping males and females together then having to deal with the extra care the female needs (extra calcium, more protein etc.) then incubating eggs and rearing babies. It also winds up being cheaper to just buy a second cage for the male to live in.