Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a 17 month old female(17 in.) her name is Shu Fang, and a 7 month old male(18 in.) his name is Li.

now because of his size i started to introducing them to one another. with me holding one of them at each "session", making sure i can pull one away if something negative happens.

when i bring them close together (starting out far away, noticing that they see each other. then gradually bringing closer and closer. until they're about 2 feet apart) Shu Fang displays her beard, and once she nodded about four times, while Li doesn't seem like he cares or is afraid of her. he doesn't show his beard or his beard doesn't even go black he just seems like he's not scared.

but on two occassions Shu Fang has charged at him with her mouth closed and hit my hand ,once, that he was sitting in and he didn't even seem to know what was happening. and then on another occassion Li charged at her the same way while i was holding her.
What Does This Mean?
Does Someone Know?
And What Should I Do?

The charging by the female sounds like agression. With the size difference you're going to have to be real careful breeding them. She could do some serious damage or even kill him if she feels like it. Even breeding same size I've had girls get mad and go after the males, I even had one girl take off one of my males arms and another girl took off the front upper mouth of another male. Breeding is violent and there is always the possibility of injury. If I were you I'd wait a bit and let him put some more size on and try again. The male should do the head bobbing, charging, neck biting, etc. the female should do slow pushups, arm waving, etc. in a classic breeding scenerio but it doesn't always go like that lol. As long as no blood is drawn I usually let them do their thing.

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

when BD's breed does it often seem like an act of agression??? I have a large female and a smaller male (they're the same length and age, but the female is more in girth and just overall fatter) and whenever i've tried to let them interact the larger female charges the male, and i thought that to be odd, and haven't let them interact without barriers since.
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0.2.0 Bearded Dragons
Nunca & Nexus
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are you introducing the male into the females cage?or visa versa?

if so than the problem is that the female (or male) has an established territory in her cage, she doesnt want strangers just waltzing in.

the solution is simple. take the bearded dragons out of the cage and put them both in a clean plastic tub or something. take everything out of the cage. clean the water bowl, food bowl, log, hide spot, etc. then clean, or replace if necessary, the substrate.
then place everything back into the tank in a different order than it was before.
now place both dragons into the cage at the same time.
The dragons should now peacfully coexist.
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sincerely,
Jonathan D. de Kluyver
JDDK Reptiles
Quality Reptiles and Amphibianswww.jddkreptiles.com