Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I want to start breeding beardies and want to know what do I all need for breeding??How big of a cage to house a pair of beardies?When do I breed them?How do I breed them?How do I incubate the eggs?What size enclosure do I keep them in?What color do yall think I should get?Fill me in I want to start breeding beardies..
Thanks!
~Kara~

Do you currently own a bearded dragon? How long have you had it? How do you care for it? What size tank do you have for the one you own? In my opinion you should never breed an animal that you haven't kept for a long time and fully understand all of its needs. You should get a hatchling as a pet and raise it to an adult. You should learn all you can during that time. You need to find a local reptile vet, and you need to have a VERY good understanding of dragon care before you go to the vet (there are MANY horror stories about vets claiming to treat reptiles) and screen vets until you fond a good one. You then need to have him or her work with you for several months developing a diet that is best suited for gravid females, growing hatchlings and juvies, and maintainance adults. You need to know not only why mealworms are almost worthless as feeder prey and how proper gutloading affects the Ca ratios of crickets. You need to know how to balance the phos and the calcium in your dragons diets so that they can grow properly during those critical forst months. You need to have you vet teach you how to do fecal floats because parasites can come in on any order of crickets (EVEN the BIGGEST cricket suppliers outsource their orders, sometimes even from BAIT SHOPS!) That means you need to buy a couple hundred dollar microscope and some fecasol and ask your local pet store for samples to practice on. You need to volunteer with a local herp rescue society for at least half a year so that you can work with vets to recognize and treat different disease like yellow fungus, MBD, and adenovirus. You need to learn how to properly make a syringe formula for non-thriving hatchlings to get them back on their feet, and you need to learn to administer formula to the tinest and most fragile of babies without aspirating any food. You need about 200 square feet to be prepared to house the babies you will produce. This will include a rack system that can hold about 30 rubbermaid tubs of the dimensions 12 X 17 X 20. You can house 5 babies per tub. You may or may not use them all, but you will come close. you will need the extra tubs toward the end of the season to seperate the juvies into single tubs once they show aggression at 3-4 months old (yes, you will have juvies left at the end of the season). You will need a clamp reflector with a ceramic base for each tub and a 75-100# lightbulb for the basking spot. You will need 30 bricks or basking rocks for the babies under the basking light. you will need 8 3ft UVB lights with 3 foot hoods. You will need a small branch or another brick under the UVB light to get the babies close enough to the rays. (you will need to know how to supplement properly so that you give enough D3 for the VERY rapid growth of young dragons, but not so much that you poision them, too much D3 can cause appetite loss and lethergy and eventually death) you will also need enough space to house 8000 crickets. this is a conservative estimate of what the babies from ONE breeding will eat a week. I order 8000 a week but I supplement with silkworms and feeder roaches daily too. This is from putting my female with the male ONCE for about 5 minutes. I have 175 babies. I could have had more if I had bred her again because I got infertile eggs towards the end, but enough is enough for her and me. Speaking of the adults. You should plan to house them seperatly. While there are one or two exceptions to this, USUALLY a male will harass and attack a female, breeding several times a day. Breeding is violent and the male will bite and rip at a females neck, arms, and tail. The female is prepared to take this abuse one time, breed, and run away. If she is trapped in the tank she could be injured and very stressed. Many females that are housed with males will retreat to a corner and never move even to eat. Movement triggers the male to breed. You will need 75 gal long tanks for adult dragons, you can get by with 65, but for a breeding female I recommend 75. You need about 200 adult cricket a day for a gravid female along with a bundle of greens and other veggies. I recommend feeding superworms, silkworms, and feeder roaches along with the crickets to a gravid female.

You need to know ABSOLUTLY EVERYTHING about bearded dragons. You will need to know EVERYTHING about their care needs. You will be selling these animals to people who do not know how to setup a tank, do not know that you can not house dragons together, do not know that they should quarintine new animal, and people that will expose thier animals to various other harmful things. You need to know EXACTLY how these animals work because these people are going to call and e-mail you when their dragon does not eat or catches parasite from its pet store purchased cage mate. You are going to have to be able to identify everything that can go wrong with a bearded dragon over the phone with very little info. You need to be an EXPERT to consider breeding animals. If you create them you are 100% responsible for them forever.

And last you need to look at your life. Baby dragons MUST eat 3 times a day EVERY DAY. Do you ever leave your house for more then 5 hours? You can't if you breed dragons. Do you ever take a weeked off to visit family and friends? Nope, can't do that either. Do you like to go to the river on a beautiful day and have a picnic? You ALWAYS have to be there to feed. If you do not feed your baby dragons they WILL bite eachothers tails and toes off. In extreme cases they will take entire limbs. You NEVER get a day off. They are always there and always hungry. Take a few months of your life and pretend you need to be home every few hours to feed or water your babies. You need to spread 3 cricket feedings, one salad feeding, two misting/waterings, and twice daily cleaning into the day. You seriously can never get far from your house. How would that change your life?

But BTW, I love all this, and I think its totally worth it. I have Dr. Madar's Reptile Medicine and Surgery almost memorized. I love this kind of thing, I love knowing how things work. These animals are amazing and everyday I try to learn something new and useful.

But, I think you have a LONG LONG way to go before you consider breeding any animal you haven't cared for for years already.
Link

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I know how to breed dragons and your post made my head spin lol Good info though.

brandon
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Dragons by Nature

Well,I know what alot of work,time,patience is,I raise show rabbits for a living..I printed the is Kakadu..I really am grateful!!!!!!!!Im still instested in it though..Also I have a 6 foot glass cage for the beardies..how many could I keep in there?maybe 2?..
Thankyou so much for all your help..(It must have took a long time to right all that .)Bye!!!
~Kara~
Im 14 and I own,1 iguana,45 show rabbits,2 goats,1 horse,a ton of cats,and a chihauhua!

Do you mean adult dragons in a 6 foot enclosure? Well you could get 2 females yes, no problem (unless they don't like each other). But I never recommend keeping males and females together. The very very best way to breed dragons is to house males and females apart and introduce them for a few minutes in a neutral location.

And Brandon, I know if you stepped back and listed all the things you do to care for your dragons it would be just as overwhelming as the list I made. You have such a beautiful site, beautiful animals, and a wonderful collections of resources like that breeding section. I don't think people realize how much time goes into making something like that.

BTW, Brandon's site has the best "how to" on breeding. You REALLY REALLY should check it out. Everyone, really go there. Its like the cheat sheet on dragon breeding.
Link Below:
Dragons By Nature Breeding Information

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Thanks a lot Jen, I appreciate that. Yea, that page was a lot of work and effort, but I wanted something to help people out that didn't have much info. They will do it with or without help, and i thought by writing some stuff up, maybe it would help some.

BTW, I sent a couple people your way looking for awesome reds/oranges. The ones I saw were incredible. Can I have just one more plzzzzzzzzzzz lol

brandon
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Dragons by Nature

Excellent post. I'm bookmarking it for future reference.
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Amanda
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
1.0 pictus gecko (Nicodemus)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
0.0.1 tarantula (Calcifer)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

wow so many Q's.

Buy the Bearded Dragon Manual.
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sincerely,
Jonathan D. de Kluyver
JDDK Reptiles
Quality Reptiles and Amphibianswww.jddkreptiles.com

Great post Kakadu! Although I wasn't ever going to consider breading, I am sure I won't even entertain the idea after that!

joi