Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 7 dragons now. 2 males and 5 females ranging from 3 months to 8 months. I have had to house one male seperate from the dragons that are smaller than him because he bit one in the face, but other than that, I have not had a problem housing beardies together. The aggressive red male is housed on the smaller 1/3 of a huge tank and the rest are on the larger 2/3. (w3.5xh3xL6 feet) I plan on breeding this spring and I have 5 more enclosures and wood to build more. So my question is, do you guys think I'll have problems with housing these guys like this in the future? I've got a 15x15 room dedicated to breeding these guys and all the supplies I'll need. If I have 2 males and 5 females, how many beardies could I have in a single season? I have hissing roaches, lobster roaches, and mealworms for protien, plus a beardie salad. Any help would be great!
Jeff

i have had a few females that were able to be housed together. Most when full grown like their own space. I would just make sure you have enough cages to go around incase your beardeds arent able to be housed together. Also, do not feed mealworms to beardeds!!! they cause impacation and could kill them!!!
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0.1.0 Yellow/German Giant Beardie (Helga)
1.1.0 Senegal Chameleons (Francois & Fifi)
1.0.0 15 year old Eastern Box Turtles (Radar)
0.1.0 Brown Basilisk (Leroy, I know shes a girl!)
0.0.1 Marbled Gecko (Chalmers)
0.1.0 Adopted Beardie (Sissy)
0.1.0 Rescued Beardie missing limb (Lefty)

Too many leos to count.....

A house a couple together as well with no problems. Also in response to the post above I have never had a problem with impaction and I feed mine mealworms as well as crickets. I do avoid them with hatchling and juveniles though b/c the exoskeleton can be difficult to digest.
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0.0.1 Green Water Dragon
1.0.0 Tokay Gecko
1.1.2 Bearded Dragons
0.1.0 Columbian Red-tailed Boa
1.0.0 Yellow Ratsnake
0.0.1 California Kingsnake
0.0.1 Black and White Tegu

There is nothing wrong with supplimenting bearded dragons diets with mealworms as long as they are older than 4 months and given as an occasional treat. I don't know where you got that information from, but all mine are fine.

Its good that you're having early success with dragons, but you're still a long way off from breeding. First off, the dragons (the females especially) need to be full grown (usually around 18 months or so). Also, are the males related to the females? You're only asking for trouble if they are. As far as potential babies, each female can lay 4-6 clutches in a season (with each clutch having 15-30 eggs), so if everything went perfect you could have a potential 900 babies. Now, since this is your first time and the dragons' first time, I don't think you'll get any where near that number, but it's possible. Trust me on this, you don't want any where even close to that many dragons in a single season anyway.

My suggestion is to focus on raising all these guys to healthy adults with no more than two dragons per cage and then see in a year where you're at. Seven adult dragons are plenty of work (I have 6 adults and some babies).

If at that time you still want to breed then I suggest you pick the best male and one female and breed them. See how that goes before you breed multiple pairs. Keep in mind, you should have a responsible way to find the babies homes.

Well, I have the room, money, and supplies for 900 beardies, but not yet the commitment or time. I believe I will have a male and 2 female dragons that will be ready to breed late spring so I'll see how it goes. Two females are related, but other than that they are all from different places and I'm sure I can unload a few clutches with no problem with a few hold backs. I am going to make arrangements to house them all seperately in a month or so or if I see any problems.