Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey! I'm new here, but I've been reading the threads as part of my research before I get my first beardie/beardies. I was hoping to get two females, but I've heard mixed things about whether or not this is a good idea. I want to do whatever will make my beardie happy (as opposed to just "peacable" which is how I've heard 2 females in one cage described). I'd like to hear from people on both sides of this issue. I am planning on getting a 48x18x17 vivarium. I already have a cornsnake and day gecko and am doing my graduate thesis work in herpetology so I am familiar with keeping herps. Thanks in advance!

WOW, good luck at school. Right now i have 3 beardies, 2 female and i male. The male has his own tank for obvious reasons plus he's only 2 months, but i doubt he ever will share a tank with my females outside breeding season.
My oldest female is Feng (4 months and 11inches) and the new female is Tak (3 1/2 months and 9 inches) they are not living together yet because i am quarenteing them, but i hope to eventually get them to live together. They have met on 'neutral ground' and neither has bobbed or seemed dominated or stressed. They can see each other from their tanks and i hope to have them at peace in a couple months. Many breeders keep their femalees in colonies.
The key in having a working colony, is enough space for each beardie, enough food, and enough basking spots so everyone grows. The most dominant will take the higher basking spot, but you have to make sure that the others can bask too. My driftwood is also set up so the dragons can hide or dig or bask, but not neccesarily have the others stressing him/her.
Hope that helps!
-sara

If these are going to be your first beardies i would start keeping just one, or keeping two, but keeping them seperately. There are a number of different reasons why this is a good idea...

1. Dominance Agression/Stress: Many people make the mistake of assuming that aggression is displayed only through head bobbing, throat puffing, and physical attacks, but this is incorrect. while its true that these are SOME of the ways that dominance/aggression can be shown there are other, more subtle, and probably more dangerous (because they can be harder to notice) ways. Usually when two beardies are housed together, even females, one of them will be more dominant than the other one, the more dominant one will usually take the best basking spots and the most food. Getting less food and taking second best basking spots chronically will become stressed, chronic stress will lead to failure to grow and thrive and parasite infections. Even if the more dominant beardie doesn't "take" the most food, their presence will often lead to the less dominant one not eating us much. A good analogy is to imagine you are back in school, you are sitting down, about to eat your lunch and the class bully plops down right next to you to eat his lunch...you are probably going to lose your appetite. Right? Now what if that happened every day? Sometimes if the two are together the more dominant one will bask sitting on top of the less dominant one, many people will mistake this as a sign of affection, and think that the BD's are friends, but its actually a sign of dominance. The biggest issue with dominance aggression is that it leads the other beardie to always be stressed, and over time this will cause his immune system to falter and will allow for parasites to multiply in the system. You will often hear people say they have had two beardies together for some time with no problems and then one of them grew much bigger while the other stayed smaller...this is typically what happens, if they are not seperated and treated the smaller one will usually end up dying.

2. Physical Agression: Not much needs to be said about this, physical aggression is when they actually fight. Chasing, biting, scratching etc... Obviously this leads to drastic problems such as stress, infections and lost limbs.

3. Positive Sex Identification: This is a problem that frequently gets over looked when people consider putting two dragons together. Dragons cannot be sexed 100% until they are close to a year of age. Educated guesses can be made, but without probing there is no sure fire way to tell. There are a few problems that can arrise from this. If you get two baby beardies and house them together and they turn out to be a male and a female and you dont notice in time they will probably mate, and probably when they are two young. Mating when they are too young causes serious problems for the female, producing eggs takes a lot of nutrients and engery...energy that young dragons need to be using to grow. Young dragons that are bred are more likely to get sick or become eggbound or have other problems related to reproduction. If it turns out they are two males, the beardies may be able to tell before you do and you could come home one day to find they have been fighting. Its possible that one may even kill the other.

3. Disease, spreading and identifying: Another issue when dragons are housed together is disease. First and most obvious, if one dragon gets sick, its housemate is going to get sick also and then you will have two dragons to treat, not just one. Also, say you come home one day to find a suspicious looking poo (smelly, runny, and nasty) or some vomit, there is no way to tell which dragon is having a problem, unless you can constantly observe them. Or, how do you tell if they are both defecating? If one dragon was to become impacted (or has another issue causing constipation) you may not be able to tell until its too late. You will still be seeing fecals, but will be unable to tell which dragon they belong to. Also, one early symptom of disease is lack of appetite, when beardies are housed together its harder to tell who is eating how much. This is especially true if you keep veggies in the tank constantly, or often. You may set out the salad, walk off, come back later and find it all eaten...but who has eaten it? there is no real way to tell, you may not notice one dragon isn't eating until you see significant weight loss.

5. Space: This is another big one. You said you were getting a viv that was 48x18, this is the bare minimum size for one bearded dragon, if you were keeping two this space needs to be doubled, at least. If we are talking aquarium gallons, a 125g is the smallest i would ever consider housing two beardies in.

There are other reasons as well why its not such a good idea, but these are a few of the biggies. I am not saying that it cannot be done, but it presents a whole new world of issues to deal with. Keeping multiple beardies is best left to the experts, or at least those who have a bit more experience with beardies. People with more experience may be able to identify potential problems quicker and intervene before a problem becomes serious. Its awesome that you have experience in herps, but all herps are different, if this is your first bearded dragon i would go with one and see how things go. Maybe some time down the line you could consider getting another. If multiple beardies are housed together you should definately wait until they are adults that are proven females, if you buy two babies keep them seperate until they are full grown and then maybe work on intergrating them. And always, always, always have a second enclosure available should you need to seperate them.

Personally, i wouldn't take the risk. Beardies are awesome lizards but they are definately a handfull and caring for two in the same enclosure just makes it that much trickier.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Here are some links to recent threads that discuss the issue of multiple beardies:

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=809606,809606
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=814664,814664
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=813136,813136
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=809612,809612

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0.1 Bearded dragon
0.1 mexican Black kingsnake
1.1 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Tokay Gecko
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Anerythristic Corn
0.0.1 Red Tegu
0.1 Bullmastiff
4.1 Cats

Ditto, beat me to it! lol.
Strange things can happen. This is just my experience so far, but i have 2 females together within 1 or 2 inches of one another and the smaller one shows all the signs of being the dominant one! She will bask on top of the other, run to the food dish(es) first, even though i have not seen any head bobbing or waving. Are they still figuring it out?
I have them in a 55 gallon for now (both only about 3 months) but will certainly be upgrading soon. Either to separate or keep together.
-Sara

Thanks for the advice. All things considered, I have decided to just get 1 dragon. I am also going to upgrade the size of my tank to 48x24x25 to make sure I give it the best habitat I can afford. Thank you for your help! It really helped me make my decision!