Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click here to visit Classifieds
Click for ZooMed

Does he need a friend and sleeping weird?

clarkanimallover Aug 31, 2005 10:16 PM

Just got first berdie, 3 weeks ago at one of the reptile shows. He is doing great, eating well, pooping, and everything.

1. Does he need a friend, or want a friend. I really don't want to end up with a pregnant female or fightin males. However, is he lonely, his life seems so boring. I mean we hold him and pet him and bath him, but do they like company?

2. He sleeps hanging on the side of the tank on a wall net thingy. He climbs to the very top, near the lid and sleeps hanging on. Is this ok. He does it 50% of the time, but doesn't seem to be trying to get out and I don't think its a temp thing, cause all the lights are off.

Thanks for help

Replies (5)

AlteredMind99 Aug 31, 2005 11:13 PM

Hey there...congrats on your new beardie! Don't they rock
As far as your questions....

1. Dragons are really solitary animals and dont enjoy the company of other dragons. In fact, they are much "happier" without it. Below is a list of reasons explaining the issues that come up when beardies are kept together.

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

1. Dominance Aggression/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, subtler, 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 separated and treated the smaller one will usually end up dying.

2. Physical Aggression: 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. Sometimes beardies will appear ok with each other for months or even years and then one day they begin finding.

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 arise 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 don’t 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 energy...energy that young dragons need to be using to grow. Young dragons that are bred are more likely to get sick or become egg bound 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. It’s 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 it’s 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. More than one beardie means you have to double or triple the space. For one adult beardie the minimum cage size would be a 55gallon (although 75-90 is ideal). 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 definitely wait until they are adults that are proven females, if you buy two babies keep them separate until they are full grown and then maybe work on integrating them. And always, always, always have a second enclosure available should you need to separate them.

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

2. Its normal for your beardie to sleep in a weird position, especially one thats vertical or close to it. Baby beardies often sleep this way although most adults do not.

Good luck with your beardie!

-----
0.1 Bearded dragon (Hannabil)
0.1 mexican Black kingsnake (Morticia)
1.1.2 Leopard Gecko's (Pogo, Louise, Orion, Jeffrey Nothing)
0.0.1 Tokay Gecko
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn (Autumn)
0.1 Bullmastiff (Asha)
4.1 Cats (Poe, Tucker, Abhid, Felicity, Emmy)

clarkanimallover Sep 01, 2005 10:00 AM

Thanks, that was very informative. It is easy to tell that cats and dogs usually enjoy a companion, especially for the times when owners are gone. But, I just wanted to be sure that Connie (beardie) wasn't lonely. Glad to hear, I actually didnt want to take on another one for numerous reasons, but if it was better for him, I was going to do it.

Glad to hear his sleeping is normal.

Thanks for responding so quickly. At least I feel confident that we are taking care of him well, and not ignoring his needs.

AlteredMind99 Sep 01, 2005 05:00 PM

Glad i could help. and im really glad you asked first many people dive into things without thinking.

Keep asking questions and you will be a great beardie keeper
-----
0.1 Bearded dragon (Hannabil)
0.1 mexican Black kingsnake (Morticia)
1.1.2 Leopard Gecko's (Pogo, Louise, Orion, Jeffrey Nothing)
0.0.1 Tokay Gecko
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn (Autumn)
0.1 Bullmastiff (Asha)
4.1 Cats (Poe, Tucker, Abhid, Felicity, Emmy)

bps516 Sep 02, 2005 07:34 AM

np
-----
Bryan, Atlanta GA

1-0-0 Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
1-1-0 Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-1-0 Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids

spottedragon Sep 13, 2005 09:13 PM

I have two beardies (sisters) and another girl who is by herself and I believe the two together enjoy eachothers company. They sleep together and share food and the hammock. When I take one out the other goes nuts! They love to sunbathe on eachother too. About the sleeping thing, I think if I were to let mine, they would sleep upside down. I dont know how they do it, but they sleep in some weird positions! Just my opinion though, I didnt read the last post that was extremely long but again, just my personal experience.
-----
*~*Erin*~*
0.2 Tiki and Tahlie -Bearded Dragons- July 18, 2004 -high oranges-
0.2 Bailey and Mia -Degus- June 1, 2005

Site Tools