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This is some more information concerning my female beardie who likes dirt (she's only 9 months old).. so she must be craving something that she's not getting..

I'm not sure what she could possibly be missing: she gets collards, mustards, bok choy, chards, turnips, dandelions ( not the same every day of course) with green beans, carrots, and squashes on the side. She gets crickets every day and supers or mealies once in a while .. and one pinky a month. I dust her crickies with Rep-cal 5 days out of the week and with beardie dust T-rex(vitamin supp) on the weekends.

I also had a question about her shape. Lily has had a slight hunchback ever since we got her 4 mo. ago. she was 5 mo. approx when we got her (from PETCO.. theyre so bad!) she already had this little hunch.. it's barely noticeable and kinda cute.. I was just wondering If you think that this was caused by a UV or vitamin deficiency when she was young, or could this be genetic?
Here are some pics of her, It's probably nothing, i'm probably just an overreacting beardie mom!

Also, I was wondering about her growth rate. she was smaller than my male (they are presumably the 'same' age) at 5 mo. (she was 15 in.) and now that they are 9 mo. old she has surpassed him. she is now 19 in. long and kunji is only 18.5!! Poor kunji(he mounts her and she runs with him on her! it's really funny) Does this mean that she is going to reach 20" or longer by the time she's done growing!? that'd be awesome.. she's not even a year. Also, is there a reason that the male's growth has slowed? they both have the same diet and amount of space available. Do the females typically get smaller or bigger than the males? or is size just predetermined by the genetics. I'm kind of sad because Kunja's growth has slowed alot more than hers - I want my boy to get bigger! Do they continue to grow after they've reached a year?

They have 2 large 'enclosures' each is 4x3x3. but they are never locked in them and basically have the whole bedroom and the whole appartment to run around in when we're home! I know that the smaller the cage one keeps an animal in the smaller they'll be...but i don't think that is an issue here!

Thank you for the dirt advice and let me know if there is anything i should do else for the diet of my little muppet!

~Kristen

I'm not sure if you can see her hunch(she's the yellow one) it is her upper back- it's very slight and can only be noticed in certain positions:

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1.1 Bearded dragons (Kunja and Lily)
1.0 Algerian Uromastyx (Jacques)

Thank you for your advice!

There is no real way to know what caused the hunch in her back. It could have been a problem with nutrition, an injury to the back, genetics or heat stress during incubation. An x-ray taken by a vet will determine more what caused the hunch. I can't notice it at all in the pictures you shown, though she looks healthy otherwise, as does the male.

One thing I want to point out, you should not let the male and female interact at all as you don't want him to breed her at this age. She being only 9 months old, is not ready for breeding and mounting behaviour could very well be the male trying to mate with her and she is obviously not inclined. I would not allow them out of the cage at the same time from now on. The desire to mate could be why your male is not growing as fast as the female, he may not be eating as much and thus slowing down in growth. Or it could be simplely due to the fact dragons do not grow at the same rate, even when from the same clutch.

Another reason not to allow breeding is the likelihood these two dragons are related, since most petstores buy groups of bearded dragons at once and often from the same source, so there is a high chance they are related. Unless you have papers indicating the linage of the dragons, I wouldn't breed them. Deffinitely find out if that hunch back on the female is genetic or due to other causes, as hunch back, even a small one is something that can be more noticeable in her offspring and it's best not to breed any dragon with obvious negative traits showing up.

One thing you mentioned that I feel I should point out, is a small cage means a small dragon (or any other lizard that normally grows fairly large). This is completely false. ANimals do not stop growing because their cage is a certain size. If this was the case, we would still have dinosaur size reptiles roaming the earth. What a small cage does is put stress on an animal, making it eat less, develop parasites, and eventually die, this is the reason why they don't grow to their natural maximum size. The small cage is cruel, which is why we recommend minimum sized caging and nearly everybody says larger is better. Your cages, however are plenty big, being 4'x3'x3' which is bigger than the minimum of 4'x2'x2'. Just make sure they have high enough basking spots to get close to the UVB tube (or if you are using MVB, then it's not as much a concern, as long as the basking temps are in the desired range of 95-115F)

Everything else you are doing, is perfect, giving a wide variety of greens, insects and proper lighting/heating. The growth rate is perfect for both, 20" and 19 1/2" are great sizes for a 9 month old bearded dragon. Both are likely to grow a bit more before they are 14 months old, after this, they have pretty much reached their full growth. I would cut out the pinkies though, they really are not the best food to offer, they tend to be fatty and could have parasites (though most parasites are not cross species capable and freezing kils off most of the parasites) pinkies are great for breeding females to help restock on loss fat, protein and calcium. There are plenty of insects to offer, crickets, mealworms, superworms, silkworms, butterworms, various kinds of roaches and even waxworms(as a treat only). Other insects are grasshoppers and any soft bodied insect that doesn't get too large, or larvae of larger insects. Just avoid known toxic in sects such as fireflies. If you are not sure the insect is safe, best to avoid it.
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PHLdyPayne

Hi, again! thanks by the way for all your help! I appreciate it!

yeah, about the cage, they are both (male and female)in the same 'cage' (as it is open and they are free to run abou t the room)and have been since we've gotten her (5months ago). yes it is big, but they have multiple basking spots and the hottest one reaches 125degrees F. they usually don't sit directly under it though, but they like to sit near it... i have it so hot b/c I have a uro in the cage next to them. the female likes to sit directly under the 125 degree light for a bit and then she'll move and bask directly under the UV light, the male doesn't sit under it directly. the cool side of the 'cage' is about 85 degrees and elsewhere in the bedroom is about 80. (of course when the lights are off at night the room is probably more like 70-75.

the people on the uro board are giving me HELL for having my uro in a cage as big, he's next to the two beardies, but his cage is locked shut. his is also 4x3x3. They are saying it's too high for him. What do you think??

So you say I should separate the male and female? when you say she doesn't seem 'inclined' to his mating gestures what do you mean? she seems inclined to me! I know they aren't supposed to mate this young, but they don't actually DO anything! She is actually usually MORE agressive than him! She arm waves and head bobs at him all the time! She will even approach him when she doesn't get a reaction out of him. Kunji is lazy and waits for her to come to him... unless he gets really excited he will chase her. When he bites her neck and mounts her she is still head bobbing and armwaving like crazy- both her arms. he tries to hold her down-- but they don't actually mate- he just sits on her (not all intertwined and to the side as i've seen in photos) once he is on her, he STOPS, like saying "....ok.. what do i do now?" he just sits there on her, as if confused as to what comes next, his beard deflates and goes back to its normal color, and she is still arm waving under him like "hello!? ...kunji...i'm right here!...come get me big boy!"-- she wants him and she tries really hard! she will continue to arm wave and bob at him and he just sits there and she'll give up and go pout in the corner!

So even if she likes him like this, they still should be separated? until when she is ready to mate (1yr and a half right?)

How do you know that they are from separate lines before you mate them. Do people actually find this stuff out? I hope they are not related because i'm planning on letting them do their thing once they're ready. I don't think they would be b/c kunji is from a MASS petco and Lily is from a RI one. but i'm sure it is possible. especially where petco buys in bulk and they suck at taking care of their reptiles..

As for Lily's back, yeah it's not really noticable... maybe it's nothing, but even if the babies have a hunch it won't matter b/c I'm not selling them for profit or anything like that, we'll be keeping most of them, i'm not concerned with their color and all that, personality and health is more important to us. I've read that some are born with deformities and it's normal, so as long as the babies are healthy, I don't care what they look like.

So if you think they still should be separated just tell me, it's just that she REALLY likes him. so I'm confused about this. ..and they are together all the time, by their choice. He only tries to mount her a few times a day so i don't think he really stresses her out, it's not all the time. She CHOOSES to be near him, she has plenty of room, literally to move away from him if she wanted to.

If I put the male back in his original cage 4x3x3 and let her have the other 4x3x3, i'd have to take the uro out of the first 4x3x3 and put him in a tank thats only 2.5x1x1! Would that be too small for the uro? What do you think? he's a juvie, he's only 8 inches long. the Uro people hate me they say his cage should be smaller! AHH! I'm trying my best to learn!

Thanks again,

~Kristen

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1.1 Bearded dragons (Kunja and Lily)
1.0 Algerian Uromastyx (Jacques)

Thank you for your advice!

I am probably going to forget more than half of the questions you asked but....here's my two cents.

First of all if you are able to keep them together without them killing each other or 'gettin it on' 50 times a day then you may have a good thing going for you. Many people want to have more than one dragon living together.

The breeding problem you are describing may not be your female but rather the male who isn't interested. I had a friend that had a crazy orange male that had the hardest time breeding him because he was never interested. What he ended up doing was getting another male. And he would put the males together for like 2 minutes and then take away the new male and replace with the female he wanted to breed and wha-la...it worked, call it the dragon viagra method.

In my case, my male is a breeding machiene! SO i have to keep them seperate or its 'giggity giggity' all day long. Every year in the early spring when my female FULLY wakes from her brumation she is constantly looking for him. She wants babies. I guess that you could compare to when cats 'go in heat' but you know, they're reptiles.

9 months is kinda early for a female....i'm sure you've already heard why. My female got pregnant when she was 9 months old accedently. I had them both out of the cage. I went to the bathroom and when i cameback they were procreating. I just super dosed her with calcium everyday (nearly spoon feeding calcium powder...eww) until she stopped eating and got a new UV light. She did reach full size the following year and will be four years old this feb.

SO long as my dragons are healthy, I don't really pay attention to tempertures that often because believe it or not, bearded dragon can survive in the wild (in australia of course). And with that said, I am sure that some days are colder/hotter than others. I feel that its more of a natural way of keeping them. Temperatures in the australian dessert can drop to the low 50s at night.
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a free range dragon is a happy dragon