Thinking about breeding my beardies

[sirchaosofgb]

What should i do BEFORE i attempt to "introduce" them. I have 2 males and 1 female. My dragons are super super calm and really love to be around people. Any help and or suggestions would be great. Thanks.

[Homegrownscales]

Well you need to prepare for lots and lot of babies. Females can mulitple clutch with clutches of up to 30. Babies need to be house in very small groups. So for a clutch of 30 you would need 10 enclosures. All with UVB and heat. And lots of tiny crickets. I would make sure you have all of that prepared first. Then you can start thinking about putting the parents together. Have you considered what you'll be doing with all of those babies?


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[dpal666]

and by lots of crix, we're talkin 10-30 thousand a week, probably the hardest thing with beardie babies is feeding and selling

[aldebono]

It was pretty difficult to sell 36 of our babies. We ended up shipping them to a wholesaler because we were going to be in the negative very very quickly. We won't be breeding again, especially because we don't have high end beardies.

Something to think about...

[Jabberwocky Dragons]

Bearded Dragons are relatively easy to breed but like the above posters said, they have large clutch sizes and can be hard to sell. I would recommend either setting up at least 5, 10 gallon tanks or a rack system (with overhead lighting) for the babies. The hatchlings will cannibalize each if they are overcrowded regardless of if you feed around the clock. Some clutches will have one or two "bullies" that will nip their clutch mates anyway and have to be isolation in their own enclosure. Due to their prolific breeding, the market has been over saturated and some of my area local pet stores are simply being given entire clutches of normals for free because of the expense of feeding and no buyers.

With that said, I would recommend getting a copy of The Bearded Dragon Manual for breeding details if you are still interested. Some people will adjust their light cycle and temperatures to induce brumation but I've never found it necessary. Make sure you're female is at least 350 grams although more is preferable. Up her feeding schedule and calcium dusting to make sure she is getting enough nutrients and vitamins to fuel the creation of possibly 30+eggs!

[sirchaosofgb]

Thank you all you have given me something to think about. Hubby and i will discuss it then go from there.

[aldebono]

It definitely is something to consider.

Getting them to breed is not the issue.... What to do with the babies is.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

[West Coast Jungle]

I have bred hundreds and hundreds of beardies, like mentioned above you should have several contacts to sell them as they produce as many as 30 eggs per clutch and can do that 3-4 times a season during peak breeding years. I would keep my baby clutches in large deep plastic tubs with paper towels as substrate that needs to be changed twice a day. We don't give them water bowls as a clutch of babies will fowl the water in minutes so twice a day they are misted down with water, they will lick the water off themselves and anything else. Then we feed small crickets 2-3 times a day,not all will eat every feeding due to competition so multiple meals are necessary and of course greens with calcium powder and vitamins. A high UV bulb and climbing perches is always a must. I stopped breeding beardies because now they are bringing them in from El Salvador for pennies on the dollar and the market took a steep dive. Also when you work with snakes you get lazier because they are so much easier to care for then the constant attention and maintenance needed to successfully care for dragons.

[Brass City Reptiles]

Wow this helped me out a lot I also was thinking about breeding them but never mind on that...)

[sirchaosofgb]

Is it wrong to control the amount of eggs you want to hatch? I was told i could do that...is that too much like playing God..deciding which ones live and make it and ones that don't? Controlling the population so to speak? I think i've decided against it.