Breeding Information

In this blog will be some notes and information on the breeding of bearded dragons, There will be videos and pictures that I have learnt from.

Here are some of the notes I have gone by in the past:

1. First of all, you need two bearded dragons, a male and a female.
2. Keep them in separate cages. Their cages should be 150lt(4ft) or larger.
3. Introduce them to each other, let them get used to each other and make sure they don't try to get too aggressive.
4. Let the male move in with the female (just for a while) until they are done mating.
5. Put the male back into his cage. the female should lay the eggs within one month. Make sure she has lots of sand for digging, and possibly a hiding box to lay them in. Look for lumps in her abdomen.
6. After the eggs are laid, carefully remove them with a spoon. Discard any eggs that are yellow or extremely dented. Bruised eggs are healthy eggs. They are fertile. She should lay any where from 10 to 35 eggs.
7. Keep them in an incubator at 28-31degrees Celsius with humidity around 50 percent. The substrates for the eggs could be vermiculite.
8. The eggs will hatch between 60 and 80 days. Most of the eggs will live, however, some may die or be infertile.
9. After the eggs hatch, put the hatchlings in two separate containers or glass tanks approx 40-75lt(2-3ft). They should be like the big storage boxes.
10. Divide the hatchlings into groups: large and small. This will help prevent them from biting off each others toes or limbs.
11. The babies should not be sold until they are at least 6 inches long.

A few tips:
• You should -NOT- breed until you have researched all you can about space requirements etc. Most hobbyists have "racks" they use for the young beardies. "Racks" mainly consist of Rubbermaid containers filled with the correct substrate etc. on a rack.
• Beardies can have up to 30 babies! Be ready for LOTS of crickets/roaches/worms!
• Watch your bearded dragons closely when mating. The male can get very aggressive.
• Females can also be aggressive toward each other.
• Give the hatchlings lots of food a day. Make sure they have lots of greens and give them powdered vitamin supplements.
• remember to give the babies 10.0 UVB Lamps from Zoomed and a 75 watt basking/heat lamp and basking rock.

This link leads to a video showing the males “head bobbing” behavior, and the whole mating ritual, it is fairly rare to see them mate: Beardie Head Bobbing!


Freshly laid eggs: