breeding

[snakeman92]

is it easy to breed and hatch dragon eggsand will most pet store buy them u

[Uffern]

It is fairly easy to breed the dragons. (put them together) If you are inexperienced, I would recommend you breed the female only once, let her put out up to four clutches, then shorten her photoperiod to about 10 hours over the course of a couple weeks so she stops egging.

You can put the eggs in moistened vermiculite or perlite, in deli cups or some similar cup type thing that either has a sealing top or can fit in a plastic bag. In any event, the eggs need to be in moistened medium in an airtight conatiner. The incubator should be kept at 83 F. You will want to open the containers every 4 days or so for a few minutes just to air them out, removing the yellowing and collapsing eggs as the occur. If an egg begins collapsing but is not yellowing at all, it may be that it is becoming dehydrated. In this case, you will want to add a bit of water to the medium, never directly onto the egg. If condensation begins forming on the eggs, then the humidity is too high. In this case, you will want to open the containers to let them ari out for a while. This could take a few hours depending on how high the saturation is. It may sound complicated, but it really isn't . Keep the eggs in this happy combo of good stuff and somewhere between 60 - 90 days later, they should hatch. They may start to colapse up to a few days before they hatch, but usually mine don't.

I know this is disorganized, but bear with me.....

Laying eggs. You can find a million different advices on this. Some dragons will just drop their eggs on top of the substrate. Don't assume that yours will. Most of mine will hold them to the point of being egg bound if not given proper laying conditions. Many will tell you that a 50/50 mix of potting soil and sand is good. It needs to be pretty deep, around 10", and pretty wide as well. It may do you well to get a 25 gal tank or something about half again bigger than a ten, and simply devote this tank to laying eggs. the laying medium also needs to be moist enough for the female to dig a tunnel that will not fall in on her.

While she is gravid you need to make sure she is properly cared for. A fecal should be done before breeding. She needs to be fed heavily while egging. I use more supplement than normal. She will also need more water than normal. If she has a dish, misting her as well would be a good idea. After she drops the first clutch, it wouldn't hurt to feed her one pinky mouse, then return to heavy feeding routine. When nearing the end of the third week of gravidity, her appetite will fall off to close to nothing if not nothing. Soon hereafter, she should start digging around a lot. At this point you should place her in the laying tank.

I thnk I covered the general topics. Any other questions, feel free. Hope this helps, as I now have carpul tunnel syndrome because of it. j/k

[Uffern]

Whether or not petsotroes will buy them and how much you get for them depends entirely on how much of a demand there is for them in your area. In a lot of places, the demand is simply not there, or the supply is too high. Unless you sell to major chains, it is difficult to make money on normal bearded dragons. More than likely, you will lose money, so if you breed normals, make sure you are breeding for the experience of it, not the possible money.

[Uffern]

Addressing a few things I left out. This is how I handle laying necessities. I put about three to four inches of wet pplaysand in a 25 gal tank. Along with this, I put a large critter cave.(don't know if that is the brand name....) The female will eventually find her way into the cave, dig a few more inches, then drop her eggs. I always have to make sure that there is sand along the sides of the rock nest to the glass walls of the tank, well wetted, otherwise the sand will cave in and the female will consider it an unsuitable nesting site.

The water : vermiculite ratio. The general rule of thumb is enough water for it to clump but not enough for it to drip if squeezed. Well jsut how much is that? I generaly use a 2:5 water:vermiculite ratio. Sometimes I put in too much, sometimes not enough, it is eyeballed, after all. If you put in too much or not enough, refer to my first very long post.

Not sure if I posted this info here or at some other site I post at, but in any event, here it is again.

Incase you couldn't tell, I love to hear myself talk and watch myself type, so if you have any other questions, I am more than happy to help.

Be sure to let us all know how it goes for you!

[snakeman92]

would it be better to just have to females and not breed
and i am not in it for the money . it is that i cant keep that many breadeds at this time maybe when we get a bigger house but not now and do they need hide spot or is it ok if they dont

[Uffern]

If you are dead set on having more than one dragon in the same tank, then just females is ok. Females do, however, run the possibility of becoming egg bound with an infertile clutch. If you are willing to keep each dragon in a seperate tank, then I suggest males. Either way will work, just know the possibilities.

As far as hides go, only one of my dragons has an actual hide. She is brumating right now and it is more convenient to give her a hide rather than her own socket and timer. Rather than a hide, what you want to give your dragon(s) is something that they can wear the claws down on and that retains heat. Luckily, Mother Nature has made just the thing for this. Rocks. When I first got into dragons, I bought expensive, mass produced peices of furniture. After a while, I would just go outside and grab a rock. You can soak any furniture obatin from outside in a 1/10th bleach water solution for a few hours. Rinse VERY well afterward. What I do is use a soap called Protex-U, which kills everything except Jacob-Kreutsfeld(sp?). This also requires extensive rinsing. You can also take a cinder block and break it with a chisel to make furniture. To make it even easier, you could just drop the cinder block onto cement to break it apart. You typically need not wash cindr block, but rinsing it to get rid of cement dust, which is detrimental, is good.

Hope that covers it. :cool:

Keep the questions coming if ya got em.