When Can Bearded Dragons Start breeding

[meow_mix450]

Hi this is my frist time writing a post but i was wondering when can beardies start to breed cause im planning to start to breed them but i dont kno wut age they can breed...i went on other sites and they told me all different ages...so if anyone can tell me it would be great thanks

[fanmaninacan]

Hey!

U can start at 1 year...But its always good to wait longer!...
The longer u wait the better the clutch N overall better for the beardies!...

T.P

[meow_mix450]

oooo i see thanks if my beardies breed earlyer then one year wuts the bad side???

[drewlowe]

YOu don't want to force your beardies in to breeding to young it can cause some pretty hefty side effects. Personally i would wait until 18 months at the earlist (but that's me). YOu could cause your female great stress if you breed to early, egg binding is another. There are several to list. Sorry don't have the time right now to list all the possibilities.

[meow_mix450]

ya you got a good point there...so i guess i should wait around a year or a year and a half...how would you make an incubator because if you buy one there a lot of money...i could use that money to buy stuff for my beardies so i was just wondering if anyone knew how 2 make...

[eyespy]

You have to wait until about 6 months after a female beardie's fast growth phase has stopped and she's pretty much achieved most of her adult size. It takes about 6 months after the growth spurt for a girl to have fully developed bone tissue. If she clutches before her bones are fully calcified she risks MBD issues, failure to thrive, and producing hatchlings with low blood calcium and small size. The eggs are less likely to have fully calcified shell and so the hatching success rate is less. She is also more likely to become eggbound because she's used up all her calcium reserves putting shells on her eggs and doesn't have enough calcium left to fuel all the muscle activity that laying requires.

On average most females are "ready" at 18 months but some girls are late bloomers and are still growing rapidly at that age, others are too small and should never be bred. Females less than 16 inches total length don't usually fare well as breeders no matter what their age, even if they don't have health and eggbinding issues the offspring are usually small and far less hardy than average.

[meow_mix450]

ooo ok thanks i never knew that....but if eggbinding does happen would the female beardy die?

[eyespy]

Eggbinding is a veterinary emergency and can cause death, but if they get treatment early enough a hormone and calcium injection or surgery can save both the mother and her eggs.

[Pia]

Egg binding is very serious. As eyespy said low calcium levels make it hard for the muscles that pass the eggs to contract and expel them from the body. If you ever suspect this has happened, take her to a qualified reptile vet ASAP. It doesn't happen too often and is easily prevented by making sure the female is of proper breeding age and has a healthy diet and calcium supplementation as well as full spectrum light.

[meow_mix450]

If the female that has never been near a male can egg binding still happen?

[eyespy]

Yes, but it's far less likely. Many virgin females never ovulate and produce clutches but you have to be prepared for the ones who do. In my experience about 20-30% of lone females produce infertile clutches, and I've never had an eggbound dragon personally.

It's extremely rare for a lone , virgin female to become gravid while still acively growing and they rarely have eggbinding issues. It's often breeding pressure from nearby males that stimulates a female to ovulate early. They don't need to be in the same cage for this to happen, just in the same general area where they can smell each other. I knew a female who ovulated at the drop of a hat whenever anywhere near males and she finally went to a family who kept all their males downstairs while she was queen of the master bedroom. She had been getting very thin and weak from laying eggs every month or two over a two year period but now she's thriving being the lone beardie in her domain.

[meow_mix450]

ooo i c thanks a lot