Breeding

Breeding the Bearded Dragons is quite easy. All you need really is a male and a female that are mature and healthy. Then you have to go though the right step. Which is to pre-condition them.

The photoperiod is when you simulate the breeding season, winter. The UVB bulb should be put on a timer if it is not already, for 10 hours of light, and 14 hours of darkness. The heat should be reduced a little but not too much that they get cold and sick. The basking spot should be 73-78 degrees. The rest the tank should be between 63 and 67. When the photoperiod is happening you should decrease the food that they get. This photoperiod is about 6 weeks. After 6 weeks return the light to 12 hours light and 12 hours dark.

The diets of the lizards are very important. You should give them vitamin supplements more than usual after you finish the photoperiod. They should be getting more food than usual and more fatty foods like wax worms when the winter photoperiod is finished. You need to do this to get the weight back on the dragons.

In about 4 weeks of returning to their usual photoperiod you should keep the males and females together. If you have more than one male you will notice fight and the males will display there beards more than usual. Females will show submissive displays such as arm waving and slowly bobbing their head. The males will be bobbing their heads fast. When the female is fertile she will start to look for a place to bury her eggs. After she is fertile you need to change your substrate to optimize the digging burrows. The best substrate is play sand and garden soil with a 50-50 ratio. You should do small openings in the dirt for the females. The female will find one she likes or make one. If she uses one you made she will improve on it. You will know that the female is "pregnant" because she will looks much heavier.

Once the eggs are lade by the female you should mark the spot where she did the laying. When she is done and buried the eggs you should dig up the eggs with a spoon. MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT ROTATE THE EGGS. AND BE CAREFUL. They should not be turned or rotated in any way. There is many ways of making an incubator. One is Styrofoam and a ten-gallon tank. This is a bad idea because the temperature has to be at 85 degrease at all times. Incubators on the market are not that expensive and I strongly recommend getting a real reptile incubator. You do have some leeway in the temperature of the tank but it must never go above 89 degrease. And never go below 83 degrease. You will need to mist the eggs down because they have to be always moist. And put a small container on the bottom of the incubator to keep relative humidity up.

The egg will hatch over a 24-hour period although it can take longer. Right before the hatching the shell will collapse. Once the lizards have come out of the shell and are moving around the incubator then they can be removed to a rearing tank. The hatchlings should be well fed because the hungry hatchlings will eat tails and toes and it will not grow back. You should feed the hatchlings wax worms and very small crickets, which are dusted with the calcium and vitamins. They need top be fed 3 times a day until they are 2 months old. Then you can feed them 3 times a day until they are 4 months old. After that the juveniles can be feed once daily. The hatchlings should be offered very finely chopped greens even if they don’t eat them because they should start to and they need to get used to the food.