Anyone want to make an educated guess as to my beardie's sex

Hello, everyone. I'm new to the forums. I have a six-inch normal beardie (name pending) and I'm betting some of you breeders are good at making educated guesses as to sex.

I used to breed exotic birds and I was 85% correct when guessing the sexes of my baby Senegals. I was even better at sexing baby African greys.

So, check out the pictures and short video in this folder if you want to give it a whirl: http://ladyhawkslair.com/extraneous/bearded_dragon/

Maybe then I can decide on a name.

there is no way to tell the sex from these pictures. You need to lift the tail to an almost 90 degree angle. If there are 2 bumps on either side of the tail above the vent, it's a male. If there is on bump in the center above the vent it's a female.

You need to provide a picture of the vent area- that's the only way. It may be hard to tell, but if you bend up the tail and get a real close picture, we might be able to see the pores as well. Many reptile breeders use a magnifying glass and do pore sexing, but with beardies it's usually pretty easy to tell just from the vent, even at a young age.

Big difference between birds and lizards

tgolden":3swni94o said:

Big difference between birds and lizards

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I read male beardies have a larger head. Probably that's AFTER they've reach a respectable size. I have no idea, so I will defer to you guys on the lizard issue. I am just learning, so please excuse my ignorance. There will be less ignorance as I learn more.

go to you tube and type in sexing bearded dragon and there is some"how to"videos. Head and tail size its not always true.

tgolden":v8a8dsfk said:

go to you tube and type in sexing bearded dragon and there is some"how to"videos. Head and tail size its not always true.

Click to expand...

Same with parrots, but it can help a person make an educated "guess" until the DNA results come in. I've also had older birds surgically sexed, mostly when I wanted to know more about the overall health of the bird as well as its sex. One poor female grey (guessed correctly) had made the local pet shop rounds. She was not pet material. She was absolutely miserable around people, so I wanted to settle her into a place away from people with a compatible mate. When stressed, she growled so hard her cloaca prolapsed. It was so sad, but I had to make her undergo one more horrible experience at the hands of the vet to make sure she was OK.

She was fine. After she was set up in a large cage away from people, she felt so good she set up housekeeping without her intended partner and laid two batches of infertile eggs. I took the nest box down until they could form a pair bond (6 months or so), put it up and got 100% fertile eggs. Back then I didn't have a bad back so I built all my cages, etc. It's hard to even imagine that now.

Later I found out the pair produced occasional chicks with heart defects. It happened once to me and I cried buckets when the 8-week-old chick died on my lap. When I sold the pair, I warned the new owners about the heart defect and that the pair might have to be separated. Sadly, the pair produced another chick with a heart defect. The vet didn't think it was genetic, but it turned out it was. Very sad for the poor female grey who had had so much stress in her life already. The lady I sold them to had to give them up for the same main reason I had to: health issues. She had huge, luxurious indoor / outdoor cages for her breeders. I slashed the prices so my breeders would go to that great place. Now I don't know where they are.

In my will I've declared I want my Amazon parrot to go to the The Gabriel Foundation parrot rescue. But will they go belly up like the place where I sent my breeders?

Back to sexing parrots: At the sexing clinics, a vet would show up and perform surgery on multiple parrots to determine sex and overall health. We aviculturists would declare whether the bird was male or female beforehand. Most of the time we got it right, but there were a few times we were totally surprised. One lady showed up with a "pair" of lilac-crowned Amazons. One looked female and the other looked male. Turns out all of us were wrong and one of the females was a male. It was a reminder that you need DNA or surgical proof when it comes to sexually monomorphic animals.

If I didn't have the chicks DNA-sexed, I would give the clients my best guess and say that's all it was.

Seems like forever ago now.

Sorry I waxed nostalgic / sad. I miss my breeders and wonder where they are.

That is really sad about you birds. Let's just hope they were placed in awesome rescues. Which is very, very possible.

As for your cute little beardie, try posting some close up picks of the vent/tail area so we can try to sex him/her. Sometimes it's obvious, even when they are that small, and sometimes it's extremely difficult. Either way, a lot of like to try. Like you with the birds, there's something fun about it!

How old is your beardie?? I thought my beardie was a girl at about 5 months because it didn't seem like she had the two bumps above the vent like everyone is talking about. Three weeks later, I checked again, holding him safely in one hand and gently lifting the tail upright, and I saw clear as day, two bumps!!

Your little one has a pretty dark beard too, and darker spots under the belly. Could be a boy. BUT still lil ole lizard is too young to tell