What do you think of these dragons/breeding setup¿

Hey everyone, Looking to get into the fine art of breeding dragons... I had a dragon over a decade ago when I was around 16(31 ATM) named Nefarian aka Neffy.(first pic) I did not properly take care of him and he lived 6 years old, but stayed very small... He was a great companion so I would like to breed them as a hobby(work in a flour mill afternoons) and have lots of time for dragons. So I was at petsmart randomly and I saw a dragon I couldn't leave without so I bought a starter kit and named him Gary. They said he was around 2 months old when I got him and ended up male and 88g.. had a very long tail was like 14 inches i think(second pics).. This was may 20th. A few weeks ago a I got him a breeding partner Chromie, she is het hypo trans with a purple paradox mother. I got her from Canadian breeder top notch dragons had a hatch date of april 21st. and she was 80g when I got her like Gary was and is 130gs now.. In 2 months Gary has grown enormously.. 288gs and 16+ inches... I have a front opening exo-terra tank and I house both together. Gary shows no aggression towards the little ones other than pushing her off desired spots on logs with his hands. So I have not separated them yet(I have another tank). They 'seem' to enjoys each others company besides the 2 months age and size difference. Wondering what you think of this dragon match and also wondering if this is an OK setup? I plan to build my own terrarium soon. or attempt a prototype atleast.. I am going for 'Large dragon' gary was biggest in store and Chromie's ad said 'largest dragon in clutch, eats everything in sight' at 30gs.. I inquired on where petsmart gets there dragons because they had one with mold on its ear I was complaining about and she said they acquire them from a private Canadian breeder who captures them from the wild in places like flordia and mexico and texas... I said ..uuuhhh wut...? she was like ya that is how they get the freshest genetics and we test them all adv viruses and everything and they are all healthy before retail sale.. I was like OK whatever.. lawl Gary has blue sides and long spikes wondering if he is a specific type of not. Cheers

Nefarian


baby gary(2 months old¿)




gary and chromie first meet


gary and chromie now








my setup atm


real dirt with plants also but they get trampled and devoured.. gonna have to get succulents or cacti

First off, welcome back to the beardie world! :mrgreen: They have ways of sucking us back in lol!

If im going to be completely honest with you, what you are doing and ho you have your setup is not ideal.

I don't want to really harp on your because ultimately it is your decision, but I will give you some thoughts on the whole situation, and you can use those thoughts how you please.

Firstly, the cohabitation. I know you haven't seen any issues yet, but really cohabitation carries risks. It can be done, but I dare say only by more experienced keepers, and those who are able to watch the dragons all day pretty much. And even then, different sized dragons are never kept together. Only dragons of the same size. I can go into it more, but there is no point, I just wanted you to know that it's really not ideal for the health of your dragons.

I will add one more thing onto that, is that the males sexually mature much sooner than the females. If they are kept together, he will breed with her WAY too early. We are talking 6-8 months old possibly. This is very hard on a young dragons body, and is not ideal at all! Egg creating and laying is hard enough on 2 year old 600g adult females! Let alone a 6 month old 200g female.

Unfortunately, the starter kits are junk to put it nicely. The tank is good, but the lighting it comes with and other accessories really aren't useful.

Usually they come with a coil bulb for uvb, these really aren't adequate, and have to be placed very close to the dragons, unobstructed. Which means placing them on top of the mesh + the distance to the basking surface makes most of them useless.
I'd highly recommend the reptisun 10.0 or the arcadia tubes. This means you will need a new fixture to house the proper uvb bulb, either a t8 fixture or a t5 fixture in the length you decide.
We see too many health issues arise from these kits. After a few months people always come here questioning the health of their dragon. What is the reoccurring theme? 90%+ of them have these kits with the improper uv bulbs they provide.

Most of us here recommend solid substrates such as tile, linoleum, repticarpet, even newspaper or paper towels! Easy to clean, doesn't harbor bacteria, and if you pick a nice tile or linoleum, it looks quite nice too!

I hate posting things like this because I feel like I'm bringing down the excitement you have for getting back into the hobby! Please don't take it bad, there is a lot of information out there, and a lot of bad information. I simply wish to provide you with some good information for you to base your own decisions off of! :mrgreen:

Both of your dragons look great though, you should consider starting a thread for them both so we can all follow along with their lives and shenanigans! :mrgreen:
I will say you are off to a good start here by posting all those pictures. We love pictures here haha.

-Brandon

Thanks for info ya I think I shall separate unsupervised until Chromie is at least a year old and can defend herself. My other tank is brown textured tile and be easier for her. Gary loves dirt he digs a shell-scrape and sleeps in it if i leave him in tank but mostly sleeps outside tank both of them do. Prolly keep dirt for Gary he likes plants, go tile for Chromie. The bulbs they gave me died immediately red basking light and a normal coil one.. so I got an exoterra and a reptisun vapor bulbs with a blue glass coil basking light that they find too hawt so I am looking to replace with another reptisun 10.0 . Gary poops only outside, I am looking for a dirt that he does not eat as much right now i am using black earth topsoil and moss sand and dirt mix i got at reptile store.. I dunno he seems ok after ingestion large amounts of it.(devours earthworms i try to put in there) Ok I prolly will make a gary and chromie progression thread Cheerz :mrgreen: