Chill males, aggressive females

We have 5 dragons, 2 males and 3 females. 1 pair which we plan to breed came from a show, and were hand raised, the other 3 all came from PetSmart.

The 2 males are both very chill and love us, and have always been this way since we got each of them.

But all 3 females will have no handling of any kind without aggressive displays of hissing, lunging, trying to bite, and trying to get away from us every single time. 1 is still a small baby, she's a red hypo trans microscale, one is a medium juvi common leatherback, and the other is about 6 months old, common. The eldest female is the most "dragon-like" bratty diva of them all, but at least we can actually take her out as she's too big to slip away from us.

We hand feed them insects and greens daily, and the baby will even drink from our fingers when being misted, but that's the ONLY time she isn't aggressive. The middle girl will keep trying to lunge and bite, even when held up with her legs pinned,the largest and smallest will mostly calm down once they've been held for a moment.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

They all have their own personalities so it's possible that the females of your group are just more aggressive by nature. To they each have their own space? Sometimes if they are competing for resources it can make some more aggressive and some more passive which can be quite bad. If they are acting this way due to their personality, they may wind up growing out of it eventually as well. I'd just be calm around them and maybe offer some treats by hand to get them to bond with you a bit. I'd definitely make sure they have their own space and easy access to resources such as food, basking spots, hides, etc.

CooperDragon":1ngvm9wg said:

They all have their own personalities so it's possible that the females of your group are just more aggressive by nature. To they each have their own space? Sometimes if they are competing for resources it can make some more aggressive and some more passive which can be quite bad. If they are acting this way due to their personality, they may wind up growing out of it eventually as well. I'd just be calm around them and maybe offer some treats by hand to get them to bond with you a bit. I'd definitely make sure they have their own space and easy access to resources such as food, basking spots, hides, etc.

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Each have their own 40gal, and the only two that can see each other at all, are the breeding pair, but they seem completely disinterested in each other. The only time any of them has shown any aggression at each other, are the eldest female towards the middle female during a rearranging of the room.

The two eldest dragons, 1 male and 1 female, were kept together at first, and since then have never been aggressive towards each other.

I've been giving live prey before and after attempting to touch or handle all of them. Now that the girls are learning that I bring the fun food, they are calming down, but the boys are now assuming that they will always get live prey from me, and the elder will be bratty if I don't give them something to chase.

And they KNOW when live prey is coming out. They start hunting in their tanks before I even open the bug tanks. First thing when I wake up, which isn't the same time every day, they are given the live prey. Lights come on at 6am, greens come in around 630 before my BF leaves for work, then he handles each of them in the evening before their lights go off at 8pm.

The baby is misted 4-5 times per day, and has a pool. She doesn't use it, but it's there. I'll pick her up before each misting, pet her a bit and place her back onto her branch. She'll usually drink during the first and last misting, and runs from it in the early evening. She lets me pick her up about 3 out of 5 times. I use to chase her, but now that I'm actually able to get her without issue once in a while, I let her run when she chooses to.

Just now, she refused to take worms from me, and wouldn't even hunt them with me watching, but took 2 dubia from me this morning, and hunted the other 3 while I watched. Yesterday, it was the opposite; I gave the worms first.