Introducing two beardies to each other.

[Lurhstaap]

So my new female arrives on Tuesday morning. I have a breeding project in mind that I am hoping to use my two for, but since it revolves around improving how bearded dragons get along with each other (intra-species temperament) I first have to make sure that they do in fact get along with each other better than average. Otherwise they aren't suitable material for the breeding project, as the whole point is to breed dragons that get along with each other better than usual, in the hopes of, after many generations, producing a breed of genuinely social Pogona vitticeps.

So, after a reasonable quarantine period, what would the best way of introducing these two be? I know not to put them in each others' tanks, or anywhere which one might see as "his" or "her" exclusive space. (I'm hoping to teach Sunny to share the monitor basking spot, but only if they get along all right in neutral territory first.)

Is it possible to tell how a beardie will react to other beardies based on how it reacts to its own reflection? Or is that not reliable? I ask because I've been using that as a way to get an idea of how Sunny will react to the newcomer. He seems intrigued by his own reflection, but he's never displayed at it one way or another. He does seem to like looking at the reflection, and he's reached for it with his hand once or twice when I was moving him away (in the way he does to indicate he wants to be moved closer to whatever it is he's being moved away from.) But he's never bearded, or even made any apparent attempt to advance on the beardie in the mirror. He just kind of stares, perfectly flat-bearded and bright-colored, not a hint of black, tilting his little head this way and that. I'm almost wondering if he knows it's his own reflection?

If anyone has any advice about this topic I would be very grateful. Thank you! (And yes I know this will be a very difficult project taking perhaps hundreds of generations to achieve the goal, but I'm willing to invest what I can in the project in hopes of making progress at least.)

 

[colmaslik]

I must say I have read some of your recent posts and am in complete awe of your technique/wisedom of beardies. I am a completely new mom, and I'm just boldly experimenting with my Dilly. Ofcourse I would never let anything harm her....but my sister has recently rescued a three legged/half a tail beardie named Lebowski. Now because we're sisters we want our beardies to be the bestest of friends and maybe become mates. Now Dilly is only 3 months old(turning tomorrow), and handsome Lebowski is about 6 months old. The first time they met was on my sisters bed and they just gazed at each other.....now I am no professional and this next step we took was bold and dangerous but we wanted to push the boundries. The next thing we did was placed little Dilly ontop of Lebowski and they just sat there. No puffing up....no black bearding....nothing.....they just seemed to be enjoying each others company.... Then to change up the enviroment Lebowski came over my house and I took Dilly out of her cage and onto a couch she often rests upon. The two of them sat and gazed at each other, and then Lebowski ran up and licked Dilly on her back. My sister was so frightened he was about to bit Dilly; she quickly swiped him away and Lebowski became upset and puffed. We took this as a good sign of affection and raised the bar a little; we took a small container of about 40 dusted crickets and held it on an angle for both Lebowski and Dilly to see. Dilly ran straight into the container and was chowing down.....and Lebowski ran up behind her and ate the crickets that crawled all over Dilly(we recorded this, I'll see if I can send it to you)....we we're estatic they didn't fight over the food or become territorial. I don't know about reading any signs for mating or trying to bond beardies, but I know you have to take chances and try and be faster than a beardie(highly difficult!) But if you keep me posted on your journey/findings; I will certainly keep you posted on Dilly, and Lebowski!

 

[Lurhstaap]

I had a beardie as a childhood pet, but Sunny and Pele are the only two I have owned as an adult, so I've often been experimenting with techniques I developed working with other reptiles. Most of the time it has worked out pretty well.

Unfortunately, Sunset and Pele got introduced a LOT sooner than I intended them to. x.x I got Pele her own 55 gallon tank, her own Reptisun 10.0, and... wait... basking lamp? Shiz! The lamp I had been going to use for the basking lamp somehow mysteriously broke! I tried to turn her things on when she arrived and it refused to turn on. And while the Reptisun is a great UVB bulb it does not produce nearly enough heat to be sufficient on its own. And after travelling in the box, the poor baby was SO cold. Meanwhile, Sunny had just pigged out on crix and greens and was basking on the monitor spot. I felt I couldn't move him without interfering with his digestion. So I wasn't sure what else to do except put them on the monitor at opposite ends, keep them from physically touching as much as possible, and watch them VERY closely. If I had ANY doubts about the health of either dragon I would not have done this... I would have tried to find some other way much harder before giving in. But I trust the breeder I got Pele from, and I know Sunny is healthy of course, so in the end, given the results of my experiments with Sunny and the mirror, and that the breeder had told me that Pele is very sweet, so in the end I gave up on the idea of a total quarantine and allowed them to bask near each other. First, though, I let Sunny see her while she was sitting in her tank, and vise versa. He bearded a little and darkened, but it was a very casual bearding, only gray rather than black and not very much of the beard darkened either. When I petted his beard he deflated, too. He did glass-dance like he wanted me to put him in the tank with her, but I told him, "Oh hell no, little boy. Not happening."

Since then, things have been interesting. Sunny likes to headbob at Pele, and they flick each other's faces with their tongues a lot. But his bobbing is very interesting. He gets his whole shoulder area and upper body into it a lot of the time, until it seems like his whole body is moving every time he bobs. And a lot of the time he doesn't bother to darken and/or inflate his beard. And even when he does he never goes all the way. Sometimes his beard puffs up about two-thirds of a full puff, but he's never dark when he does that, just pale underneath. Both are shedding, so they have mild stress marks on their bellies, but no more than I would expect from being in major shed, and I did not observe any signs of stress in Pele when Sunny bobbed at her. And he doesn't bob constantly either. Much of the time they just bask and ignore each other, it seems like. Occasionally one has tried to climb onto the other's back, which is a dominance move -- it's usually Sunny but Pele has done it as well. I haven't allowed that though. As soon as they try it I scoop them up and put them back on the other side of the monitor, away from each other.

He just decided to bob at her again. No puffing, no black, but a few quick short bobs. She reacted by turning her head away from him, but otherwise did nothing.

I've come to the conclusion that, since they are both very young (Sunny is six months old and Pele is close to four months) he is probably doing a combination of defensive dominance and flirting. He's a little young for puberty but I have noticed other signs of puberty in him lately, such as his femoral pores getting larger and a lot of pointless beard-puffing and head-bobbing almost like he was practicing (this was well before Pele arrived.) She's way too young to understand the flirting part and I don't think she's particularly interested in being dominant, but she isn't particularly threatened by him either, apparently, as she has never arm-waved or done anything else to indicate submission or fear except turning her head away (which I am not sure how to interpret -- it could be just her snubbing him, or it could be a way of expressing submission).

Since I began writing this (I ended up walking away and coming back many hours later) I have observed some more bullying on Sunny's part, but I have also observed that Pele is not particularly impressed by it and sometimes gets her own back by crawling up onto his back. I have decided that feeding them together is a bad idea, as Sunny became bullying (though not actually aggressive) when I presented the two of them with a plate of hornworms, butterworms, and phoenix worms (Sunny's first time seeing such things and I think Pele's too, but I'm not 100% sure on that one.) He ran at Pele and... I'm not sure how to describe this. He did not open his mouth or beard in any way, but he sort of... poked her with his nose? That's the best way I can put it. Almost like a rhino-charge. He just sort of ran up and pushed at her with his face. She of course moved away a bit in response, but that was all. No arm-waving and she didn't panic and run away completely. (I do not allow this to go on, of course, but I am making note of it when it happens.) I immediately separated them, put Pele and the original plate of worms in her tank, then made up a new plate of worms for Sunny and let them both feed separately.

He did that nose-butt thing once before when I offered them veggies together, but he couldn't do it very well because the top of the monitor is too narrow for him to run along it effectively. He can lie on it and bask, but he can't zoom across it. So at the time I couldn't tell what the heck he was trying to do. It seemed like a failed climb-on-the-back attempt; now I know he was attempting a nose-butt. It's definitely a bullying behavior, but it's remarkably mild for that, given what beardies have been known to do to each other at times. I am encouraged by these results. If they continue to relate at more or less this level they will be a good foundation pair for my project. (After all we can't expect incredible tameness in the very first generation -- only enough tameness to work with and increase in future generations.)

Although Sunny has done his best to seize control, Pele, as I said before, seems rather unimpressed overall. She has never headbobbed, armwaved, or done anything like that, but she does tend to crawl on his back at times. Slightly less often than he tries to crawl on hers, but often enough that their status seems more or less equal to me. Like I started to say above, they are more or less the same overall size (Sunny is perhaps an inch shorter than Pele tip-tip), but Sunny has a less robust, stocky build than Pele does. So I think Sunny feels a bit threatened by Pele's larger size and so he feels that he has to take the initiative and claim dominance, if that makes any sense?