Questions on breeding

[Evin]

Hello there,
I have a male dragon and I am planning on getting a female to breed them
I would appreciate all the information preferably step by step what do I need, what should I have, what to feed, at what temp to keep dragons/eggs? Thank you!

 

[jharris08]

first you are going to need a female that is the right age/size to breed. Most people recommend around 18 months before breeding a female. Once you have a female, just put it with the male for a few days and you should be able to tell if they are interested in eachother, the process can look brutal, but dont worry unless the female starts bleeding around the back of her neck. An photoperiod of lights on 12-14 hrs/day should also stimulate mating a little better if they are not interested in eachother.
After mating remove the female and prepare to feed her quite well. Make sure she gets plenty of calcium through dark greens and dusting her feeder insects, and an occasional pinkie mouse every couple weeks can give her needed calcium and energy. You need to prepare a lay box for her b/c 4-6 weeks after copulation she should be ready to lay, and she will most likely lay 2 or 3 more clutches around every 4 weeks after that.
Once you have eggs and they are fertile they need to be incubated at around 83-85 F and incubation lengths vary...mine are always around 80 days, but can be shorter or slightly longer. Read about setting up the lay box and incubator and you should be good. Good Luck!!

 

[Evin]

Thanks a lot for all information! What is recommended size/age for male? Mine is around 7 months and he's 17", will they mate if the female is older but they are the same size?

 

[Catalyst]

Like any other animal, you dont' want to breed babies to get more babies so it would be best to wait until he's an adult - at least 12 months old, although 18 months is better since that's when he'll have reached his full adult size.

Make sure you have lots of money saved up and all the equipment you'll need before you get started - raising babies can be a very expensive and time consuming process. You'll need multiple tanks since babies should be housed in small groups - ideally no more than 3-5 per group, as well as the heat and UVB lighting for each tank. Then there are the feeders - you could be going through thousands of tiny crickets each week.

 

[Evin]

If male and female will be housed together, how often will they breed?

 

[jharris08]

i would not recommend housing them together at all except for a few days to allow for breeding. Most males will continue to try and breed the female and stress her out and eventually cause open wounds on her. Some people say its fine, but there is no way I would be able to house mine together.

 

[Catalyst]

Agreed, its best to house your male and female separately for the safety and health of both animals. Any time you house two dragons together you run the risk of dominance issues, and when they're male and female there's the risk of the female being overbred and harassed by the male. Its best to keep them separate and only bring them together for the actual act of mating. This also works better for you since you can more closely monitor your female's health and somewhat control when you have eggs and hatchlings to deal with.

 

[Evin]

Thanks a lot! I still want to hear opinion of people who housed male and female together.

 

[buhd]

i've had my male and female housed together for three years. they have gotten along fine and showed no interest in mating until last night when i came home to see them in mid act. now i have more questions than anything.i have two other males housed seperately and everytime they see the female you can tell they're interested.
questions i have:
-now that they've mated can i keep them housed together?
-how long will it take for her to lay eggs?
-is it garaunteed that she will become pregnant/ lay eggs?
-or do they need to mate more than once?
-why did it take so long to show interest in eachother?

 

[Tarkah]

best to separate them.

He will continuously mate with her and cause stress on her. Mating is rough on the female, and can leave her with open wounds. If her wounds have not healed and he mates her again he'll only harm her injuries more.

Also continuous breeding can affect her lifespan, (shorten it) and affect her health over all.

Also a stressed female with a male in her enclosure harassing her all the time, can stress her out soo much that she won't lay her eggs and cause egg binding, which is life threatening.

Besides, good point to know that a female can and will store sperm in her body after mating. So that means, she can continue to have fertile eggs without another mating.

 

[buhd]

so far i've kept them together. he has not been aggressive in any way to her after he got some. my local pet shop said that as long as she doesn't have any open wounds it would be ok. i didn't know that the female can store sperm. does that mean she can lay more than multiple clutches per one mating?