acwood04
Hatchling Member
So I have two bearded dragons. One of them is a little older, Crupi. I adopted her from a friend a while ago. I was almost sure that Crupi is a female but now I'm not so sure. The other is a little smaller, but almost full grown, around 16inches head to tail. Her name is Bella, I'm 90 percent sure that she is a female. She is a sweetheart, I've had her since she was a baby, and she loves to interact with me, and loves to be handled, and exploring. They are both in separate custom enclosures, 4x2x2. I had been using the Megaray MVB bulbs before all those problems started happening with them. Crupi is bigger and much fatter, definetly full grown.. She got her custom enclosure built first, and with the megaray she had eye problems. So months ago when I finished the cages, I ended up using the exoterra solarglo bulbs. They have been fine so far, after reading the post on them I switched Bella back to her reptisun that I mounted in the viv so she can get within 8-10 inches of it. For Crupi I havent had time to swap her bulb yet because I need another strip for her reptisun. Anyways, a couple months ago Crupi went in to brumation, and would be in her hide most of the time. I thought she was sick. She finally snapped out of it and is now a WILD ONE. The two vivs are in the same room and on perpendicular walls, they can kind of see eatchother if they are in the right spots in their viv's. So crupi has been glass dancing running around turning over her bowl of butterworms, waxworms, phoenix worms and hornworms. She also eats her kale, carrots and squash and then make a giant mess of the left overs. They are both terribly spoiled with diet, I had a colony of dubia's but they got tired of em... So Bella is very comfortable with me handling her and everything, Crupi not so much. She never bit me but has hissed a little and bearded me sometimes when I get her out to explore. Everything was great in the lives of these two until about a week or two ago when I noticed that Crupi was running up and down the front of his/her viv and head bobbing at Bella. When they see eatchother miss Bella will head bob a few times and wave at her. I'm not sure if that is Bella being submissive bc she is smaller, or if she is saying "ok, your a dapper suitor, lets mate." I usually take them out at separate times just in case they are both females, and try to injure one another. 5 months ago they would sit next to eacthother for a while and not do much. Today since Crupi has been so wild, I let her run around the room for about 30 minutes. She went all over, but was running around under Bella's cage. So I decided I'd see what happened if they were out together with all Crupi's evidently hormonal activity. They were on the floor of my room and as soon as they saw eatchother it seemed Crupi's head was going to bob of his/her body. Bella did like one or two bobs and then the wave, after that Crupi tried to mount her and bite the back part of her head like they do when mating. I got concerned and separated them immediately. I am not so sure that I have the time/resources right this second to support a bunch of babies.... And because Bella is of a noticeable size difference I am scared that she isnt fully mature/grown and ready to mate. I got Bella a little over a year ago, and Crupi around the beginning of this year. Crupi has always been bigger and her previous slave got her before I got Bella. So my questions, how will I know if Bella is acceptive of Crupi trying to mate with her? How will I know if she doesn't want to, or just isnt big enough to carry a belly of eggs. Here are some photos of the Viv's and the beardies.
Bella:
Crupi:
Bella:
Crupi: