Two bd's, one going NUTS! HELP please w pics!!

[acwood04]

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:

 

[isabelleandpaul]

Sounds like you've got a male and a female! I would not leave them together now...

 

[sirenique]

Before worrying about whether or not Bella can carry some eggs, try resexing your beardies. They should both be old enough now that you will 100% be able to tell if it's male or female, and you'll typically have very obvious femoral pores on the hind legs of your male to help you confirm the genders. This site has great images to help you get a definite sexing of your dragons! =D

I feel like there could be a couple reasons for Crupi freaking out -- I'm not sure which one you got first (it sounds like you've had Bella longest?). If you've had Crupi the longest, when s/he came out of brumation, s/he might just be getting territorial with the newbie Bella. All dragons can be aggressive with another dragon, regardless of age, size or gender -- they're not exactly social animals in the wild. Even two beardies of the same gender should not be caged together for too long, lest they start fighting and injure one another.

If you sex them and feel confident that you have a boy and a girl, Crupi might be getting really active because I'm told that after brumation is a great time to kick off the mating season. Since my dragon's not old enough to mate yet, I read into the beardie book I have and they recommend that at about 2 years, dragons are prime for breeding, but the offspring clutches tend to have significantly fewer eggs and females can lose their reproduction viability faster. The book recommends waiting until the female is about 2 1/2 to 3 years to avoid these issues.

Either way, there are surely plenty of experienced breeders on this site who can offer you better advice!! In the meantime, if you want to try and calm the behavior down, you can try moving the vivs so that the dragons FOR SURE cannot see one another? It sounds like your lovely Bella is not quite old enough to mate! Your dragons are lovely and I love the photos -- it makes me glad I'm not the only one with lightbulbs everywhere!! haha

 

[acwood04]

1. I feel like there could be a couple reasons for Crupi freaking out -- I'm not sure which one you got first (it sounds like you've had Bella longest?). If you've had Crupi the longest, when s/he came out of brumation, s/he might just be getting territorial with the newbie Bella.

2. If you sex them and feel confident that you have a boy and a girl, Crupi might be getting really active because I'm told that after brumation is a great time to kick off the mating season.

3. The book recommends waiting until the female is about 2 1/2 to 3 years to avoid these issues.

4. it makes me glad I'm not the only one with lightbulbs everywhere!! haha

1. Well I've had Bella the longest and both of them started out in a 20 gal long tank. Back in like August of last year I got Bella because my friend turned me on to beardies. I've kept anoles, scorpions, and always a cat! So I knew somewhat about what I was in store for with Bella. Then the friend that turned me on to beardies asked me if I'd adopt Crupi, she was struggling financially and moving out of state. They havent interacted like this ever. When I adopted Crupi after having Bella a few months, Crupi(bigger one, possible male, just came out of first brumation) he was on sand and he would have no problem jumping to your hand to take food. Now he is being a bit more "beardie threatening" me by poofing up when I handle him and gets nervous for a min, then he's fine. After I adopted Crupi, once she settled in to her new 20 long with a reptisun tube (previous owner had reptiglo 10. coil flourescent. I let them interact, Crupi maybe 14 inches and bella 9 or so... They were just sensing each other, and at one time Bella got on top of crupi just hanging out(dominance behavior) but its possible that crupi was still recovering from the reptiglo...
2. You are absolutely right I havent sexed them in a while, Im 99.9 percent sure Bella is a female. You can tell like in the photos of that site. But I havent checked Crupi lately, previous owner thought he/she? was a male but too young to tell then I suppose, and she thought reptiglo was the best setup I will sex them tomorrrow and let you know.
3. I agree, Crupi just came out of his/her? first brumation and Bella has not brumated yet..
4. Thats awesome I had the temps good with the repti glo MVB but since changing bella back to her reptisun, i've had to watch and experiment with diff UVA bulbs to achieve desired setup. I've got a regular flourescent coil with no UVB that I was thinking of putting on the cold side to add more light... But I'm not sure if that will be too much. I might get a separate timer and have that on for like 4 hours durring the time when the sun "lights would be at high noon"

Thanks for the reply,
I'm hoping some of the people that have experience with breading will chime in...
Thanks again everyone.

 

[acwood04]

So now Bella's appetite is not so good after I switched to the reptisun 10.0(possible in need of replacement) fluorescent mounted about 5-13 inches above where she can climb. Im wondering that she may be going into her first brumation, or that the light isn't enough/hot enough. I haven't been able to achieve the temps exactly yet, but almost there. anyways she can kinda see crupi's tank and when I put her on the warm side under the halogen and reptisun, she is communicating with Crupi by waving. Crupi the bigger one is head bobbing. As to the definite sex of crupi, I'll post a close up photo and maybe ya'll can help. Thanks, Bella and crupi are too valuable to me to loose so any help would be greatly appreciated.