Bearded performance anxiety?

I guess I'll start this off.

I am having a bit of a problem with getting my dragons to breed. The male will do his thing, get on the female, bite her neck, and stop there. The female seems receptive, but the male is just not doing the job. I have tried switching males and switching females. Most of my females are brumating right now, so I haven't been able to see if the males are to blame, or if the females are. I've tried different lighting, and all participants are old enough and big enough. I've even tried Barry White. The whole dinner and a movie thing didn't work either.

Any ideas?

Mabey he is just practicing- I don't usually see my male actually "mating" with my female until early spring. I didn't burmate this year (trying NOT to have eggs next year), but he head bobbs and mounts her all the time with out going through with the act.

He may not be ready to breed, I would think that if your females are still brumating that mabey he's a bit groggy as well.

It also could be a dominance thing, you know establishing his territory over females.

Give it some time, I'll bet it's a bit too early.

Good luck
Kisha

Hi there,
Are you sure he's not... 'doing the job' so to speak?
I see them doing their little song and dance all the time, but very rarely have I seen them actually copulate - only a few times.
Also, here's a trick you could try, if you haven't already...
Place another male within sight of the ones trying to mate, that usually fires them up.
Good Luck!!

Liz

I don;t have all my dragons on the same rotation, so to speak. I don't keep them together, as the male in question is quite aggressive and when kept with a female will terrorize her to no end. The male doesn;t even wrap his tail around the female's, so no copulation is happening. He is, however, a proven breeder, and sired several clutches for me last year. This is not a female I bred last year, but she is definitely old enough and big enough. Which brings me to what may be the hitch. She is really big. Last time she was weighed, she was 535g. She is slightly bigger than the male. I have thought that it may be that the male is somewhat intimidated, but I have spoken with several people who have had a slightly smaller male breed a bigger female.

I'm kind of in a crunch here. I have sold out of last year's offspring, and my client's want more. I have already told them that it will be at least 4 to 5 more months before I have anything ready for sale, as I don't even have any eggs incubating. I really only have one female who is ready to breed and clearly not brumating. I have tried the "other male present" tactic, with no better results. It is too cold to put the in unfiltered sunlight, and I have tried with uv and regular lights on them. I haven;t run into this before and I am starting to think the male is simply not willing. I can't, however, think of a reason why...

Well, this girl was bred at 625 grams by my 385 gram male, so I don't think size is a big issue. Keep in mind, the males are a lot stronger than they look. The little male actually got carried away and literally flipped this girl over his back one time. (Freaked me out, he was being a major pain.)

Of course, if she's NOT receptive, a smaller male isn't really going to be making much headway. When Hermione up there doesn't want to mate, no male I have will get near her. Right now, I have the pair housed together b/c neither will eat well without the other in the cage, and the male (Ron) has been making advances as far as neck biting, and she's bowing and waving a bit, but she's still not receptive. Last season, she wasn't receptive until she was ovulating.

Generally, if you don't see her lifting her tail at some point, she's likely not ready, even if she's waving and bowing a lot, at least that's been my experience.

If you're just introducing him for short periods, try leaving him in there longer. She'll pick the time she's ready, and that can be when you least expect it. Hermie can go from a gaping, head-butting nightmare to total (ok, I'm not going to type what I'm thinking) in just a matter of minutes.

On the other hand, if they've been together for a while, you might just remove the male and wait on the girl to get ready. When she's ready to breed, she should start getting restless and try to get at the males. I seperated the two last year b/c he was just annoying her, and right after she started ovulating, she became a major terror trying to get from her cage to his.

Just some observations from my limted experience. Might prove useful or not so useful, as these guys are all individuals. Good luck.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I will have an empty 100 gallon tank soon and I was considering placing my two hopefuls in there together. She has not been lifting her tail, so I guess it's just not quite the right time yet.

Thanks to everyone, I really appreciate it.

I'll second that to some of what Satyrday and BrianB wrote...I have a lot of males that I see bob and run around without ever seeing them copulate. But the females with them just keep laying eggs so they must be getting the job done. And, one of my biggest females (German) wont mate with anyone but my little fisty gold male--this girl is so big and dominant that I've seen her mount and actually copulate other males and females (well, try to copulate--even pushing her vent out toward theirs--weird one).

You may just want to wait, see if the job was done without you knowing. Or try the moving to different enclosures thing. I have one guy that likes to have the whole darn living room rug to chase girls around on.

Good luck
dana