Beardie tail biting?

hello, can anyone help? i have 2 very healthy juvenile bearded dragons, but one of them has a small shrunken crushed section on the end of his tail, i have no idea how it has happened, but i know it hasn't been clamped in the door. so our theory is that the other beardie has been chewing on it. the vet said to separate them, but this is not an option due to lack of funds and space, so i was wondering whether anyone has an alternate solution, will it stop over time?

Well since the other one has obviously bitten the others tail off YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SEPERATE. how big is the enclosure they r in? Is it a glass tank or custom? My opinion is to get you some plexiglass or something heavy that they cant push over to make a barrier in the middle of the tank ( a cheap way to seperate ) like get some plexiglass cut it to fit the middle of the tank, get 2 huge rocks to lean against it on both sides so it doesnt fall or get knocked over. That is your best and only thing to do since you r limited of money and space. Depending on how big your tank is they cant stay liek this forever due to the fact they may out grow the side they r in...

Oh and make sure you cover the plexiglass with some cardboard paper..or poster board. ( not lettign them see each other will assure one or the other is not intimidated by the other and will probably eat and act better)..thats only my opinion...I had to seperate a 125 gallon for 2 of my dragons and having the plexiglass helped to seperate but the male kept aggravating the female so we had to cover it with poster board...plus it looked kinda kool knowing we coudl get some kool looking colors of poster board!

well he hasn't bitten the tail off, just damaged it a bit, they get on fine, they don't fight openly, and eat from the same food bowl, and sleep curled up together, so they seem to get along well. but still, the result is obvious, one has a tail that is only 3/4 length. i have read that these occurances become less as the beardies grow, so i may need to wait it out. the cage is more than big enough for adults, and will easily last them into old age, so space isn't an issue. but thanks for the help!

As they grow from babies the mutilation decreases but then they might start to fight trying to be the dominant one. It can be mild or they can hurt each other. And if they are males you will have to separate them. As they mature they will fight. And a male and female as they become sexually mature should not be housed together. This is due to the male wanting to breed all the time and can stress the female out so much she can become ill. You could get lucking and two females might be OK but they have already done some damage. I agree with Debra you should find a way to separate them even if you can divide the tank into 2 for a while. It would better to be safe then to come home to a severely injured dragon.

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Are these the 2 three month old beardies that are so big they are already eating adult crickets???

The tail biting can usually be attributed to poor husbandry, lack of food or it's possible they just don't get along. You claim that they eat, sleep, play and get a long with each other just fine. So I would suspect one of the other reasons is to blame. Are they getting enough to eat? If not, that is why they are eating each other. Also, temps and living space can play a role too. Are they living in cramped conditions? Are the temps too high? When temps are high, dragons tend to wiggle their toes and twitch their tails. That movement can set of a feeding instinct in other dragons resulting in missing tail tips and missing toes.


Give your answers some thought and let us know what you figure out.......