What age should we breed?

We just bought a 6 month old baby bearded dragon today. She is gorgeous! Thing is she is a lot smaller than our 2 yr old normalx red/gold male. What age should bds be bred? and how will we know if she is ready to be bred to him? PLEASE HELP! IM SO CLUELESS ON THIS PART!

Females should be bred at NO YOUNGER than 18 months. Please, for the health of your dragon, keep the male and female separated until the female is at least 18 months old. From there, it will depend on her size. She should be AT LEAST 300 grams.

Breeding females at a young age and when they aren't large enough to handle it can take years off your dragons life, and females have a tendency to become eggbound if they are bred too young.

Now, please know I am not saying you haven't done it before (breed beardies), HOWEVER, if you are planning on breeding know that it is a lot more work than you realize... Ours had her first two clutches this year. Every egg (besides two that didn't last beyond a couple weeks for different reasons altogether) has hatched or is hatching... We have had a total of 27 hatch, one is still hatching right now! Well, I don't know how much experience you've had, but the little we have in the past couple months with our babies made us realize it's not so simple to find homes for these little guys! Plus, it's NOT a quick way to make a buck (they are EXPENSIVE!)... lol, sure, they are cute, and fun, but they are lots of work.

I would have to agree with you. I am NOT looking forward to the day my 30 babies are ready to find new homes. I just imagine the times that I've had one to find a new home for...and multiply that times 30...YUCK!!!!

excellent points Tere! where in AZ are you?

I'm in Tucson, where are you?

Oops...just saw you're from Chandler. Sorry about that...just woke up from my nap!

lol no worries, wish i lived in tuscon, more things to catch in the desert than in the city/desert.

We know its alot of work, we have seen the experience the "friends of the family" have went through with their dragons this year. We are prepared to handle them. Plus our reptile vet is my sister in laws mom. We already have buyers and a good friend of ours owns a pet shop that wants 6 to put in his shop. Plus my fiances mom wants 2 and his little sister wants one. We have been thinking this stuff through and counting how much money and how much food we will need and everything before we do put them together to breed them.We also have taken the precaution to make sure she is given extra nutritional care because we know that breeding and the stress of the male wanting to breed all the time will stress her out. Um also how long will we need to keep them together? Until she lays her eggs?

Well, since your female is only 6 months, you will need to wait one year (until she's at least 18 months old) before breeding them... that is a biggie...