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I'm glad you are excited about getting a beardie, but like the PP said, you are not ready for breeding.

It is a HUGE investment of time, money and knowledge and should not be done by a beginner to the hobby. It costs a couple thousand to get started. An incubator or two, one enclosure per 5 babies, each with its own heat and UVB, and at least a couple thousand pinhead crickets EVERY WEEK to feed those babies, and you should have a vet standing by in case something goes wrong with your female or with any of the babies. Then you have to feed them 3 times a day, clean poop, bathe them (babies dehydrate easily). It is a full time job to take care of those babies. And females will lay 3-6 clutches about 3 weeks apart, each with 15-20 or more eggs. It is not something to enter into lightly and not without a WHOLE lot of research and experience. You will not make money, in fact, you will be lucky to break even. The market is over-saturated with hobby breeders so you would be lucky to even sell all those babies, then you would have to take care of the ones that don't sell. So, be educated and informed before you try a breeding project.

Assuming you had just 3 clutches with 20 eggs each, that would give you 60 babies. You need to keep the babies for 6 weeks to make sure they are healthy enough to go to their new homes. It will take 75,000-126,000 crickets to feed 60 babies for 6 weeks. That's about $2000+ worth of crickets. Can you afford that in a 3 or 4 month time span?

And with 60 babies, you would need 12 enclosures, which means 12 UVB sources, 12 thermometers, 12 basking lights etc. See where I'm going with this?

Also know that females are not old enough to breed until they are 18-24 months old and that they should not be housed with the male.

So if breeding is something you really want to do, start studying now. Get your beardie, learn to take care of it. Get another if you want, see what it's like to take care of more than one (they always need their own enclosure). Read anything and everything you can about their husbandry, health and breeding. By the time you graduate HS and are ready to go out on your own, you'll have a firm grasp of exactly what all is involved in breeding and you can decide if it is financially possible. You could start saving now to go toward your breeding project when you are a little older. But it would be delusional to think that you can start this kind of endeavor within the next year.

Please continue your research at http://www.beardeddragon.org/ to learn everything you need to know about taking care of your dragon! There is a breeding section in the forums, which would be a good place to start researching the breeding process.

Best of luck!

If you haven't even got your first, you're NOT ready to even THINK about breeding.. After you go through the stress of them mating, the female needing EXTRA care, supplements and food, and the extreme stress it puts on the female's body initially, buy the incubator(s), and the eggs hatch, the easy part is over. Then you can get an enclosure to house the babies in, and REAL soon, you'll have to separate them individually so no one gets toes and tails nipped, what are you gonna do for the separate enclosures? Buy them? Build them?.. Not to mention, the average babies will eat about 20,000 crickets a week all together.. Are you ready to order, house and pay for that many crickets? Now, what if one or more of your babies has a deformity, are you going to take it to the vet? What if the mama gets egg bound? Will you take her to the vet? Do you think it'll be a walk in the park to sell them and make a quick buck? If you do, you're flat out wrong. Are you going to be POSITIVE the beardies you mate are not from the same lines, so you don't end up with weak and possibly deformed babies?

If you have any questions involving beardies, check out beardeddragon.org BEFORE you end up with beardies who are sick, or otherwise not properly taken care of. I'm sure you won't like this answer, but the truth hurts hun.

My firsdt suggestion to you, is to not get a baby beardie! they are sooo fragile and since you have no expierience with them, they die easily... You should get one that is a few monthes old, like 6 monthes... You really shouldnt be breeding yet, it is alot of stress on the female and you wont be able to notice different signs of sickness or stress. One of my females died of egg bounding. Im gonna give you everything you need to know about caring and breeding since i am a beardie breeder myself, but you shoul rethink breeding yet.

General:

FOOD- Beardies are omivores, so they will eat anything. A beardie from the age of new born to about a year should be fed about 5-10 mealworms a day along with romaine leaves from the hearts. Any older should be fed 10-20 superworms every other day and as many romaine leaves as you want. Also, you can mix up their diet of veggies and fruits with carrots, strawberies, bananas, tomatoes, kale and mustard greens as well. Do not feed your beardie crickets as a main diet. They should be used as treats because they are fun to chase. they have no nutrtional value at all.

WATER- Beardies are desert animals and realy dont need water. They get the water they need from the fruits and vegetables. Also when you give them baths, they might take a few licks of the water. I have bred and owned beardies for about 6 years, and i have never given them water.

CAGE- a single beardie needs at least a 50 gallon tank. and if you have two, they need at least a 65 gallon tank. My two have a 75 gallon tank. They need a heating lamp at one end, and something to bask on underneath it. Throughout the tank, they need uva/uvb lights to keep healthy and pretty. The best bedding to use is EcoEarth coconut husk either premade, or the bricks you make urself.

CARE- Beardies love to be handled and cared for. They will go anywhere with you after you create a bond. They love walks on a leash, but beware of yards with pesticides and fertilizers, as well as predators such as dogs and birds of prey. They also love baths, the water needs to be between 100-106 degrees and somewhwere they can stand so they dont drown.

Breeding:

A male and female beardie will need space. sometimes the male will ecome really aggressive and one of them needs to be moved, so always have a spare tank, it doesnt have to be that big tho. the female will need a place to lay her eggs. So if you put a container big enough for her body, and deep enough for her to dig full of damp sand and hermiculite, she might consider laying there. Not always though. My female doesnt like to lay in a box, and lays in the corner of the tank. Theni have to tranfer the eggs to a hermiculite container and semi bury them in it. When tranfering eggs, do not rotate them. whatreer the top is, that has to stay the top. They need to be kept in an incubator at 82 - 88 degrees, different temperatires will result in different sexs. The babies need to be cared for and they should hatch witin 60-80 days. If the eggs collapse and look bad, they are not going to hatch. Your females first batches usuallt dont survive, so its good practice for you.

If there is anything else you need to know or ask, email me at [email protected] for anything else....

Good luck!

You wouldn't want to breed them cuz males are Agressive and also the females are 2 u could keep them until u can tell them apart