Beardy help - 2 beardies one enclosure

[DropBear]

Hi All,

i have a 8-10 month of central beardy (called Sprog) , in a 4 foot by 2 foot enclosure, its about 3 foot high,

a mate of mine cant look after his 2 and half year old beardy (vet said it was a female), so i have bought it off him, introduced them to each other, and the older 'female' keeps having ago at the younger one, both puffing up their beards, and bobbing their heads, the older one tried to bight Sprog's neck, im thinking that the older one is actually a male and the vet has stuffed up.

Any ideas or advice?

Thanks
Droppy.

 

[Justdragons]

2 beardies have to be the same size to think of introduction.. if you leave them together it will end in death for the smaller one i would imagine.. i would separate.. is sprog female or male??

 

[Venomous_RBB]

Females can be "aggressive" as well, so it probably is a female showing off dominance, what is the size difference? If it is too big I would be getting my smaller one out of their ASAP as I wouldnt take the chance in my smaller ones head getting bitten off.

Do they both have their own hides? Does the smaller one have a hide it can escape to? do they both have seperate basking spots?
I think a hide for the smaller one is a must, my advice would be to find a cheap enough reptile enclosure that could house your young one and set that up and seperate them ASAP.

 

[animal805]

Separate before something awfull happens. Older one is doing male things.

 

[DropBear]

i thought as much once i saw them interact
i was under the impression the older one was a lot smaller than she is actually.
might be 2 and half year old for sale real soon.

Thanks for the quick replies peoples.

 

[Justdragons]

Sorry for the bad news. Don't have a spare tank about the place?


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[DropBear]

Yeah i do,everything he had came with the Dragon(enclosure, lights, food, you name it ) , ive put a wooden wall up for the night as ill have to do some re arranging in the morning, hopefully they are both still in one piece in the morning currently got a torn pectoral muscle and broken sternum so organised dad to help me in the mornin.
just means the power bill will increase some more :| grrrr.
hopefully ill be able to introduce them to each other slowly and controlled, maybe they will be the best of friends... (i know i know im dreaming )

 

[JasonL]

Beardies do better alone, thus they do not live in colonies.

 

[saintanger]

in the wild they do live alone and only come together to mate. but i do have two male adult bearded dragons about the same size that live together and have never had any major issues. they have never had any bad fights or hurt each other. i also have 3 females from 10 months to 14 months and they all get along never had a fight.

i guess it also depends on the dragons temperment.

 

[DropBear]

Yeah, Thanks all for the rapid input, il lhave to watch the forums more and do some more learning, only owned Sprog since may, so still a newbie, i have been reading the Bearded Dragon Manual tho, learnt a fair amount from that i
ll see how they go, could just be cranky and scared from moving and being introduced into a new environment so suddenly.
But, i will setup the other Viv tomorrow and relocate it to its usual 'house'

 

[SarahScales]

Yup! Rule one of reptile keeping seems to be: Two reptiles? Two tanks. Whilst many animals seem to live together just fine in other peoples experience, do you really want to be a part of the minority that learns the hard way?

 

[Reptiles_85]

i just recently had the same experience with my guys i had a older girl and a young male put them together and they were so nasty i took them apart for the next few days i put them in for a hour at a time and just monitored, now they sleep together after a week, so dont give up it may be the shock of seeing another beardy upsets them at first then they get use to it

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[KaotikJezta]

We had a large male come into the shop as the owners no longer wanted it. They had 3, 1 girl, two boys, all together. The boys fought and the male they kept apparently sustained some visible injuries. The boy we took seemed a little stressed but was uninjured, or so we thought. I fed him after a day of settling and he regurgitated. I rang the reptile vet who advised we keep him warm and calm and not feed him till we could get in to see him. The next day he seemed very down and was very dark. I picked him up to check him over and he opened his mouth and it was full of blood. He snuggled into my shoulder and I rang the vet, As I was on the phone he died in my arms. I was pretty messed up about it. The vet said it sounded like he had suffered internal injuries in the fight and there was probably nothing we could have done given how quickly he went down. The previous owners still have the other 2 housed together. This is why it is never ever worth the risk.

 

[JasonL]

in the wild they do live alone and only come together to mate.

And there is a reason for that.....
I have kept dozens of BDs and bred thousands, and kept them in every different way possible. There are many issues why they should be kept separately. Whilst they usually dont actually fight there is always added stress involved when keeping them together, as well as over mating which can be bad for both male and females.
I have had females fight females and females attack males so fighting doesn't always mean two males.