how long can I keep brother and sister together for?

Hi there

This is my first beardie (omg how much do i love him!!!) and my first post on here so should really say hi.... Hi!

I have had my beardie (male) for a week now and he is 7 weeks old. I am thinking of getting his sister in (1st generation) to make him more happy. He is fine right now but i just know he will be alot happier if his sister was in the viv too.

I did not want to own two beardies but would be willing to house them both right now, and then my brother to take the femaleoff my hands when they are slightly older.

my question is, how long can brother and sister be kept together until problems start to accure. ie mating, fighting, female being stressed etc

Kind regards and thanks in advanced

Sean
Ozwalls owner

 

It depends how old they are for mating. I would say bullying would be going on 24/7. You know things like one getting more crickets. Personally I would seperate both of them and later if you plan on breeding put them together. The females can always become stressed by males. There may be some exceptions but everytime male and female are together one thing or another will happen to cause seperation. Now if your going to breed thats a different story. You want them together Be sure to get all the requirements for egg laying, incubation, and baby care first!

 

ah well there only 7 weeks old. will i run into problems almost at once?

i would like to breed them but my brother is not ready to own 1 yet, and so I woz hoping to keep them together so they can play until they require there own viv. Could we do this, and when they are able to breed, get them back together ??

 

7 weeks might be ok for now, but when they reach about 5-10 months you will deffenentally see some dominance. Again personally I would house them seperatly to avoid the whole thing. But for now, they should be fine. Make sure you observe them well during feeding and basic basking. If you notice any sign of anything, seperate them.

 

Whoa whoa whoa. If they are brother and sister do not even think for a second that you should ever breed them. Put that thought out of your mind right now. That is inbreeding, and with the gene pool and compromised as it already is in this speices, you run a high risk of genetic deformities on the very first try.

Now, to answer your question, technically I think you can house males with females up until 4 months, but no further.

However, I firmly believe that if he is ok right now, putting his sister back in isn't gonna do any good. If anything it will make it even more difficult to seperate them later. Dragons aren't like people, it's not that he would be happier with her around, it's just what he is used to. The sooner you let him get used to being alone, the better it will be for him. Baby dragons are seperated from their siblings every day and none are worse off for it. However if you put them back together for another few months, they will get even more comfortable being around each other, and seperating them may cause more stress on them than it does now (which I'm sure at this point, is very little if at all.)

If you are happy with one dragon, and your dragon is adjusting, leave it be.

 

thanks god kephy answerd that one lol i was about to say.. you incest lover!! lol breed dragons with the same rules you would breed people, that's what i always say.. nobody in the family, no matter how far back, mates with anybody else in the family.. cuz that's just wrong.. eeeewwwwwwwwwww

 

It's almost impossible to avoid unfortunately. The sad fact is most dragon in america are already related to some degree. The gene pool is very small and there has already been way too much inbreeding as it is. You could buy dragon from two completely different breeders in different states, and still have them share a grandfather or something. That is why if you ever plan on breeding, responsibly anyways, you need to be able to trace the bloodlines of your pair at least 5 generations back to make sure they aren't too closely related. Otherwise you are just a part of the problem.

 

I have had many a person ask me for a pair with my babies. They seem very unfazed when I mention that they are brother and sister. For some reason, the misconception seems to be that adopting a pair from the same clutch will remove alot of dominance behaviors later on because they are used to eachother. I don't know where this rumor started, or why I'm hearing it every other day, but it is false. They don't know they are brother and sister and will breed together as soon as they get the inkling to. I got my male from a local breeder here, and my female from the other side of the country, to aviod this, but who knows.
-Cristine

 

wow i cant believe i forgot to add that. I must of missed the whole "brother and sister" thing. Yeah no inbreeding please, get a diff dragon weather another male or female and breed that way. Thanks for the save kephy

 

No problem. I thought maybe you missed it, couldn't understand why you wouldn't have said something otherwise.

 

I have a pair of BDs who were also the same age although not clutch mates. By 7 weeks one was dominating the other one to the point were the other one eventually became ill and didnt eat for a month. I also thought that it was going ok because there werent any typical dominance signs going on i.e. arm waving and head bobbing, but one was thriving and the other one wasn't. Once separated the smaller once has started to catch up.

 

i agree no inbreeding but to let u know it takes ALOT of incest in people to have deformities such as with the british (no offense to anyone out there) and even the ancient egyptians.

 

And the human gene pool is infinately bigger than the bearded dragon gene pool. There has already been so much inbreeding with bearded dragons that yes, you do often see genetic deformities on the first breeding.

 

did wlowell05, just say british people are all inbred and deformed?... i hope they didnt!

 

i think they just did yes...& yes i'm offended!!! not a nice comment to pass on any country!

 

I think they're just saying that further back in history, what with the royal families and such, it was more common. Hence the comparison to the egyptians.

 

ah thank you al for your replies. i too thought it was not ok to breed them but when i asked the pet shop owner he said it would be fine. (i always take wot the pet shop owners say with a pinch of salt)

i thought he may be happier with his sister in there but i dont want to make it harder for them to be seperated and so will not get the 2nd beardie. i am very happy with just ozwall and he seems to be doin fine.

i just love it when they wont leave your hand when your trying to put them back in the viv B)

 

alan does that, and his claws have grown alot since i got him.. i have multipul scars up my arms where hes scratching away going "no mummy! i dont wanna go back in there!" ive not really handled Tweek alot yet.. shes too hard to catch.

 

Do you actually have a clue?

Deformaties? How many british inbreds do you know? In fact to you have any idea about the socio-cultural status of the UK. Clearly not.

 

yeh! you tell him!. im not deformed or inbred! i think you;re thinking about red necks ;-)