Some bearded dragon owners that have a male and one or few males decide to breed their dragons. Breeding bearded dragons is exciting, challenging and rewarding. In this post, we will teach you everything that you need to know about breeding bearded dragons.
We will talk about determining bearded dragon’s sex and changing some conditions to influence breeding. Then, we will discuss breeding behaviors, pregnancy, creating a nesting site, incubating the eggs and caring for hatchlings. We will also answer some frequently asked questions.
What is the best age to breed bearded dragons? How to tell your bearded dragon is sexually mature.
Bearded dragons reach sexual maturity at different ages. In general, bearded dragons that live a high quality life with a proper diet and terrarium setups, reach maturity sooner.
An approximate age of sexual maturity in bearded dragons is 6-15 months old. Another way to determine sexual maturity is to look at femoral and pre-anal pores that should be present and visible.
Make sure your male bearded dragon is big enough to mate with a female, who can be larger than him. Wait for your bearded dragons to be at least 360 grams and 7-8 inches long (around 20cm) before breeding them.
Male bearded dragons have larger femoral and pre-anal pores that are also darker than female’s. If you don’t know how to determine bearded dragon’s sex, read this post.
How many clutches and eggs do female bearded dragons lay in a year?
Female bearded dragons may lay eggs even without breeding with a male. If she hasn’t mated with a male bearded dragon, her eggs will be infertile. But she will still need to lay the eggs no matter if they are viable or not.
During the first year, after a female bearded dragon reaches sexual maturity (which can be around 6-15 months old) she will lay around 2-3 clutches of eggs. The larger your bearded dragon, more and bigger eggs she will lay.
During the second year of her life, she will produce around 4-7 clutches. Only a healthy female bearded dragon will be laying multiple clutches.
During the second year, most bearded dragons start brumating, which means that they will lay eggs before shutdown and few weeks after waking up. If the female is in bad health, her poor sexual health will not allow her to lay eggs.
During the third year (3 years or 36 months old), female bearded dragon will lay around 3-5 clutches. Her reproductive ability will diminish by the age of 6-7.
One clutch will consist of around 7-25 eggs, but females in their second year might lay clutches consisting of 20-40 eggs!
How to prepare your bearded dragons for breeding and factors affecting breeding
As we have discussed, female bearded dragons become sexually mature by the age of 6 months, but sometimes it can be 16-18 months.
What is more, most bearded dragons that live in captivity start brumating, or going through a winter shutdown, during the second winter.
Brumation has a big impact on sexual activity and breeding of bearded dragons. Few weeks after brumation (3-4 weeks), bearded dragons become sexually active and start breeding. After brumation, there is a big chance for them to breed.
Make sure to provide your bearded dragons, especially a female, with a high quality diet supplemented with vitamins and minerals. Correct temperatures and humidity are also crucial for breeding success.
How to introduce male and female bearded dragons to each other for breeding?
Note the male’s black beard – he is ready to mate!
You can introduce your female bearded dragon to a male a week or so before breeding. You can either keep one male and one female, or one male and two-three females together.
If you are keeping 3 bearded dragons, you will need an approximately 75 gallon terrarium. You can introduce up to 4 females to 1 male – they are often very active during breeding season. But remember – more bearded dragons will need a bigger vivarium.
So, how do bearded dragons brumate and how to induce brumation?
If you are planning to breed your bearded dragons, few weeks after brumation might be the best time. Most adult female bearded dragons will lay 2-3 clutches of eggs before winter brumation, and 3-5 clutches after.
Brumation should end by February, and that’s when you will need to set the temperatures and humidity back to normal. They will need bright lights and heat to show breeding interest.
3-4 weeks after end of brumation, bearded dragons will start showing breeding behaviors.
Breeding behaviors include territorial display (don’t bring any males close to each other), competitiveness, beard flaring, head bobbing and courtship. Breeding season can last from March-September. At this time, females will lay eggs even without a male.
Read more about brumation here.
How do bearded dragons mate?
Mating in bearded dragons is quite rough. Bearded dragons might perform a ‘mating dance’ before mating. During this 
dance, male’s beard will become black and they will run around each other, bobbing and rolling their heads. When ready, a male bearded dragon will bite on female’s nape or side of the head to stop her from running away. Then, he will swing his bag leg and place it on her.
She will then stand in the position for him to insert his hemipene. After few minutes of mating, she will push back so he lets her go. This might be also followed by a head bob and a head roll.
Male bearded dragon bites are rough and can leave wounds. Make sure to take care of her wound by flushing it with salt water, applying antibiotic ointment and covering with a pad.
After mating, male bearded dragon’s hemipene will take some time to go back in. Check on him few hours after mating, and if his hemipene is still out, take him to the vet.
What happens after bearded dragons have mated – gestation, or pregnancy
If mating between two bearded dragons was successful, female bearded dragon will become pregnant (gravid). Female bearded dragons might not become pregnant straight away, because they can store male’s sperm for few weeks in their body for future use.
In general, it will take around 4-6 weeks for a female bearded dragon to lay eggs after mating.
Female bearded dragon will produce multiple clutches – each containing 7-30 eggs. Each clutch will be laid in intervals, which is about 4 weeks or longer.
Make sure to provide a female with a high quality diet before, during and after the pregnancy. That’s because she will be using a big portion of her fat and calcium storage to produce egg yolks and shells.
Preparation for egg laying in bearded dragons
At the end of her pregnancy, female bearded dragon will start searching for an egg-laying site. You should provide her with a nesting site around a week before the end of the pregnancy.
This should be around 4 weeks into pregnancy. You will know she’s reaching the end of the pregnancy by touching the bottom of her belly.
Eggs should be now formed and feel like small balls to the touch. Be careful when touching the belly, to avoid breaking the eggs inside of her. When she starts actively digging, walking around the vivarium to find the best place to lay the eggs, it is the time to take her to the nesting site.
Creating a nesting site for your bearded dragon
To make a nesting site, choose a large plastic box, pot or trash can in the vivarium, that you will fill with damp soil. You can
use a 10 gallon waste container, and fill it to 15 inches.
To create a nest site, choose a corner or other spot of the vivarium. You must fill the nesting spot with digging substrate – and soil (can use potting soil) is the best choice.
The substrate must be damp, so that the embryo inside an egg absorbs the moisture when laid. If the digging soil is not moist, she will refuse to lay the eggs there. But make sure the soil is not wet – it will cause bacterial growth and mold formation and can potentially drown the embryo.
Make sure the soil is soft enough for digging but not too loose to collapse. You can also add some sand to the digging soil.
Make sure to add enough damp soil substrate – fill the container with around 15 inches (38cm) of soil. If it is not deep enough, she will not continue digging, and will most probably lay them on the surface if not at all. It should be deep enough for her sit in, while laying eggs, as she will be watching her surrounding for any threat.
Temperature in the egg deposition site should be optimal – around 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
You can pick other spot and make it a nesting site, just make sure you will fill it with enough soil. 15 inches in height and 5 inches in length is perfect. If the temperature near the digging area is low, make sure to provide additional heating with an under tank heater, for example. Keep the soil moist.
Creating a nesting site is very important. If there is no nesting site, gravid bearded dragon might not lay her eggs and become egg-bound.
Egg laying
When a female start actively digging, take her to the nesting site and she will probably start digging to lay the eggs. She can sit in there for few hours, before laying the eggs.
If few hours have passed and she hasn’t laid the eggs, take her to the nesting site next day. If the nesting site is inside the vivarium, she will be able to do it herself. After laying the eggs, she will cover them with soil and leave, but some stay around to protect the eggs.
A gravid bearded dragon will want to lay her eggs in the afternoon or evening – from 1 to 5pm usually.
Incubation of eggs – buying or making an incubator
After the female laid her eggs, you will need to incubate them. This only applies to viable eggs that will produce hatchlings.
After the female laid her eggs, take them to the incubation box or commercial incubator as soon as possible.
Buying an incubator
You can make your own incubator, or buy the incubator by Zoo Med, which is called ReptiBator.
ReptiBator features digital controls, and will heat or cool the eggs 
as needed. Sponge inserts on the bottom of incubator will keep the humidity optimal. You can also regulate humidity levels with the controls.
An under-incubator heating element will keep the eggs warm. You will be able to watch the eggs from the clear top lid, without opening it. This is useful, as you won’t need to open the lid to turn the eggs anyway.
Another advantage of ReptiBator is that you will be able to cool the incubator if needed, for example in hot summer. With DIY incubator, cooling will be much harder.
Read the next paragraph to learn about placing the eggs inside the incubator. Then, just set the temperature and humidity and check on it few times a day.
Making your own incubator and placing the eggs
While making your own incubator is possible, it can cost almost same as the commercial incubator if you don’t have extra accessories to use for an incubator. You will need a thermometer, hygrometer, plastic box, heater and thermostat. Let’s discuss how to do it.
To make your own incubator, use a plastic container box and fill it with storage medium. The best storage media are vermiculite and perlite.
You can use pure perlite or mix perlite with vermiculite and even some sand. Before filling the storage box, make the medium moist (but not too wet that it is dripping water). For the commercial incubator, place eggs in small containers filled with perlite or vermiculite.
Fill the DIY storage box with about 1.5 inches of moist substrate.
Then, start placing the eggs into the substrate. Leave some space between each egg and don’t bury them fully (2/3 buried is the best). Also, leave the top portion of an egg uncovered, so you can see them. It is the best practice to lay them in the same position as you have picked them up.
This incubator is placed in a large box with a water heater
After that, close the container lid, but make sure it has small holes above eggs for ventilation. You will now need to start heating the incubator. Place a ceramic heating bulb above the incubator or an under tank heater to maintain the temperature.
Place a digital hygrometer and thermometer with the remote probe near the incubator. You can also use a mercury thermometer and place it inside the incubator, but it might not be as accurate.
Use the probe to check temperatures inside the incubator, as well as humidity. And finally, use a thermostat, to control an under tank heater temperature.
You can also place your incubator box inside another large box filled with some water. Inside that water, you will place a submersible water heater to heat the water and the incubator. Water will also increase humidity.
Optimal temperatures and humidity inside the incubation box
To make the substrate wet, you will need to mix around 5 parts of vermiculite or perlite with 4 parts of water. Mix everything with hands. Medium should not be dripping water. You can add water gradually while mixing.
The temperature in the incubation box or incubator should be around 83-85 degrees F (28.3-29.4 Celsius). If the temperatures are too low or too high, bearded dragon hatchlings will fail to survive.
Sex of hatchlings will not depend on the incubator temperature. In the ReptiBator, set the temperature with the controls.
If you have your own DIY egg incubator, achieve these temperatures with an under tank heater, water heater or ceramic heat bulbs. Creating optimal temperatures with DIY incubators might be challenging, so start doing it a day or hours before introducing eggs.
The humidity in the incubator is also vital. Optimal humidity in the incubator should be between 70-95%. If the humidity drops too low, you can mist the substrate with water. Low humidity will cause dehydration and death of an embryo.
After placing the eggs in the incubator
After the bearded dragon has laid the eggs, you will pick them up and place them, in the same position inside the incubator. You must not move or change position of the eggs after placing them inside the incubator.
To make sure of the position, you can draw a dot or circle on top of eggs in the correct position. Changing the position of the egg will squeeze the embryo inside the egg and kill it.
What is the incubation time for bearded dragon eggs?
Bearded dragon eggs will take 50-75 days before hatching. Most of the time, all eggs will hatch within one day. Some eggs might not hatch at all.
Infertile eggs and failing to hatch
Some eggs might be infertile, and this is very common. You will know they are infertile if eggs become yellow, soft and start breaking only one or two weeks after incubation.
Size of the eggs will also differ – viable eggs are larger
When the time comes, some eggs might have a problem hatching. There can be some reasons, including wrong temperatures, low oxygen and low substrate humidity.
Some eggs might not hatch or embryos might die due to genetics, disease and poor embryo yolk composition. Make sure to allow fresh air in the incubator and make holes in the DIY incubator, or low levels of oxygen will kill the embryo.
Make sure to feed your gravid bearded dragon female right and have a dish with cuttlebone (for pure calcium) in the vivarium.
Normal egg hatching
Embryos that have survived and developed will start hatching at the end of incubation. When you start seeing egg sweating, it means that the hatchlings will soon come out. After the eggs sweat (have water droplets on top of them), they will lose their shape and seem to become rather flat.
Within a day or two after these symptoms, hatchlings will cut the top of an egg. Then, they might take another day or so to start coming out.
Don’t remove hatchlings when they still have any connection with the eggs. After they have come out fully and start looking around, take them out and place them in the vivarium.
If most of the eggs hatched and some didn’t, you can try helping them by slightly cutting through the surface of an egg.
Don’t poke the eggs, as you will damage the blood vessel supply. After cutting the surface, wait for a day or two for a hatchling to come out itself. But don’t be upset – some hatchlings might not survive.
Hatchling bearded dragons
After placing healthy hatchlings in the vivarium, offer them a high quality diet. Hatchlings will not eat for the first 2-4 days because of their egg yolk supply.
But after that, they will start eating a lot, so you need to prepare! Make sure to set up the terrarium correctly – full-spectrum and heating lights, shallow water and food bowls and other accessories must be in the vivarium.