Cohabitating Dragons?

Apr 3, 2018
6 min read

Is it a good idea to keep two or more bearded dragons in the same enviornment?

Raising multipe bearded dragons at once means you have more than one mouth to feed, more than one home to keep tidy and clean, and more that one scaley body to keep fed and hydrated. It is always a great idea to have more than one bearded dragon in my opinion, but the thing is, dragons are solitary animals that prefer their own space. A lot of people these days are choosing the easier option which is cohabitation. While this option may be easier, that doesn't always mean it is safer or even smarter.

Cohabitation is the process of keeping more than one animal in the same environment or habitat. This however, can lead to a lot of issues with bearded dragons becuase of how dominant and aggressive they can be at times.

Now, for this blog I am not going to get into cohabitation for breeders or people who keep bearded dragons to sell such as pet stores because of how young and interactive multiples babies can be in the same enclosure. I am going to discuss what can go wrong with cohabitating multiple juveniles however.

My Experience

When I got both of my girls, they were roughly the same size and they are about the same age. Both were very thin, young, and active.

Angel is my yellow hypo tiger on the left and Copper is my generic grey on the right. Angel was bought from a breeder in Texas and Copper was bought from my local petstore in my home town. Angel was $150 and Copper was on sale for $40 but she would originally have been $75. Both of my girls were very loving to begin with. Both were very active and always ready to eat. I would say Copper was roughly two to three weeks old at the most when I got her. Angel was probably three weeks to a month old when I got her. I kept them in seperate enclosures for a while so they could get used to me but I had intentions when I bought Angel to house them together and test out the cohabing theory. I did not do this out of spite knowing that dragons do not naturally enjoy being kept in the same enclosure. I did this to more understand the dominant traits the even females may at times show. It is a fact that males are naturally more aggressive and dominant than females so to learn more, I put my girls together and tested the theory.

Please note: my girls were never aggressive towards each other when cohabitated but what was odd was they were aggressive towards any younger baby dragons I brought home. This was all a learning experience for me!

The girls did very well when I first moved them in together. Now, I had Copper for a bit longer than I had Angel so Copper was more used to being alone and she was more used to me only giving her attention, so when Angel came along, things changed for her. Before I put them together they both had their own 20 gallon tanks. I used to take them out a lot together to feed them and let them run around and they hardly ever fought or bit at one another. The only time Ive seen them be aggressive is when they were hungry and it was finally feeding time. Hangry little dragons...

When I first bought Copper, she was an impulse buy. I did not need another dragon but I saw her at the store on sale and I wanted her bad, so I just bought her. After I bought Copper, a month or so later, I decided I wanted another girl so I bought Angel offline. I had them seperated for roughly two to three months and I didn't cohabitate them until I bought my youngest boy Bowser. I bought another male after I bought Angel and I wanted to try keeping my girls together to see how they did. Now, I did prepare for if it wasn't meant to be, but luckily it was a good experience for me for a while. I know what people are thinking. It is never a good experience cohabitating bearded dragons and that isnt entirely true. That doesnt mean it is smart but like I said, it was all a learning experience.

I put my girls in a 40 gallon tank together and I was keeping my younger male Bowser across from them. They were all still young so none of them displayed head bobbing or even arm waving except Copper. Copper has always had an act for bobbing her head at me. Ive come to learn its just a part of her personality I suppose. After I put her and Angel together, Copper started to bob her head a lot and it baffled me for how young she was. When I put them together, they were the same size and about the same weight but for the first few months, Copper wasn't eating the way Angel was. Angel would devour her food and Copper's food as well. If Copper did not eat it all or if she did not get to it before Angel, Angel would eat hers as well.

Now, here is where I want to draw a line and state that this was my experience and it was only an experiment. Yes my husbandry was kept up and my the health of my girls is the proof for that. Bearded dragons, not even young, should be cohabitated or raised in the same enclosure. They are solitary animals that need their own space to be as healthy as possible. I cohabitated to learn more about female bearded dragon behaviors amogst each other when kept together. I did this as a learning experience and no matter what you feel as though is acceptable, if you cohabitate, at some point your dragons will need to be separated. Two males is NEVER a good idea in any sense, one male and one female will probably leave you with eggs in the future, as they will at some point mate, and two females is what I experimented with. I can tell you from my experience, while they are young it may be all fun and games, but as they grow they start to show dominance more and more.

This is why you dont cohabitate.

No matter how close they are to the same size, when you put two dragons in the same environment, one is going to dominate the other. Angel did everything she could to be dominant to Copper. She would eat faster and more than Copper would, she would lay on top of Copper to show her dominance, and I even watched her take food out of Copper's mouth at times. Copper would sometimes try to show dominace as well but for some reason Copper has always been my head bobbing girl. When shes upset or wants to show dominace to Angel or my males, she bobs her head a lot. Angel hardly ever bobs at Copper or the males. They all have their own little personalities just like we do. The only real problem I saw with cohabitating my girls was that when I was gone for a weekend, I didnt leave them enough food and since Angel was the bigger eater, I had a feeling Copper was pretty hungry when I came back that Monday. I let them out to feed them and when Angel ate the first roach I put down before Copper could, Copper instantly jumped at Angel and nipped at her. My only experience with cohabitation is with my two girls. I would not recommend at all to try this with two males because of how more dominant and aggressive males are than females. My girls are separated now because of how much bigger they have grown. They were kept together for around 5 months in a large 40 gallon tank before I gave them their own enclosures.

As I've stated, there are many cons to cohabitating but are there any pros?

To be honest, there arent any real pros to cohabitation other than you can save money by not having to buy two enclosures. I can promise you however, you do not want to take this option no matter how "gentle" or "loving" your think your dragons are with each other. I thought this same thing because my girls were never aggressive. This doesn't matter to be honest because this only lasts while they are young. They grow more aggressive with age and they are naturally dominant creatures which means one will grow faster and healthier than the other.

From my experience, I learned a lot about my girls and their behaviors separated and housed together. Cohabitation is not a smart option and my girls used to be a shining example. You dont have to look far for answers as to if you should cohabitate or not. There are many cases of bearded dragons that have had to have amputated limbs because of other dragons in the same enclosure getting aggressive towards others. MBD is also a large possibility considering one dragon may dominate another by laying on top of the other which can hinder UVB intake of the lesser dragon.

My girls have helped me to realize what cohabitation can lead to and they are now healthy as ever. They are both growing very healthy and happy now that they are not living together. They are next door neighbors of course but they only visit each other when I allow them to.