Baby Help.

[Kinkeey]

Hey, I'm Jayde, new to this forum.
Anyway, I acquired a partial lavender 3 year old female bearded dragon to breed with my het albino 3 year old male. And they did, but unfortunately she passed away a week after laying them, due to unknown reasons, the vet didn't even know.

But anyway, this is my first time with fertile eggs (previous attempts have been unsuccessful due to another infertile male) so I decided to mate her with my male I've had since he was 6 weeks old.

I’ve tried looking up care sheets on the web but I can’t find any proper info.. I’m going into the local herp guy to ask about them and all the care and stuff at the weekend but untill then..

any info you would like to share would be greatly appriciated!

I have a few questions fist though..
Right, I have the tank ready and all for them, playsand, a log& hiding area, basking light, heat mat and UV light so I’m all set up with that. 14 of the eggs are fetile so the tank is big enough for them.

I’m going to give them away when they are 6 weeks old.. Is that ok? should I wait any longer? I’m going to get them sexed and keep two females to breed in the future, they will have albino and lavender genes in them.

When should I offer them their first meal of small dusted crickets and diced veg? Straight away? A week after cos of the egg sack?

When can I give then their first bath? I want them to bu used to water and not be afraid of it when they grow up, of couse it will only be shallow and under constant supervision.

When should I seperate them? (have a spare tank incase some decide to fight)

Sould I keep kink (the dad) away from them? I know they don’t need any parental supervision as such, but just making sure. Would he try to kill them if he got near to them?

Should I start handeling them staright away so they woun’t be scared of humans?

How often and how much should i feed them? Should I feed them seperatly?

Thanks,
Jayde.

[crypticdragons]

Um first off you are talking about dragons right?  Lavendar and Albino are all snake terms.  Albino bearded dragons die within days of hatching.  So you mean hypo or leucistic not albino.

As far as hatchling care.  You need to have no hides for them as they will do nothing but hide if you have hides in their tanks.  Also you should never keep more than 5-6 babies together in one tank.  You should begin offering food from day one (most will eat within the first 2-4 days).  6 weeks will be a fine age to start getting them rehomed.  And if you plan to keep two females from the pairing are you going to get a male from another bloodline to breed to them?  Inbreeding in the bearded dragon world is a bad idea due to thinned out gene pools outside of australia.  I normally wait until 4-5 days old for the first soak.  Adults will eat babies.  Dragons do not have paternal instincts.  Once the lil guys hatch they are seen as food and as competition so keep your adults far away from your babies.  I start handling them at a week old to get them acclimated to human contact.  And you should feed them 3 times a day as much as they will eat.  And even playsand is a bad idea with hatchlings as they have a hole in their stomach that has to seal up over the first few days and sand can cause it to become infected.   Papertowels/newpaper are really the only safe substrates for hatchlings.