2 dragons- same age, one twice as big

[Kelly]

We have 2 beardies, they are siblings but one is twice the size.They are about 3 months old.  I'm worried that my smallest baby is not eating enough or maybe there is something wrong with him/her. Could it just be that they are different sexes or have different temperaments?

The bigger one chases the little one around a bit (not all the time) but they get fed separately and have a large cage. The small one doesn't seem to spend much time basking and eats much slower than the big one. He also only ate his first greens (that we saw) a few days ago, where as the big one has been eating greens pretty much since we got him. They get calcium and assorted greens and veg, as well as crickets +- 3 times a day. (Do beardies prefer strawberry calcium to the plain one?)

Thanks
Kelly

[redflea13]

The bigger one may be stressing the little one out, I would separate them.

[zaheer3000]

Hi there

Beardies should never be housed together. I think this is a classic example of one dominating the other hence the difference in size. They are territorial by nature and if I were you I'd seperate them immediately or things will get even nastier. The smaller one might soon have parts of his body missing one due to biting from the other one, or even death!

In terms of the calcium, look at the care sheet provided on this site. It's amazing and will tell you the calcium recommended!

Ultimately it is up to you what you do, but I advise you to seperate them!

hope that helps

[Alara]

The bigger one is dominating the smaller one and the smaller one is not thriving.  They should be separated and you'll likely see a change for the better in the smaller one.

This isn't an indication of which one is male and which is female or male/male or female/female.  If they are male and female and they're siblings, that won't stop them from mating when they reach puberty and that could cause more problems.

[Kelly]

New cage it is! Thanks everyone  :)Strange that the pet shops don't advise that from the start, pitty 'cos how many people have done the same thing 'cos they don't know. I did loads of reading but obviously not from the right places, I guess that's why it's so nice to be able to pick everyone else's brains.   

Thanks again
Kelly

[Scarloc]

Take any petshop advise you have gotten and scrap it. Petshops are there to sell you products even if it is un needed or even dangerous to pets. On forms like this you are only going to find people who care about pets and want them to thrive. I have never seen someone come back here and have their pet become sick or injured because of poor information given from this site, now the number of "but the petstore told me to do this" I have heard is staggering.

If you have not checked out our caresheet yet it is a great read at http://bearded-dragons.com/boards/index.php/topic,8.0.html