Pogona Vitticeps

Housing bearded dragons in groups or with other animals

Bearded dragons can be kept alone or be held in groups, that is, if there is sufficient ground surface. However, bearded dragon’s arn´t real group animals.The bearded dragon is rather not held in very large groups. Always keep this in mind.

When a small group of bearded dragons are held together, you can clearly see that they hunt, eat, and sleep together etc. This confirmed that bearded dragons can be kept in a terrarium with multiple animals of the same kind or of an entirely different species, and in the right combination also benefit from it.

Despite the bearded Dragon is not really a group animal, experience has shown that the animals can indeed build a sort of relationship or band with each other. You will find theme hanging together, as also regularly communicate with each other through body language. When the animals get separated from each other, they can some times get kind of lifeless or maybe even depressed (e.g. less or not eating and/or little movement).

Carefully select your group. Females can e.g. be housed together very well. Also several females with one male can go well. But several males together are definitely not recommended. So there are certainly some do's and Don'ts.

Below we will describe all matters related to housing bearde dargons in groups.

Health Risk

When buying a new pet take no risk (see also purchase). Keep the new bearded dragon separated for the first two weeks, so you can determine if your bearded dragon is healthy before placing it with your other animals. The infection risk is higher for large groups of animals.

The new animal can carry and transfer parasites or infectious diseases. So be careful when introducing new animals in your (healthy) group. 

What can and can't not be put together!

Bearded dragons are omnivores and they eat smaller living animals. Only put animals of similar size together. When you put two animans of significantly difference size together, theit is a risk that they eat each other. So please reconsider size!

Adult females can often be housed together very well. Also several females with one male can live in harmony. In some cases, the male constantly have the urg to mate. In most cases, the male energetically keeps trying to mate with the females. This is for sowel as the male as the females very physically exhausting.

If the couple drift persists the frustration can get pretty high, and the man can even damage or injure the females. Often in this situation, the male get separated from the femals.

Housing several males together is really discouraged and often goes wrong. The male usually have a much larger territory drift then femals. Especially if the enclosure is too small, this can lead to serious fights. The fighting can lead to serious and even fatal injuries.  

Introducing

Introducing new animals should always happen whit patien and consideration. Sometimes it takes a while before the animals are used to each other. You can sometimes see a small struggle when they meet and examinre each other. Keep a close eye on the animals and make sure the introducing dos not get out of control and transforms in a real fight.

Proposing the animals to each other, at first begins with just making sure the animals can see each other. From a distance they can begin to communicate with each other through body language. The best way to do this is by placing the terrariums next to each other, so they can meet and communicate from a save distance. When the animals are used to each other and interact well, you can go a step further.

Gently introduced them on neutral ground. If this goes well then repeat this a few times. If this goes goed as well, it's time to put the animnals together in their terrarium.

In some cases the introducing goes right the first time. It could also be, that the bearded dragon respond negative on each other, what can result in a fight. This can be notice by stress signals and body language of the bearded dragon In a normal introduction you will sometimes see that they rotate around each other. If this is too violently and the also trying to bite each other, this can be first signals of a fight starting.

Negative behavior while introducing, can be caused by territory motive or by fear (stress). Try to avoid negative encounters. So be patient when you introduce your animals to each other.

There is no guarantee that the couple is successful, some animals can simply not get along.  

With other animal species

Bearded dragons also seem to be able to be held along with other animals (as Blue-tongued Skink / Tiliqua scincoides), provided they have the same living conditions and there is enough space. However, this is not something we recommend or where we have experience in.

Always use caution with feeding!

When feeding multiple animals, you should make sure everyone gets his portion (without fighting for it or getting injury´s). They can be so greedy and brutal, that they claim all the offered food. Sometimes they literally try to eat the foot out off each others beak. In addition, it can happen that they accidentally bite on the toes or tail of each other, because they see this as food. It is therefore better to feed the animals separately.

Conclusion

The conclusion is that, bearded dragons gen be helt in small group environment, even while they are not realy naturally group animals. As discussed, they can be kept together under the right circumstances, with the proper care.