Female acting like a male, please help!

[luxangoddess]

I have three bearded dragons that I house together. Bobbles is the youngest (about 2) female. Bobblehead is a male about 3. And Sunshine is the oldest female.

Now we've housed Bobblehead and Bobbles together for a bout a year, trying to breed them because Bobblehead has excellent coloring (see pics)
I saw them conceive however Bobbles kinda poked the eggs wicked hard with her nose and we think that's why they didn't make it in the incubator.
We figured we needed an older female to breed with Bobblehead
So we slowly introduced Sunshine. SHe has to be around 4 and has always held a dominant temperament.
They all seem to get along well. I sometime separate Bobbles to give her time without the stress

Today Sunshine's behavior has been shocking. Usually Bobblehead does his male bobbing and Bobbles vigorously responds with her female submissive bobs. Sunshine seldom bobs back. Today, she started male-bobbing out of the blue. She did a male-like bob and got on top on Bobbles and started nipping her neck.
This was very alarming. She then later male-bobbed at bobblehead.
I am very worried that she is having an identity crisis.

I know I have properly sexed the dragons and am wondering what could be causing the behavior

Attatched are picture of them to get a better idea of their age.
The first one is of Bobbles pregnant with Bobblehead behind her.
The second is the orange, male bobblehead
The third is the older female sunshine

Please help me. I want to breed bobblehead so badly and I want sunshine to get back to the way she was

 

[Kayla]

Do you think she could have seen them do it and copied it or something? I've never heard anything like this before, so weird!

 

[luxangoddess]

I thought of that for awhile. But she's so much older. She has always seemed dominant though. Just today she started that male behavior.
Before her we had a female that would "duel" with bobblehead. You know when they circle each other and nipped at each others tails? But she always was feminine.
I'm worried that housing them together is the problem

 

[Kayla]

As it's only started today I'm pretty sure you're safe to leave them together for a bit. because you haven't had much chance to observe the behaviour yet, I'd leave it so you can see how they go, as long as they're not hurting each other or anything though.
But I'm not an expert! See how things go!

 

[smokejunky]

U just have a dominant female It sounds like . females will breed with each other too.the dominant female will make all the other females there will produce infertile eggs so she can be the ones that has fertile ones.

 

[luxangoddess]

wow so what you're saying is, that females can be bi? How do I get her interested in bobblehead instead of the youngfer female/?

 

[smokejunky]

Keep putting them together but Don't keep them together.if she's that dominant she can possibly hurt him.also I would advise separating the females as well that can turn bad and it's very stress full.the little one can feel threatened and not eat eventually might die or be killed.
It's something like bi she just want to be the one that wants to be breed and no others

 

[luxangoddess]

Well she's never ever been violent. I am just confused with her behavior.
That makes a lot of sense. She's dominating the younger female to ensure that she has the male's eggs.
Are you positive that it's not an identity crisis though? Its about the time of year when they start breeding. Is it possible that she'll become more aggressive because of this?

 

[smokejunky]

U can check again to see if it's a male.but if not that's what she's doing

 

[smokejunky]

It might be the timing but I would definitely watch the appetite and additude towards the other females to be sade

 

[luxangoddess]

she's definatly a female. I usually feed them separately but I'll keep a closer eye on her
thank you

 

[luxangoddess]

UPDATE::

Now the younger bearded dragon is bobbing like a male.
Instead of her feminine bobs
I am very concerned that the older female is a bad influence on her
Is this the mating season?

 

[leximom]

Are you sure that the bobbing is limited to male dragons? Based on what I've been reading, I had thought both genders did the head bobbing. I'm a newbie so I may have misunderstood something. But I thought it was a dominance/submission thing that they all do.

 

[Portmanmike]

I have three bearded dragons that I house together. Bobbles is the youngest (about 2) female. Bobblehead is a male about 3. And Sunshine is the oldest female.

Now we've housed Bobblehead and Bobbles together for a bout a year, trying to breed them because Bobblehead has excellent coloring (see pics)
I saw them conceive however Bobbles kinda poked the eggs wicked hard with her nose and we think that's why they didn't make it in the incubator.
We figured we needed an older female to breed with Bobblehead
So we slowly introduced Sunshine. SHe has to be around 4 and has always held a dominant temperament.
They all seem to get along well. I sometime separate Bobbles to give her time without the stress

Today Sunshine's behavior has been shocking. Usually Bobblehead does his male bobbing and Bobbles vigorously responds with her female submissive bobs. Sunshine seldom bobs back. Today, she started male-bobbing out of the blue. She did a male-like bob and got on top on Bobbles and started nipping her neck.
This was very alarming. She then later male-bobbed at bobblehead.
I am very worried that she is having an identity crisis.

I know I have properly sexed the dragons and am wondering what could be causing the behavior

Attatched are picture of them to get a better idea of their age.
The first one is of Bobbles pregnant with Bobblehead behind her.
The second is the orange, male bobblehead
The third is the older female sunshine

Please help me. I want to breed bobblehead so badly and I want sunshine to get back to the way she was

I have three bearded dragons that I house together. Bobbles is the youngest (about 2) female. Bobblehead is a male about 3. And Sunshine is the oldest female.

Now we've housed Bobblehead and Bobbles together for a bout a year, trying to breed them because Bobblehead has excellent coloring (see pics)
I saw them conceive however Bobbles kinda poked the eggs wicked hard with her nose and we think that's why they didn't make it in the incubator.
We figured we needed an older female to breed with Bobblehead
So we slowly introduced Sunshine. SHe has to be around 4 and has always held a dominant temperament.
They all seem to get along well. I sometime separate Bobbles to give her time without the stress

Today Sunshine's behavior has been shocking. Usually Bobblehead does his male bobbing and Bobbles vigorously responds with her female submissive bobs. Sunshine seldom bobs back. Today, she started male-bobbing out of the blue. She did a male-like bob and got on top on Bobbles and started nipping her neck.
This was very alarming. She then later male-bobbed at bobblehead.
I am very worried that she is having an identity crisis.

I know I have properly sexed the dragons and am wondering what could be causing the behavior

Attatched are picture of them to get a better idea of their age.
The first one is of Bobbles pregnant with Bobblehead behind her.
The second is the orange, male bobblehead
The third is the older female sunshine

Please help me. I want to breed bobblehead so badly and I want sunshine to get back to the way she was

I've never seen colors like that yellow body red head very cool

 

[luxangoddess]

Are you sure that the bobbing is limited to male dragons? Based on what I've been reading, I had thought both genders did the head bobbing. I'm a newbie so I may have misunderstood something. But I thought it was a dominance/submission thing that they all do.

well over the past few weeks both females have been nipping at each other and bobbing at each other. Its essentially become a bob-fest so I had to separate them. I think they're just fighting over the male

 

[leximom]

LOL!! You do have a pretty attractive male there...

 

[luxangoddess]

LOL!! You do have a pretty attractive male there...

lol I know. im trying to breed them but the new female seems more interested in dominating the other female than getting with him.

 

[leximom]

They are so cool looking! But I love the rainbow one.

 

[diegothediggy]

Wot cuties. They look so snuggly