Male + female = babies ?

[Diaspora]

Hi everyone,
here's the thing, i have a couple of BD, they will turn 1 year this summer, and i'm starting to wonder if i have to prepare myself to babies.
In the beginning i just wanted one beardie, but my dad went with me to the shop and wanted a male too...
Anyways. I DON'T want to breed.
And I changed the substrate of my beardies' tank to vinyl, so no sand or whatever to lay eggs.
Here are my questions:
Are they surely going to mate and thus have babies?
What can i do to avoid this ? (except separating them)
how often do they mate and lay eggs per year?
Someone told me if i take the eggs away, my female is going to lay "eggs of sadness" (so they said), is this true?

Thanks!

 

[Canicke]

if you dont separate them you run the risk of impregnation. just the way it is. Not having sand to lay eggs does not mean she wont get pregnanat - just that she wont lay. then you have another problem. they will mate whenever the opportunity arises. a female can "hold" eggs to lay several clutches from one mating. females dont have to mate to develop eggs - they are infertile though. and - she still needs to "lay" them. ya gotta get another tank.

 

[sapphira80]

If a male and a female are housed together, they will eventually breed and the female will get pregnant. Once she is pregnant, she has to lay the eggs or she will become egg bound (eggs trapped in her body) and will die. Even if you did want to breed them, you couldn't keep the male and female together all the time, because he will pester her constantly to mate, which will stress her out, which can make her sick.
You really have to get another enclosure. If that's not possible right away, you should put a divider between them temporarily until you can get another enclosure. I had to use a thin sheet of wood cut to size to divide my female beardies tank in half when I took in a male beardie that had been abandoned. Thankfully I found a good deal on a used set up about a week later.

Good luck!

 

[sapphira80]

Also, female beardies don't really seem to care about their eggs. In the wild, after they lay and bury them, they don't come back. The babies are independent once they hatch. However, females can lay a second or third clutch of eggs after the first. Whether or not these eggs are fertile or infertile is determined by how much sperm is retained in her body. This is probably the "eggs of sadness" someone told you about.

I've also heard of female beardies that have never mated laying clutches of infertile eggs, but I don't think it happens very often... Unlike some other reptile species that lay eggs on a regular basis whether they are fertilized or not.

 

[Diaspora]

Thanks for the info
I can't have another tank in my room
My parents would kill me..
I think the only choice I have is to separate myself from one of them.. Otherwise it's going to get too complicated [emoji20]

 

[Andyurgay]

I can tell you right now, they will mate. And a lot. After we rescued 4 beardies a few years ago, we ended up with 35 babies since two males and two females were kept together in 45 gallon. And if you think about that, all clutches need separate tanks, some clutches need to be broken up into even more tanks, babies eat a TON. All need hiding spots, heat and UVB and attention so they socialize. Then you need to find responsible homes for them all. And if you don't find homes soon enough, as they grow, more and more tanks are needed. Same with upgraded lights and food. Its not easy.