Incubation Temperatures and Sex Determination in Bearded Dragons - Page 2

HadesDragons · #11 (**permalink**) 05-02-2008, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mybeardeddragons

thanks for this - I found it really interesting. I thought I'd read somewhere before that there wasn't really a temperature at which you could breed for a particular sex for BDs. The odds are that even at normal temps you will get a mismatch between the numbers of males and females, thus leading to people thinking they've been successful. Or could it also have something to do with the fact that young BDs are very difficult to sex?

I do hope no one tries to incubate at high temps just to get females!

Anyway - thanks for this. And if you hear more in the future about whether the females can breed please post that too! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks - I'm glad people are finding it interesting. Hopefully it will stop some people from buying "incubated for female" beardies and assuming that they are pretty much guaranteed to be females like with leos, when actually it is still 50:50...

DeanThorpe · #12 (**permalink**) 05-02-2008, 10:26 PM

to be honest id never ever heard "incubated for" on beardies, but i defo believe hots exist and that being due to high incubation temps.

havin said that...was there soemone on this forum recently? as i vaguely now do remember seeing "incuabated for.." and thinking "hmm" but generally i dont think ppl think it.

HadesDragons · #13 (**permalink**) 05-02-2008, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeanThorpe

to be honest id never ever heard "incubated for" on beardies, but i defo believe hots exist and that being due to high incubation temps.

havin said that...was there soemone on this forum recently? as i vaguely now do remember seeing "incuabated for.." and thinking "hmm" but generally i dont think ppl think it.

Yeah I've seen a couple on this forum recently, and a few on other classifieds. I've emailed/PM'd a couple of them out of interest to ask what temperatures they incubate at to get females and got different answers from them all. I'd never heard of it before, until there were a few advertised this year. None of them could tell me where they had read the temperature, they just "knew" that if you did them at that temperature you get females, which made me want to look into it a bit more.

As for the hots, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, given the proposed mechanism for leos. A high incubation temperature may cause over-expression of testosterone receptors in the brain, or something else having a similar effect. I wish there was some way to get your one tested to see if it's genetically female or if it's a TDSR, but the sex chromosomes are so small that they are all but impossible to find using conventional microscopy, and it has to be done using a female-specific gene marker, which requires a full lab setup and DNA analysis equipment...

Ally · #14 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 09:28 PM

You know, that would explain at least 4 gender-confused or other mysteries that I have come across in the last year at the shop...

Females being overly aggressive and never producing viable eggs, even with a proven male.
An unsexable beardie - no bulge, pores and black beard, will not tolerate other bearides at all.
A female that tries to mount the male, black beard, lays unviable eggs...

This could explain all of these - makes for inetersting reading.

DeanThorpe · #15 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 10:16 PM

yep our big girl has dominated our male... at certain times of year when he is at his most frisky he managed to turn the tables on her...but nothing compared to when shes the boss...she kicked the crap outa him..and even when he was boos for a time..if they came out of the viv..BOOM..she would turn.
Right now she is housed alone and just goes mad if she sees another beardie [drago the boy she was housed with or rouge the girl drago is housed with now]

She is defo a girl....but you would not know it.

HadesDragons · #16 (**permalink**) 07-02-2008, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeanThorpe

yep our big girl has dominated our male... at certain times of year when he is at his most frisky he managed to turn the tables on her...but nothing compared to when shes the boss...she kicked the crap outa him..and even when he was boos for a time..if they came out of the viv..BOOM..she would turn.
Right now she is housed alone and just goes mad if she sees another beardie [drago the boy she was housed with or rouge the girl drago is housed with now]

She is defo a girl....but you would not know it.

Sounds like a lady with attitude! Do you know who bred her, or was she shop-bought? I'd be interested to know what temperature she was incubated at if you know the breeder...

Becky Wheeler · #17 (**permalink**) 07-02-2008, 07:47 PM

Thanks for the info mate, I read the lot and found it very interesting.

As you know I'm a BD breeder and have always incubated my eggs at 82-83, Getting 50/50 from each clutch.

But....my last clutch which was in august, I got mostly males?? And they were incubated at 83.

I have seen on many claasifieds "Incubated for Female" which in all honesty i think is they are talking out of there ass. Even a mate of mine sold a whole clutch to a petshop saying they were incubated for female! I said it cannot be proven as yet, you can't say that! and she said it was in the Bearded dragon manual?? HUH?? I've read that book loads of times before??

The way it goes for me, I will still be incubating at a safe temp of 83. I would rather have a healthy clutch of 50/50 sexes than take the risk of an experiment going wrong.

DeanThorpe · #18 (**permalink**) 07-02-2008, 08:02 PM

Hades dragon-
We bought Goldie from a shop here in suffolk along with our lae drago in march 06- All we were tol dis that goldie was from a breeder in Ipswich and drago from bury st edmunds.

I am affraid I have no way of finding out any more info as he wouldnt remember now ["hey..i came in here a couple years ago and..."] and he has now retired and left the place with soemone else.

We too would like to know and have said that if we do ever manage to find out that we would make sure to enquire as to all that also as its always bugged us.

HadesDragons · #19 (**permalink**) 07-02-2008, 08:06 PM

I tend to incubate at 84f, and usually see 50:50s. Obviously, it's all down to chance, and the more clutches you have, the greater the odds that one of them will be significantly biased.

I'm certainly not going to be experimenting with temperatures above 90f, unless it's part of an actual scientific research programme, for which funding would be very hard to obtain in this country. If there's a chance that they can end up like Dean's, then there's no point in even having a female - it is as incompatible with other BDs as a male, and possibly infertile, so the "extra" females aren't actually worthwhile anyway, as the characteristics which makes people want females aren't actually present...

Becky Wheeler · #20 (**permalink**) 07-02-2008, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HadesDragons

I tend to incubate at 84f, and usually see 50:50s. Obviously, it's all down to chance, and the more clutches you have, the greater the odds that one of them will be significantly biased.

I'm certainly not going to be experimenting with temperatures above 90f, unless it's part of an actual scientific research programme, for which funding would be very hard to obtain in this country. If there's a chance that they can end up like Dean's, then there's no point in even having a female - it is as incompatible with other BDs as a male, and possibly infertile, so the "extra" females aren't actually worthwhile anyway, as the characteristics which makes people want females aren't actually present...

Spot on mate! I say play it safe And your be rewarded. Also, think about it.....If we could determine sex by temp then everybody will be incubating for female meaning that there will be too many females out there and too many people trying to breed them. Not to mention the problems people will have with there females due to being incubated "hot".

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