IF YOU KNOW OF A CAPTIVE DRAGON SOMEWHERE, THIS IS HOW YOU CAN FREE THEM.
Actual bearded dragons have large flaps of skin that screams "beard" at you. Jacky dragons have pointy scales in the beard region that change colour often, making their relatively tiny beards (compared to real Bearded Dragons) of some importance to the observer. There are various theories regarding the reasons and rhymes of the visual display of Jackies. Most of them are suspect, as I have observed exactly the same displays in quite opposite circumstances. Look, I am not some kind of expert, but look at the photos, see how my dragons live, and then I will tell you the little I have been able to surmise so far.
Well, your main concern would be to have at least two, and they being of opposite gender. Sex. Somehow the dirty word has now become the politely correct one, for "gender" has been corrupted to mean "publically presented personality". We digress. you need a boy and a girl who know they are a boy and a girl respectively and mutually. In jail conditions, they tend to wrestle a lot, and some blood flows, but more on that in the behaviour section. When breeding, we have seen BiBi get all excited, storm half a country mile to get to Slick, whereupon BiBi will jump on Slick's back, and there they lie for a minute or two. This does not tell the whole story:
Put the dragon on the palm of your hand, tail pointing at your nose.
Lift the tail straight up so you can see the underside where it joins to the body.
You will see not an organ, but one or two bumps under the skin. If you see two parallel bumps, forming the shape of a vertical slot, you have a male. One bump horizontally is a female. Weird, but here's why:
You are looking at either the one set of ovaries, horizontally installed, or TWO penises, left and right, vertical and parallel. Go figure. Now remember, breeding is not heavenly magic, you need at least one of each of these to breed. It's how life works, until Monsanto gets to patent all the genes on earth.
Jacky Dragons, contrary to my initial expectation of coldblooded indifference and reptilian fight-or-flight behaviour, actually have personalities. Some are friendlier than others. Some can be quite adventurous, or else shy and aloof. Some will only eat once you leave them alone, most will soon accept you and wrestle your fingers for worms. We are still learning what Dragons are saying, but we know they communicate, because they regularly exhibit certain behaviour.
On the photos of our Dragon Garden, you may notice some familiar plants; Daisies, Dandelion, Burnett, ox grass, strawberries, purslaine, hemp. Not seen is grated pumpkin, carrot, salad, apple, all things Dragons love. It is quite satisfying to watch your Dragon lay into a clump of English violets like there's no tomorrow. They also like worms and bugs, of course, and I suspect they will snap at anything smaller than their own head.
Dragons are from Australia, in particular the bushveld type areas. By that we mean it is not desert, not forest, not grassland, but rocks and bushes and grasses and tough flowers and even tougher prey. We have tried to emulate this, and we built the Critter Garden habitat for them. We originally received two Dragons as a gift from some colleague. They lived in their -admittedly roomy- glass-fronted prisons for a year, when I decided to take interest. Frankly, who the hell keeps a cold-blooded lizard as a pet? It's not even like the thing can learn even basic tricks. Seeing them sulk behind their windows really got to me though, so I built them a place in the garden, where they now live and seemingly love. See the photos.
