Dragon Breeding - how to breed dragons in Dragon Cave

There are several typs of Dragons, and this affects which dragons can breed together.

Common Dragons (e.g. black, vine, green) can breed with most other dragons, and generally don't have a limit on what they can breed with. They can be got from the cave or through breeding.
Examples are: Black, Vine, Fog, Green, Guardian, Blue, Magi (Orange), Mint, Red, Skywing, Stone, White
All female commons: Pinks, Purples

Rare Dragons (e.g. Silvers, Golds) cannot breed with each other, but can breed with common Dragons. This prevents people breeding gold with gold to produce repeated clutches of gold eggs and keeps the dragons rare. They can be gained through breeding or from the cave.
Examples are: Silver, Gold,

Two-headed Dragons can only breed with other two headed dragons. Currently there is only one type of two headed dragon - the blue split which has different male and female sprites.

Seasonal Dragons: Depending on when you breed them you get a different Dragon. e.g. Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring. Seasonal Dragons act like commons in that they can breed with Commons, Rares and other seasonal dragons.

Special Dragons These are dragons outside the normal range. They can be gained through various methods, but usually cannot breed. On special Dragons' pages, the Breed Option is greyed out with a message "This breed of dragons is not capable of breeding."
There are various categories of Special dragon. Examples are:
Paper dragons
Festive Dragons: Christmas, Halloween
Dinosaurs: Red Yellow, Green, Blue
and of course the ubiquitous chicken.

However there are other complications to breeding, including alts which we will cover later.

To breed your dragons you need to have a female and male adult capable of breeding. They can be different species (in fact if one is a rare, they have to be).

The male and female indicators on the scroll (shown left) help. The square indicates a frozen hatchling.

How to Breed Dragons
1) Select a dragon.
2) Select the Breed option. Any Dragon capable of breeding with it will be displayed.
3) Click on a dragon on the list.
4) View the results of the breeding.

Results
The results can vary:

• The dragons may "refuse to go near" each other.
  
• The breeding may fail, as the dragons "show no interest" in each other.
  
• The dragons may breed but "produce no egg".
  
• 1-4 eggs will be produced from a successful breeding.
  

Male and Female dragons both have the Breed Option. For males, it displays a list of females ready to breed, for females it displays a list of males.

The dragons used in the attempt cannot breed again for 7 days, regardless of the outcome. Their Breed options will be greyed out on the action page, with a message reading "This Dragon last bred less than X days ago." X will steadily increase until after 7 days (to the minute) the Dragon can breed again.

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A Successful Breeding
In a successful breeding the dragons will produce 1-4 eggs which will be randomly distributed between the parent's species. You will only be allowed to keep one egg, regardless of how many were produced, The rest go to the abandoned page. If you click away from the page before selecting an egg, all the eggs go to your scrollas "held eggs". This gives you one hour to decide which egg to choose.

Note If your dragons "refuse to go near each other" that pair will never breed. This is why some breeders keep spreadsheets or logs of the breeding attempts.

If you are breeding common Dragons, then follow the steps as set out above. However there is one complications with variant dragons.

With the advent of Geodes, if you breed two dragons together you might get an egg of a different species. This works with a couple of species - I've got two from different pairings. So, if the egg is of a different type to its parent, or looks slightly odd, hold on to it! You might have something rare!

Some dragons can only be produced by breeding, not obtained from the cave.

Alts
There can some unusual results of breeding, including dragons called alternates, or "alts". An Alt dragon is a common dragon with a different sprite. Alt dragons are only available through breeding. You cannot collect an Alt from the cave. It is unlikely anyone will abandon an alt due to their rarity.

Currently alts are only available in black and vine dragons. They are extremely unusual, and can appear randomly in any clutch of eggs where a vine or black is a parent. The hatchlings look different, as well as the adult dragons, but the eggs are now identical.

Alt Black
Therat, a standard black dragon.
An Alt black.

Alt Vine
Rosa Solia, a standard Vine.

An Alt Vine.

Originally the eggs were different. The highlight on the alt black egg looked more purple than the slightly grey highlight on the normal egg. The alt vine egg was a darker green, but I had to use Photoshop to tell the eggs apart. This is no longer the case, and all vine and black eggs are identical, making it a lottery about which you get.

The black hatchlings are completely different and cannot be mistaken for each other.The alt vine hatchling is green and golden, rather than green and yellow, but otherwise looks exactly like a normal vine. The second stage however does not develop the red flowers of the usual hatchling and remains in green and gold.

Rare Dragons are easier and harder to breed - because most rares have different male and female sprites, it is easy to find them on the scroll.

However, because Rare Dragons won't breed with each other, you need to breed them with a common dragon. This gives you a small chance of producing a rare egg in the clutch.

There is one notable exception.

Two headed dragons
Two headed dragons, not only will not breed with common dragons, they can only breed with each other. When two-headed dragons breed, they produce a clutch of split eggs, as both parents are of the same type.

Male two-header.
Female two-header

With the release of the Autumn egg, Seasonal Dragons are now breedable.

The Summer Dragon, which up until now could not be bred, now has a breed option under its actions for the female and the male shows up on breeding lists for female dragons. The offspring it produces is the Autumn egg - useful for those on slow connections who can't grab one.

Whether Seasonal Dragons count as a rares for breeding purposes isn't confirmed, but it might be as well to breed them with commons for the best chance of success.

Currently the known seasonal Dragons are Summer, Autumn and Winter. Unlike most it seems as though the Seasonal Dragons are all variations on one type, and what you get depends on the time of year e.g. a Summer Dragon bred in Autumn will produce an Autumn egg. Therefore if you can grab one egg and breed it successfully at the right times you should be able to get four different dragons (possibly with male or female variants).

The seasonal Dragons are now producing Spring eggs on breeding.
Before 21st Dec 2008: Autumn Dragons
21st Dec 2008 - 12th April 2009: Winter Dragons
12th April 2009 - ??: Spring Dragons

Some Event Dragons can breed, but they only breed on or around the festive season e.g. The Valentine Dragon only breeds around Valentine's day.

My Christmas Dragon has produced two eggs, so although the chances of breeding are lower they do exist.

There are many reasons to breed your dragons

Breed and abandon
Some breeders breed their dragons to abandon the eggs. Some do it to see how far they can extend the lineage, others just to put more eggs into the game.
Tips

• The hardest part of breeding to abandon is that if your dragons don't go to a good home you can't help them. If you are tempted to foster, don't check on the eggs you released, or post on the forum with experienced players to let them know when you are releasing eggs.
  


• Only 25 eggs can be on the abandoned page at once. To give your eggs the best chance of being picked up, wait until there are spaces on the page to breed.
  

Get rares
The alts can only be breed, but in addition rare dragons are often easier to breed than to snag from the cave. Once you have one, you can try to breed the other gender instead of steal it.
Tips

• Remember you can't breed two rares together.
  


• Don't breed vines and blacks together - the game has reduced the successful chance of eggs from either and the combined reduction makes it unlikely such a pairing will produce eggs

Breed to Trade
Some people breed their eggs to trade them. Places like the Dragon Giving Tree allow users to request dragons, and some breeders will breed to fulfil requests.
Tips

• Remember there is in practice no "trade" only breed and release at an agreed time. If someone else snags the egg you can't complain.
  

Create a Lineage

Some people breed their dragons to create a single lineage scroll, where all the dragons on their scroll are from one line. e.g. Infernium, the Red Dragon on the right, is the son of Infernash and grandson of Infernac, red dragons on the same scroll.
Tips

• Remember you can only keep one egg from each clutch. Plan carefully.
  

An example
I breed to abandon, mainly to put more eggs into the game for new players, but also as a completist to get rares - only two of my rares weren't bred.

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