Most dragons nowadays are laid as eggs in an extremely cold place. If they're from one of the matriarchal nations of Argent or Chilly, then they're laid near the South Pole, and their mothers, or a designated female surrogate such as an older sister, stays with them. If they're from one of the patriarchal nations of Auren or Draguay, or if their mother is one of the anarchic, solitary dragons like Winaypaqori or that red guy that Fluttershy managed to chase away from Ponyville a few months before my first escape, they're laid near the North Pole. Either way they absorb magic from the environment until they've built up enough inner fire to hatch in the cold. The matriarchal ones are brought directly back to their families; the patriarchal and anarchic ones learn whatever the local language is (generally from other whelps), and fight each other viciously for stuff, usually traditional dragon stuff like gold and gems. Empathic, gentle dragon whelps do not survive this; either they turn hard and cruel or they die, and get eaten by their fellows. (Dragons won't kill each other for food. But they'll kill each other for intruding on their territory or because they want the other dragon's stuff, and then, if there's a dead dragon lying around, dragons will eat it to consume the magic within it.)

These whelps generally grow themselves with a steady diet of greed until they're at full adult size within 20 � 30 years. There's a periodic migration every 20 years or so when whatever whelps can fly take off for Drakonia... from Arctica. Usually one or two dragons from Auren or Draguay come up to guide them, but if they fall along the way, that's their problem, so only the healthy ones make it. Along the way, the ones who truly cannot stand the presence of the other dragons find their own homes and become anarchic dragons, interacting with other dragons mostly only to mate or fight. Those who are social go to the patriarchal nations and try to find their fathers, or failing that, a male who will adopt them into his clan. Females who find out about the existence of the matriarchal nations might try to go there, but since young females are smaller than young males and whelps in Arctica lead a might-makes-right existence, most females have by this point been claimed as mates by males in their cohort and are perceived as property.

Spike, however, if I don't miss my guess, is an Elite. Which begs the question of where did he come from, because I thought I got all the ones in Neighropa, and the survivors who fled to Drakonia wouldn't let one of their own eggs out of their sight. Elite eggs do not hatch unless stimulated by an enormous infusion of magic, directly. They have much, much larger magic reservoirs than other dragons, which therefore fill up more slowly. Elites must be raised by someone; they don't hatch on their own and they come out much more helpless and stay small and childish-looking for much longer periods of time than normal dragons. They are also much slower to develop wings. Greed can grow them, but only filling their magic reservoirs can make the wings grow. So even in the patriarchal nations, Elite dragons clutch with their eggs until hatching.

The reason they're called Elite is that once they're adults, they're smarter and more magical than the other dragons around them, with more control over their magic, and they're no less big and strong than the others, and they have much better social intelligence. So they end up as the leaders. It's not hereditary nobility the way it is in pony society, where there's literally no difference between a noble and another unicorn except for who their great-great-great-great grandparents were; Elites are physically different from other dragons. They're not some sort of uber-dragon (at least not until they get very old, and I'm pretty sure there are no old Elites left unless they're very, very good at keeping their heads down, which they would have had to be to avoid what I did to all the Elites I got to), but their lengthy childhood gives them the opportunity to learn a lot more before taking on adult responsibilities, and the fact that they don't survive if not protected by an adult means there's always an adult around to teach them.

The few Elites I didn't manage to kill or drive hopelessly mad went and founded the nations of Drakonia, probably along gender lines. Any dragon who is raised rather than being left to raise themselves will bond with whoever raised them, automatically seeking that individual's approval and giving their loyalty. The matriarchal nations use this to make their sons loyal and willing soldiers, and their daughters loyal and willing lieutenants and successors, which makes their societies unusually harmonious by dragon standards; there are still vicious and murderous fights over territories, mates, possessions or power, but usually not within a family. The patriarchal nations only do this with Elites; Elite males clutch the eggs their mates present to them, and raise their own whelps, so that daughters' primary loyalties will be to their fathers and sons can be trusted not to backstab them for power. Most of the rest of the dragons in those nations have much more mercenary attitudes, serving whatever father figure keeps them supplied well in gems and turning on him if he doesn't give the goods.

Lest you believe I am singing the praises of Harmony here... the Dragon Empire that I destroyed was matriarchal. Dragons who are capable of being relatively harmonious amongst themselves are vastly more dangerous to the rest of the world than dragons who are constantly backbiting each other. Patriarchal and anarchic patterns have also always existed, and before it was a Dragon Empire the various dragon nations of Neighropa were a collection of warring rivals who fell into mostly patriarchal patterns... but it was one of the nations with a matriarchal pattern that conquered all the others and then, having done that, decided to jump over the griffons, expand across the ocean, and eat all the ponies in Northern Amareica. (This was after they attempted to conquer the griffons and after they attempted to conquer the Taur nations, and it took them a few hundred years to give up on those initiatives.)

If Spike is an Elite, and I suspect he is � it's possible that any dragon infused with that much pony magic will behave like an Elite, but I've seen eggs from Arctica hatched by would-be unicorn mages with a lot less power than Twilight Sparkle, and none of those ended up anything like Spike � then a diet rich in gems will lead him to grow up faster than most Elites do, because he has no brothers or sisters to compete with.