I have a layer of rocks on the bottom of my tank. My turtle often picks the rocks up with his mouth ... I thought for a long time that the rocks were too big for him to swallow and he would spit them out. I noticed a few weeks ago that he actually swallowed one. This made me nervous but a little while later he vomited the rock up so I thought it would be ok. Today he had a large stool that looked strange, on further inspection there it was.... he passed a rock! So my question is ... Is this dangerous, and could he possibly have eaten rocks that are too big to pass?
It's extremely dangerous. Yes, remove the gravel as soon as you can. There are too many threads on here regarding turtles that ate gravel and then didn't make it.
Once you get the gravel out, you need to watch the bottom of the tank very carefully. If you turtle passes more rocks in his stool, he's likely to eat them again if they aren't removed from the tank.
The danger is that they will get blocked up and can no longer pass anything. The turtles that have died from that on this forum had xrays showing their stomaches completely full of gravel and they were unable to eliminate it. They died as a result and it was very sad.
Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 12:00 pm Turtle is eating rocks
