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As I've posted before, I recently aquired a 3 year old female RES named Tilly. We have been working hard to improve her habitat as she came to me in poor conditions.

Well, this afternoon my son found her walking around in the kitchen! Her tank is on the 2nd floor of our house! The top of her tank is about 4 ft off the ground and there is a mesh top on the tank, but some how she got out, fell to the floor and went downstairs without being seen or heard or hurting herself!

We now have her mesh top weighted down with books and hope she doesn't become a better escape artist!

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? I am still in amazement!

Wow O_O... Did you find some sort of hole? Is the mesh loose? That's kinda funny i think...

Reminds me, one time I was sleeping in my room (Rush's tank is in my room), and I herd some consistant splashing noises. I got up to investigate, and found that Rush was attempting to climb up and out of the tank, by using the filter wires as a ladder! I think these turts are natural escape artists. Hahah.

Yeah, we've been laughing about it all evening. Thank goodness she wasn't hurt! When she is on her basking dock she is able to touch the mesh lid with her head, it isn't attached very well because of the clip on light. Anyway, she pushed it back with her head and "flew the coop".

I still cannot believe she went down an entire flight of stairs and got to the kitchen without being seen! It's a pretty good distance if you're a turtle! I have 3 dogs and 2 cats, (among other pets) and not one of them saw her!

I am now looking for a more secure lid but in the mean time we have books stacked on top of it.

ZooKeeper wrote:
Well, this afternoon my son found her walking around in the kitchen! Her tank is on the 2nd floor of our house! The top of her tank is about 4 ft off the ground and there is a mesh top on the tank, but some how she got out, fell to the floor and went downstairs without being seen or heard or hurting herself!

We now have her mesh top weighted down with books and hope she doesn't become a better escape artist!

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? I am still in amazement!

Oh gosh, all the time! In the 16 yrs I have had Sheba, we have gone thru some amazing houdini-like action from that little Scheister! One time we were on vacation when it happened and the person feeding Sheba called us & was all upset because she couldn't find Sheba. Sheba wasn't out long (we were only 8 hours from being home) & we knew it wasn't the caretaker's fault since Sheba had done it to us before too.

It took us a while (trial/error), but we eventually figured out her little ways of getting out, covered the basking area, & put a heavy rock on top. That helped keep her in the tank where she belongs. Also, we let her out to walk around the house & figured out her "turtle thinking" in terms of "where" she would typically go when she was roaming around the house. It never took us long to find her if she got "lost" in the house after that (closing doors to rooms helps a lot!).

They are definitely professional escape artists. It amazes me what they can do. Ours tried to escape from her nesting area.

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She had climbed up this 2 foot fence and was stuck at the top when we caught her in the act. Luckily we had decided to cover the top with the plastic netting to keep out predators. Fortunately it also keeps feisty turtles from going over the wall.

Last night my husband and I were working on her basking area and had the lid off, (she was on the basking area) and we both were busy and I looked around and she was up on the edge ready to go over! She can't be trusted for a minute!

For some wierd reason my turtles don't try to escape. Since they're in the new tank that's filled 3/4 of the way up, it only takes some effort to scale the aquarium. Luckily I have a lid on the tank, and I can't imagine a 3 inch turtle actually pushing the big thing over. Zookeeper, what size tank you have? I have a 55 gallon tank and from the top it's a four foot drop as well, I can't believe turtles aren't discouraged by the height of the thing. It's bad that turtles don't use yardsticks .

Tilly is in a 29 gallon tank, which is too small for her. I am looking for a deal on a bigger one. She came to me in this one.

I still can't believe she did it, even worse than her going over the edge of the tank...she went down an entire flight of stairs!!!