General Care Discussion :: Turtles eating each other

[YSPo]

My brother used to own 2 turtles: Romeo and Juliet (even though i dont think he knew what gender they were). And he told me they got along fine, until one day after a year or so of living together, one of them bit the other one in the head and resulted in the lost of one eye!

He told me to be careful about putting two turtles in the same tank... i thought nothing about it because of a natural tendency for me to think my older brother's job is to use every chance to scare his younger sister.

until today my friend who owns 2 turtles said when she came home, she found one of the turtles' 4 limbs were all eaten !!!! >< and she saw pink flesh everywhere in the tank.... it was disgusting just listening to it.

how do i prevent mine from doing something unexpected like that without separating them!? my two turtles seem like they like each other, but that's what it looked like with my brother's turtles and my friend's turtles too!

[SpotsMama]

There's no way to prevent them from attacking each other except to separate them. We warn people all the time about this potential. Your examples show how really serious a problem it can be.

Hopefully you'd see signs of increasing agression before anything really horrible happened - like in your examples. But there's no guarantee that you'd get a warning. If it were me, I wouldn't take a chance even though there are some people who manage to keep two turtles in a tank together without a problem. It just seems risky to me.

The biggest danger seems to be either putting a small turtle in with a larger one, or putting a new turtle into a tank that's already the territory of another turtle. Turtles also get more aggressive when they are crowded together in a tank that's too small. Two males together or a male and a female seem to be more likely to fight than two females, but then two females will get a lot bigger so require a huge amount of space.

One solution to keeping turtles apart when there's only one tank is to put a divider in the tank. Here's an example:

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... n&start=30

[Steliosf]

O M G

[marisa]

From what you wrote about your brother's and friend's turtles, I can't believe you're seriously trying to find a way to keep them together...

[Apollo&Scampi]

OMG. I hope my darlings don't eat one another!!!!

[megcornell]

Aggression that serious does not happen overnight. It builds up to a breaking point after weeks or months of the signs going unnoticed. That's why it's important to take any aggression between turtles seriously. There can be dire consequences, but they truthfully are very avoidable.
Once you notice your turtles snapping at each other, it's time for two separate set ups, no questions asked.

[YSPo]

I guess there's no real way to prevent something like this. I think my tank is a bit small, so I really dont want to split the tank into two sections.

I am currently on the constant look out for aggressive behaviour - but I'm not sure what defines being aggressive. Sometimes when they sit on the rock under the lamp, they like to be on top of one another... would that make the bottom turtle mad?

[Bascomb]

Turtles have no compunction about eating another turtle. To them, food is food. If one has started to be aggressive toward another, it most likely, will continue. It is usually the meanest and or the biggest that will cause the problem. The only solution is to separate them.

[industrial_girl_2000]

I am currently on the constant look out for aggressive behaviour - but I'm not sure what defines being aggressive. Sometimes when they sit on the rock under the lamp, they like to be on top of one another... would that make the bottom turtle mad?

What you are describing is called "stacking" and turtles do this in the wild too. It doesn't make the bottom turtle "mad", it is just the most efficient use of space sometimes when there aren't enough basking areas for all the turtles.

My dad has a pond & told me that last summer he saw 3 turtles stacked on top of each other on a log (there is only one log in that pond). 3!!! We were trying to figure out how the 3rd turtle got on top, LOL. But somehow these critters got creative & managed to do it.

[marisa]

If you haven't seen any agressive behavior/bullying yet (biting at each other, fluttering paws in front of the other's face, even one turtle stalking and trying to corner the other, for example), you could lessen (but not eliminate) chances of problems occuring by getting them a bigger tank.

[wezeles]

you have to remeber that they are use to large ponds and rivers in the wild... no matter what you do the only way to keep 2 or more adult turtles happy is to give them tons of breathing room...

thats easier said then done considering there size and requirements based on that... if you figure one average adult turtle it is going to need between a 75-120 gallon tank now throw in a second and double that number... your talking a tank and filter setup worth a couple grand..and even then you never know when one might become territorial and go attack the other one even if they were in say a 300 gallon tank... they are all different personality and behavior wise...

just based on what ive seen i will never mix a same sex pair of turtles beyond the first year or so... its not worth the risk. And even with a M/F pair id keep a close eye on them for the first 3 years or so just to make sure...If you were stuck in your house all the time you would probably get mad at your partner too..lol and in nature they dont keep the same mate forever, so you never know how long they will tollerate the other.

[SpotsMama]

I recall one case on here where someone had a pair of turtles that were 8 years old and, I assume, who had lived together in a tank all or most of that time, and they suddenly started fighting for no obvious reason. It's hard to know what goes on in the mind of a turtle.

[larqw]

Yeah, my turtles were getting along well and then one day Toutolina got really hungry and bit Tortuga's hands. You have to keep watch!!
That's rough though - never heard of them eating up each other like that!

[bichmac]

Oh gross !!! I never knew they did that!!! It's a good thing I only have one. I was thinking of getting turtles for my brothers, but I think now I will only get them one because they only have 1 tank and most of the time people are not home so they would not even notice that there was aggression.