General Care Discussion :: Turtle opens mouth like she is screaming

[guivio]

We have 2 RES for about 8 weeks. One eats a lot and is in good shape. The second one never wanted to eat pellets but ate shrimps once a day and for the last 10 days she acts weird. She opens her mouth like she is screaming or trying to eat or grasping for air. When we saw her do that, we isolated her in a small tank but it did not seam to go better. We gave her some food shrimps, pellets, warms, lettuce, carrot leaves... she don't want to eat. The only way we were successful is having her out of the water and putting the melted pellet directly in her mouth. Since then we have put her back in the big tank and she will sun bath a lot. When she swims, she will stop and plays dead for a while then she swims like crazy. It is almost like she is blind sometimes...

We have a 10 gallons tank with a water filter, a water heater, some wood and fake rock so they can sun bath, the light is on about 12-14 hours a day. We put the water from our well, we live in the country and how water is tested to be good.

Can somebody help us on this?

Eric and Jocelyne

[austinl01]

Is there anything stuck in her mouth?

[steve]

Is she "yawning"? You should separate them during feedings. Take the bigger one out of the main tank and let the other one try to peacefully eat.

[guivio]

She does not seam to have something in her mouth. We will try feeding her without the bigger one in the tank.

Thanks,

[Peva]

Brixie did that a while back after I fed her an over sized Grasshopper. She scarfed the entire thing down, then began the yawning over and over. My brother told me that she was probably trying to use water to force the Grasshopper down. Probably right, but she ended up spitting the thing back up and taking small bites.

[steve]

Adult grasshoppers and crickets have a very hard exoskeleton and could be a choking hazard.