General Care Discussion :: Why does my turtle bark??

[jam149]

I have a slider that I think is pregnant. She wants to keep escaping from the enclosure. I read around and saw that one way to get them to lay their eggs is to provide a seperate habitat. So I have the female in a habitat of just potting soil. I pull her out twice a day to swim.

Anyway, today she was in the soil habitat, and she started to "bark". She's done this before, but I don't know why - or what she's trying to say (if anything).

To explain better, here's some video of her barking (I suggest you just save it to disk):

http://www.trackitup.com/video/turtle_bark.mp4

Can anyone tell me what's going on with her???

Thanks!
joe

[steve]

It almost seems as if she has something stuck in her throat. Does she ever do this when in water? Whats the air temp over there?

[camee1991]

jam 149: My girl "barks" also! She has done this a LONG time! Only when she is basking. I dont ever catch her...but I hear it almost nightly and I look and her head is up just "lookin around"... She isnt sick or anything. I just think she likes the noise. She makes quite a lot of em'.

[jam149]

It almost seems as if she has something stuck in her throat. Does she ever do this when in water? Whats the air temp over there?

She's never done it while in the water. Just when basking, walking around the house, or (more recently) while in her own habitat.

She also only seems to do it during the time of the year that she's pregnant.

Oh, and last night it was somewhere around 68-70 deg air temp when she was doing it.

joe

[megcornell]

You may want to add some deeper dirt to the nesting area so she can dig, and a heat lamp and a tray of water. The more comfortable she is, the more inclined she may be to lay eggs?

[industrial_girl_2000]

Whoa....! I can't say I am familiar with this barking noise, but I have been told that turtles do have a crude form of vocal chords.

[Kayra33]

I have a female RES and she also barks. I heard it for the first time the other day and I know that she isn't pregnant b/c she doesn't have a male companion. I just figured that she likes to talk. I'm interested to know more

[SpotsMama]

Hi Kayra33! Regarding a RES being pregnant (or gravid, as they say), they are more like chickens than like people. When they get big enough they start laying eggs even when there's no male around.

What size is your female? You'll need to learn all about nesting and egg laying. Here's a link so you can get started:

http://www.redearslider.com/reproduction.html

[ajozwiak]

My turtles used to bark all the time when they were hatchlings. It was like a cute chirping noise since they were so small. They only did it at night and I think maybe they were afraid of the dark. They don't do it anymore though!

[Kayra33]

Hi SpotsMama, my RES is 4 years old so I'd figure that she would be wanting to start soon. She doesn't really act like there is anything wrong or that she wants to. My fiance made my basking area out of PVC pipe and we're just going to enclose the sides and put sand in there. That's the only thing that I can think of to do. Thanks for the link!!!