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I was cleaning Turtley's tank yesterday and i set him down on the floor to see if he was interested in exploring, which he was. As i was watching him crawl around the living room, i noticed that when he's walking on dry land he just kinda drags his shell on the ground. Is this normal or should he be walking so that there is space between his plastron and the floor? I don't take him out much and the few times i have i've taken him out in the yard, so i never noticed this before. So, normal, or is there a problem with my little Turtley?

napoleon and louise both walk with space between their shells and the ground. I think that's kind of abnormal..

Why don't you try taking your turtle out more often? maybe he'll get used to it

Sounds normal

This why its important that they don't be allowed to go on concrete or asphalt surfaces. Those materials would easily scratch up the plastron and thats not good!

i was interested in knowing this..so i took napoleon out right now to check, and he does walk with his body slightly above the ground (what i'm trying to say is, his body is not in contact with the ground when he's walking on a flat surface

Napoleon switches back and forth depending on how fast he's moving and how much energy he has. When he's lazy he just sort of drags his body, and only the front of his plastron lifts up a tiny bit, but when he runs he picks himself up and scurries.

If he's walking and using his legs normally, I don't think your turtle has a problem. Aquatics are meant to spend most of their time in water, and don't have the limbs of land turtles and tortoises, which keep them higher off the ground.

When my RES walks on land, he's very close to the ground. When he's outside, the only thing he lifts is his tail (more toward the tip than the whole tail and not much, but enough so that I notice) to keep it from dragging on the grass.

Spot general lifts his body off the ground when he walks. He prefers to walk on a hard surface like a sidewalk to grass.

Hmmm...i guess he's okay then. He doesn't seem to be having any problems walking, and he definitely doesn't have any problems swimming or climging around on his basking dock. Maybe i should give him more out of the water excercise? I'm always worried that the neglect he suffered for his first 5 years of life did some terrible damage to him that i don't know about yet.

It's not necessary for him to leave his tank more often. Just make sure he has a good set-up that's big enough for him.

I don't take my RES out of the tank that often, but it was a beautiful day yesterday, so I took Tilly out with me while I dug some earthworms. He kept on insisting going into some brush, and since I could easily take him out of the brush if I wanted to, I decided to just watch and see what he would do. He stopped at a spot where some small branches/twigs were flat on the ground and began vigorously moving back and forth, twisting his shell to the right and left. Then he moved on, leaving a shed plastron scute in his wake. He found another spot started to do the same thing. By the time he was through, he had shed or nearly shed his remaining plastron scutes (about 5) that hadn't shed late last year. (I helped him take the final ones off.)

Wow, that's really cool. I noticed one of my guys kept trying to head for a brush pile, but the pile was huge and I would not have been able to retrieve him so I kept bringing him back to the middle of the lawn. I wonder if he was look for some rough surface to help him shed his scutes. 'Cause actually a brush pile (or low bushes) would help peel off the scutes on his carapace as well. Interesting...

His tank is only 40 gallons (it's a breeder tank so it's wider then a normal one), not as big as i'd like for him (he's 5 inches), but i am kinda tight on money so i'm trying to wait to find a cheap used tank somewhere. Do you think being in a smallish tank is hurting him?

If his SCL is 5 inches, and you've got him in a 40-gallon breeder, it's not hurting him at all. Just keep an eye out for that bigger tank.

The plastron scutes where the last ones that Tilly needed to shed. He shed his carapace last fall. And you're right about using something to help take off carapace scutes---last fall when he was shedding Tilly was gryating against his corkbark rubbing his plastron against it. I can kind of tell when he's got scutes on his mind when I lightly put my hand on his back when he's out of the water---he'll start to rub back and forth (I call it the rumba) as well.

Soon it will be summer and basking in the sun, and the process will start all over again...

Thanks marisa, i don't feel so guilty about his small tank anymore. I'm getting a bigger filter for my birthday so as soon as i find a bigger tank i'll be ready for it. If i haven't found one by fall i think i'll ask my parents to get me one for christmas.