Turtles are known for their resilience, so any signs of an issue, like the animal’s eye becoming watery, will understandably pique your interest making you wonder what’s going on
This article looks into why your turtle’s eyes may be watery
Table of Contents
Why are my turtle eyes watery?
Any change in your pet turtle’s eye appearance or behavior is not something that should be ignored, understanding what’s going on as soon as possible will help you remedy this issue
Here is why this may be happening with your pet:
Irritation or injury:
One of the reasons why your pet turtle has a runny or watery eye may be because the animal has some irritation or injury. This is especially true if it seems that only one eye is affected.
The animal’s eye could have been injured or irritated during a fight with another turtle, by the animal running into something, or by something in the animal’s environment
Anything in their environment from sand getting into the animal’s eye, substrate irritating the animal’s eye, a dry environment causing dry eye, irritation, heat lamps, rocks, or other decorations hitting the eye and causing irritation could be the reason behind the watery eyes.
What to do:
If the injury is not too severe then the animal’s eye will heal itself, if the injury or irritation is severe then you’d need to take your pet to the vet for an examination and treatment
The best treatment for this situation would be to not allow anything to irritate or injure your pet’s eye, this means making sure that your pet has plenty of clean water, that the enclosure has enough humidity, and that nothing can poke or injure or irritate the animal’s eye
Respiratory infection:
Similarly to how humans can get sick with things like the flu, turtles can be exposed and catch a respiratory infection.
The illness is not only passed on from turtle to turtle, but it can also develop in your pet if its environment is too cold
Other signs you should look out for that may indicate that your pet has a respiratory infection would be lethargy, discharge from the nose or mouth, a lack of appetite, closed eyes, wheezing, loud breathing, and puffy eyes
This condition can turn into pneumonia if left untreated, pneumonia is a life-threatening disease to turtles so treating your pet’s respiratory infection as soon as you can is a must.
What to do:
Taking your pet to the vet is the recommended solution if your pet has this condition. The vet will get a culture done to determine if the animal does have this type of infection.
Isolating the animal if you can’t immediately get the reptile to the vet is recommended.
The isolation will keep your other turtles from becoming infected with the respiratory infection.
Increasing the temperature in the enclosure should get your pet to feel better as doing this will help fight the infection somewhat until you can get the animal to the vet
Once you get home from the vet make sure that your pet’s enclosure is appropriate for it and is geared toward the animal’s well-being.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other turtle/tortoise related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Why Are My Turtle’s Eye Blue?, Why Is My Turtle’s Mouth Orange?, Why Is My Turtle Nose Red?, Why Is My Turtle’s Nose Bleeding?, Why Is My Turtles Nose White?, Why Are My Turtles Eyes Sunken In?, Why Is My Turtles Head Swollen?, Why Is My Turtle’s Head Twitching?, Why Is My Turtles Head Shaking?