Turtles are known to be very slow and steady animals, they aren’t exactly known for their ability to jump and leap around all over the place, but you may notice your pet doing this
This article looks into why your turtle is jumping.
Table of Contents
Why is my turtle jumping?
The phenomenon of a jumping turtle is quite the mystery unless you know about turtle behavior, knowing more about turtle behavior will help you understand your pet more, one turtle behavior that you may be confused about is the animal jumping
Here is why your turtle may be jumping:
Feeling cautious:
One reason why your pet turtle may be jumping may be because the animal is feeling threatened or is cautious
If your pet is new to your home, and isn’t quite used to you yet, then the animal may jump off of her platform, if it is basking, when it sees you. The animal may also try to swim away if it is really fearful of you.
This is an automatic reflex and isn’t something that the animal is doing instinctively so don’t feel bad if your pet does this.
What to do:
The animal will get used to you and start liking you over time, you just have to be patient and allow the reptile to develop a fondness for you in its own time.
You can, however, try to speed this up by leaving food and treats for the animal, making sure that it sees you doing this, and working on the hand-feeding process until the animal is comfortable with your presence
You’ll know that the animal is comfortable with you when it stops trying to jump and run away when it sees you but when it rather comes to you when you approach it
It is startled:
This is similar to the above but can happen with a turtle who is used to you and comfortable with you but is simply startled by you.
These animals are quite cautious creatures, they had to be to survive the wild. As a result, sudden movements or loud noises can startle the animal and cause it to jump and hide somewhere in its enclosure.
What to do:
This is normal behavior in turtles and isn’t something that you’d need to worry about, it is normal behavior
If you want to avoid this happening with your turtles then try to avoid making sudden movements around your pet and keep loud noises around your pet at a minimum.
It is trying to get out of its enclosure:
Turtles don’t always do well in enclosures especially if they are new to the enclosure or if they are too used to and are bored of their enclosure.
Some turtles will try to climb out of their enclosure and other turtles will go as far as trying to jump out of their enclosure.
The jumping out is more common if the walls of the enclosure are low
What to do:
This is quite normal for turtles and isn’t something to be too worried about, if the animals are new to the enclosure then they will try to get out but will soon learn to love and stay in their home if their home is satisfactory.
If your pet’s enclosure is too small then try to get one that is bigger, it’s better for the enclosure to be too big than too small
If you sense that your pet is bored of its enclosure then you can move things around and give your pet more things to play with while in the enclosure
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: Turtle Kicking Legs While Basking, Red-Eared Slider Scratching Head, Why Is My Turtle Rubbing His Head, Why Is My Turtle Rubbing His Eyes, Why Does My Turtle Twitch While Basking, Why Is My Turtle Spazzing?, Why Is My Tortoise Twitching?, Why Is One Turtle Bigger Than The Other?, Tortoise Head Twitching