Any strange behavior in your turtles will worry and confuse you as a turtle owner, this reaction is perfectly normal and understandable. Strange behavior may include your turtle panicking
This article is a look into why your turtle may be panicking
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Why is my turtle panicking?
Panicking is not something that we want to see in any of our animals, turtles included, but your turtle may panic sometimes, and understanding why they do this will empower you to help the animal.
Here is why your turtle may be panicking:
Begging for food:
Turtles can be quite dramatic, well to us they can be, but they may not see themselves as being dramatic.
They may freak out, swim around faster than normal, and claw madly at the sides of the tank because they want food.
These animals are opportunistic feeders, they will eat at any opportunity they get, even when they are not hungry.
The animals will do this because food in the wild was not abundant so they had to eat every time they could find it.
If your turtle associates you with food, and you come into the room, then the animal may panic and behave vertically as a way of getting you to give it some food
What to do:
As long as you’re feeding your pet enough food for its weight, and age then your pet should be fine.
This panicking does not necessarily mean that the animals aren’t being fed enough, just that they are opportunists
Avoid giving your pet more food than it needs as you do this as it will cause the animal to overeat and become overweight, if your pet becomes overweight then it can start to develop illnesses and its health will decline
Tank conditions:
The conditions in your pet’s tank may be the reason for the animals swimming frantically. Just because the tank is clear does not mean that the water is clean.
The chemicals in the water may be irritating the turtle and this may be why your pet is swimming frantically.
Also, the temperature of the water in the tank may be too hot and this may be why your turtle is swimming frantically.
These unfavorable tank conditions may be why your pet turtle is swimming in a panicked state.
What to do:
Check that the temperature of your pet’s water is correct for your type of turtle, if not lower the temperature. Also, check the quality and condition of your pet’s water as well.
Once the conditions in your pet’s tank and optimal then your turtle will get back to swimming normally.
It is frightened:
If your pet turtle swims against the glass then the animal was likely frightened by something and frantically swam against the glass because it was frightened.
These animals can become frightened because of a variety of things, and they don’t realize that the glass is a barrier that they can’t swim past. As a result, they will swim against the glass when frightened
What to do:
Take a look around and try to figure out what is frightening the turtle, if it’s your dogs or cats then you’d need to separate the animals.
If your turtle is being frightened by new people in the room then limit how much time the animal sees new people that it does not know
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 Does My Turtle Hiss At Me, Why Does My Turtle Pee On Me?, Why Is My Turtle A Picky Eater?, Why Is My Turtle Swimming Frantically?, Why Does My Turtle Have A Lump On His Neck?, Why Is My Turtle Digging In The Rocks?, Why Does My Turtle Move His Rocks?, Why Is My Turtle Digging In The Sand?, Why Is My Turtle Burrowing?