Witnessing behavior, like yawning in your turtle, will intrigue you, yawning in humans can be intriguing but so can yawning in pets like turtles.
Figuring out the reasons for this action will cure your curiosity and help you understand the animal more.
This article looks into why this may be happening with your pet
Table of Contents
Why is my turtle yawning?
Yawning is usually associated with mammals and mammals express this behavior for a variety of reasons.
This behavior is often associated with tiredness but this isn’t the case with turtles. Here is why your turtle may be yawning:
Respiratory irritation:
One of the reasons why your turtle may be yawning may be because the animal is suffering from respiratory irritation.
This can happen if you use new bedding in your pet’s enclosure that the turtle is incompatible with
Using materials like cedar, pine, aspen, or eucalyptus can all cause irritation in your pet’s respiratory system and make the animal yawn.
What to do:
If you’re using this type of bedding then you’d need to discard it and then clean out the enclosure. Airing out the enclosure will also help to get rid of any irritating vapors.
Replace this bedding with something that won’t irritate your pet’s respiratory system, using coconut coir (fiber), eco earth, organic topsoil without fertilizer, vermiculite, or sphagnum moss is recommended.
Keeping cool:
Another reason why these animals may yawn is to keep themselves cool. The bodies of these animals are largely dependent on the animal’s environment, they cannot regulate their own temperature internally.
If your turtle is yawning while basking the yawning helps by keeping the animal’s head and brain tool.
What to do:
This is normal behavior for these animals and isn’t something that you’d need to worry about, if you want to help you can offer shaded hiding spots that your pet can cool off under after basking and you can also offer cool water for the animal to drink.
Respiratory infection:
Another reason why your pet may be yawning may be because the animal has a respiratory infection.
These animals are prone to pneumonia and different respiratory diseases and one major sign of a respiratory disease in your turtle is yawning.
The animal will yawn in this case to try to force more air into the lungs.
Other signs of respiratory infection in your pet are wheezing, sneezing, lethargy, stretching of the neck, nasal discharge, or mouth discharge.
What to do:
The recommended thing to do is take the animal to the vet. This needs to be done as soon as possible
The animal is equalizing its ears:
Turtles, when underwater, will equalize their ears to keep pressure build-up from hurting their ears.
As soon as they feel this pressure they will perform a swallowing motion, like they are yawning, to build up pressure in the ears so pressure outside the ear does not affect them.
This feeling is similar to the animal popping its ears.
What to do:
This is normal behavior and isn’t something that you’d need to worry about
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 Is My Turtle Yawning Underwater?, Why Are My Turtles Eyes Closed, Why Is My Turtle Red?, Why Is My Turtle Pink?, Why Is My Turtle Twitching, Why Is My Turtle Eating Sand?, Why Is My Turtle Restless?, Why Is My Turtle Tank Foaming?, Why Is My Turtle Whistling