Anyone who has or has ever owned a snapping turtle!!!HELP?

Question

I went away for a week, I got back today. While I was gone my friend who was house sitting caught a snapping turtle. he left it here in a big tank. he is small, but not a baby. What do I feed it? what should I do? Let it go? I have a pond with lots of turtles in it.

how do I care for it?

Right now it is out of its shell..... The shell is on one side and its on the other.

Answer 1

A snapping turtle is a very hardy beast when it is not a baby. They will eat almost anything, including your finger. Be careful with him he can cut toe bone with his wicked beak. Fed him meat, vitamins, fish etc. but they are not easy to keep.
Try this article and then decide if you really want such a pet. If not please put him back where he was found.
Thanks,
Dan.

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT A SNAPPER?

Snapping turtles are fascinating animals, and captives are relatively hardy with proper care. However, the large size, long life, and aggressive nature of this species deserve serious consideration.


Size: The carapace length of common snappers frequently exceeds one foot with a record length of 18 ½ inches (Pritchard). The average adult weight is thirty pounds, but 40-60 pounders are not uncommon (Dillon). Snappers grow fast! That 2-inch baby you brought home to a ten-gallon aquarium can be 4 inches in one year and 8 inches in two. It will eventually require either a pond setting or a gigantic aquarium (more than a hundred gallons).


Messiness: Snappers are both voracious eaters and highly aquatic. This combination equals frequent water changes! The best filtration cannot keep up with smelly snapper wastes. You must be prepared to do complete water changes at least once a week if not more often.

Aesthetics: If you want a beautiful tank landscaped with plants, you do not want a snapper! Your little charge will rearrange the tank to his or her liking, uprooting plants and pushing everything including rocks and the filter into new positions. Snapper tanks must be kept simple. Expense: The initial investment for any turtle amounts to several hundred dollars for a tank, filter, heater, UVB lighting, and a basking light. Larger tanks and equipment for your eventual "behemoth" will cost much more.

Aggressiveness: Yes, it's true that snappers are more docile in their aquatic environment than on land. They sit quietly and give you long soulful stares - hungry stares!!! Snappers will eat anything including your fingers! They charge their food, and your digits can easily be mistaken for worms in a feeding frenzy. You cannot mix them with other turtles including other snappers. Even small snappers can cause serious harm to each other. They will also attempt to eat all the other inhabitants of your prized outdoor pond, including ducks and ornamental fish.


Longevity: The life span of the common snapper has been estimated at 30-40 years (Dillon). Are you prepared to commit one third to one half of your life to your friend? What if you move? If you are thinking you can just release your turtle in a few years, remember that most states still permit the harvesting of snappers. You wouldn't want your buddy to end up in a can of soup! And zoos are "full up" with unwanted snappers and other reptiles. Most are no longer accepting ex-pets.


Please think twice and thrice before acquiring a snapper. It is cruel to take home that cute baby on an impulse if you cannot provide permanent quarters. Snappers are living, breathing beings and not playthings. Please award them the compassion they deserve.



BASIC CARE FOR SNAPPING TURTLES
By Jean Adamson

You have decided to take the plunge! I hope the following care sheet will get you started:
Tank Setups

Glass Aquariums: You may temporarily keep your snapper in a water-filled plastic container, but you will eventually need a glass aquarium for your indoor accommodations. Some snapping turtles kept in close confinement develop sores on their bottom shells from constant abrasion with plastic, rocks, or other rough surfaces. The affected areas will initially look more orange than the surrounding color and will progress to pinhead-sized holes in the shell. Sores that do not heal with corrective husbandry should be seen by a vet.

In addition, glass enclosures allow your friend to look out. Your baby snapper that wants to hide will soon turn into an intelligent, inquisitive juvenile that enjoys "watching the world go by." If you house other turtles in aquariums, try placing one end of your snapper's aquarium end-to-end with another turtle's tank, but provide a place for retreat and privacy at the other end.

Remember that your snapper is going to grow fast! A one-inch baby will become a 7-inch juvenile in two years with the proper diet. Buy the largest tank that you can presently afford. A rule of thumb is to provide ten gallons of water for each one inch of snapper shell length. Your ten-inch snapper is going to require a one hundred gallon tank. The tank should be long and wide rather than tall to provide more swimming area. Since a snapper will stay at the bottom of the tank most of the time, a tank with shorter walls will facilitate rays from your lighting source reaching your turtle. A 30 gallon "breeder' tank (12" high x 36" long x 18" wide) makes a good first choice for a small snapper.

Substrate/Covers: The author and some vets recommend a completely bare-bottom tank, at least for beginners. Snappers are messy, and you will have enough work changing all the water once a week without also doing gravel washes. You will not need gravel to anchor plants or decorations, because your snapper will uproot, rearrange, and eat everything in the tank, including the gravel! Do not place plastic plants, large marbles, or other decorative items in your snapper's tank if you do not want a snapper with a life-threatening intestinal impaction! Snappers in the wild bury themselves in mud at the bottom of marshes and lakes. This environment may be simulated in an outside pond, but the author hasn't experimented with soft substrates in indoor setups.

An older snapper may eventually be able to crawl out of the tank. You may need to buy a hood or screen cover or construct your own.

Hiding/Basking: Your snapper, especially a baby, should be provided with a hiding place at one end of the aquarium. The author recommends, however, that you do not build a cave with rocks or pile up rocks in the tank. Your snapper is powerful and may bring the whole structure down, pinning your turtle underneath. A good hiding place can be fashioned from a small, plastic kitty litter pan. Cut out one end of the pan, turn it upside down at the end of the tank, and put a very large rock on top to hold it in place. Another option the author has used in an 18-inch wide tank is a 17-inch wide Rubbermaid kitchen stool placed widthwise with a rock on top. The snapper feels secure under the stool but can still see out.

Wild snappers usually stay submerged at the bottom of water bodies, but some will bask by either floating at the surface or "hauling out" onto logs. You can experiment with a basking spot by wedging a smooth piece of wood between the aquarium walls and angling it up out of the water. Fasten a clamp light fixture available at hardware stores to the tank rim with a 60 watt bulb (reptile or incandescent) a foot over the basking spot.

Water Depth/Temperature: WATER DEPTH IS MOST IMPORTANT! Snappers spend most of their time resting on the bottom and extending their long necks up to get breaths just above the water surface as needed. The depth should be at least a bit deeper than the turtle is wide to allow for swimming and righting the body if turned over, but shallow enough to allow for breathing from a resting position. If your snapper is forced to swim to breathe, it may die from the energy expenditure. A hatchling should be observed to see whether or not it can lift its head out to breathe and the setup changed to include a dry slope if it is having trouble.

Snapping turtles need a slightly cooler range of water temperatures than that prescribed for some other species. They will feed eagerly at 68 degrees F or above but become uncomfortable with water temperatures in excess of 77 degrees F (Highfield). Submersible glass tube heaters or other electrical appliances that might easily be broken by snappers should not be used in their enclosures due to the risk of electrocution. The author heats her snapper's tank with a combination of warm room temperatures and a basking lamp. Do not leave a thermometer in your snapper's tank!

Filtration: Buy the strongest filtration system you can afford. A Duetto 100 submersible filter may work for a hatchling in ten to twenty gallons of water but will not keep up with wastes as your snapper grows. Reasonable persons may disagree as to what constitutes effective filtering. The subject is a paper onto itself. You must experiment with what works for you, knowing that the bottom line is keeping the water clean. Large external canister filters provide strong filtration, but the author's snapper continually dislodged and bit the tubing. You may be more creative and find a way around this dilemma. The author presently has great success using a Fluval 4 submersible filter, hand-siphoning observable solid wastes with a turkey baster, feeding her snapper in a separate tub, and one-week water changes. Effective filtration will depend upon whether you choose to use a substrate or not, the size of the turtle and its tank, the size of the filter, the filter media, how you feed your turtle, and other factors

Lighting: If your snapper does not have access to natural lighting in an outdoor (pond) setup, you should provide a reasonable facsimile for the UVB component. Do not place your tank in a window for several reasons. The water in your tank may overheat and kill your snapper. The glass in the window and the tank will filter out the beneficial UVB component of the sunlight. The sunlight may cause algae to grow in your aquarium.

You can buy a hood that holds UVB tube lights to place over your tank or you can make one. If a hood you buy contains glass or plastic strips that protect the tube lights, you will have to remove the strips which filter out the UVB light. Other options include hanging a shoplight fixture with the tube lights over your tank or setting one or more strip light fixtures with the tube lights on a screen cover. The consensus recently seems to be that Reptisun 5.0 tube lights made by Zoomed work well. They lose their effectiveness over time and need to be replaced every 6 months to 1 year.

Ideally, try to expose your snapper to some summer sunshine outside in a tub. Don't place the tub in direct sunshine, and do monitor the water temperature. Overheating can kill! Watch your snapper. They are excellent escape artists. You may wish to put a screen with a heavy rock on top of the tub.

DIET

Snapping turtles are omnivorous. In the wild, snappers will eat small mammals, birds, other reptiles including smaller turtles, amphibians, fish, crayfish, crabs, clams, snails, earthworms, leeches, insects, carrion, and many kinds of plants like Elodea, Polygonum, Nuphar, Nymphaeca, and Typha (Ernst and Barbour). In captivity, snappers will eat just about anything, but you will want to give them a varied and healthy diet from the following list:

Aquatic Turtle Foods - Buy the floating turtle pellets like Reptomin and not fish foods.Turtle pellets make a good staple and should be offered regularly.

Live Foods - Night crawlers, meal worms, crayfish, crickets, and minnows are a few choices. You have to be careful, though. Don't buy night crawlers grown in animal wastes or bait shop minnows that have been raised in chemically-treated water. Don't get worms, slugs, or insects from fertilized lawns or roadside ditches. Goldfish may carry bacteria and snails may have parasites like flukes that can kill your snapper.

"People" Meats - Never give your snapper fatty or raw meats. Always cook chicken which can carry salmonella. Feed only as an occasional treat.Plant Produce - This is a good way to get some vitamins into your snapper. The author's snapper loves chunks of microwaved sweet potato and butternut squash which are loaded with carotenoids, collards with some calcium, and strawberries with Vitamin C. Float some red-leafed lettuce in your snapper's tank and watch it disappear. Wash all produce thoroughly before giving them to your friend.

Supplements - You won't need to give your snapper vitamins if you are providing a balanced diet, but offering pieces of cuttlebone as a calcium supplement is recommended. Chip the soft front of the cuttlebone into the tank and throw away the hard backing. Discard any uneaten pieces with each water change or sooner if they start to smell.

Feed your snapper in a separate tub to keep your tank clean longer. The water temperature in the tub should be about the same as in the tank or just a bit warmer. Turtles often defecate within an hour of being fed, so wait awhile before returning the snapper to its tank. Feed hatchlings once or twice a day. Small bits of earthworm have often been successful in enticing them to eat. Wave the worm piece in front of them with a toothpick. Larger snappers can be fed three times a week. If your snapper appears to be bulging out of its shell, cut back on its food. If its skin looks loose and baggy, feed it more. You will find an even keel through trial and error.


Care Tips

As hatchlings grow, some persons become alarmed when their babies begin to look "furry." Do not apply medications to your hatchlings or juvenile snappers! They do not have fungus or algae growing on them. They grow initially by shedding many, many small bits of shell and skin. A hatchling's shell feels extremely soft at first but gradually hardens with a proper diet.

When the shell has hardened up, clean you snapper's shell, top and bottom, once or twice a month with a very soft toothbrush to help prevent any fungal growth. Place your snapper in a small tub of lukewarm water and brush the top shell GENTLY. Make sure to get into all the grooves and along the edges. Brushing the bottom shell can be a bit tricky! While still a size that allows for grasping with one hand, you may be able to hold the snapper upside down momentarily and get in a few brush strokes. The author's snapper will usually freeze for at least 30 seconds when held this way. Check for any light orange or slightly off-color patches and gently brush over them. If beginning or actual sores are present, check your aquarium for rough spots and keep that water clean! Seek advice from a vet for more than the most superficial sores or for any sore that won't heal.

Good Luck With Your Snapper!

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Answer 2

It's out of it's shell? I'm probably not understanding correctly, but if it is indeed out of it's shell, it's dead or it's a hermit crab.

Anyway, you can safely pick up a snapper by grabbing it from it's tail and the back of it's shell at the same time, with one hand firmly holding the tail and one hand firmly holding the shell right next to the tail (hold tight, they have strong legs and big claws that'll scratch). Also, if you drop it, you might kill it. Snappers don't respond well to sudden stops. Only large snappers have a good reach on their bite and they can still only reach back to about a 1/3 to a 1/2 of their shell length. Small snappers rarely "snap" and when they do they can't reach far at all. Just stay away from the head.

YES. You should let it go. They are messy, and hard to keep. They belong in the wild. A nice secluded swamp, pond, or river will do just fine. Make sure you don't let it loose near any roadways. They like to bask in the sun on the warm pavement and will eventually get run over.

Snappers are technically omnivorous, which means they'll eat just about anything if their hungry. They prefer small fish or amphibians (minnows, frogs, toads, etc.). But when kept in captivity, they may not eat at all because they get easily stressed. This is why you should find a safe spot to release it.

Turtles are beautiful and increasingly rare creatures that deserve to live in their natural habitat, not in captivity. Good luck and do your best.

Answer 3

You should keep it in a tank about 50 gallon tank water and a area of no water for him to climb on . You can feed him turtle food found at pet stores , Not such a good idea to let him go with other turtles if there smaller then him and if the pond is not big enough , best bet is to let him go near a lake or area not near a busy road . I own 1 snappin turtles and he in a 55gallon tank

Answer 4

well this depends do u have small fish in the pond and how big is this turtle if its big take it to the pet store and ask them what you should do if not take it outside and put it into your pond

Answer 5

go to a pet store & buy turtle food. if you want to feed it fishes they have to be really small feeder fish. try to get the smallest possible. get a book to learn about snapping turtles.

Answer 6

If the turtle is out of its shell, it is dead- they cannot come out of their shells while alive since the shell is their rib cage.

I always suggest releasing wild-caught turtles. They just usually do not do well in captivity.

If you want more info, try www.chelydra.org

Good luck!

Answer 7

That's a hard question... I didn't even know snapping turtles could be pets. Maybe you should ask your friend that caught it...

Answer 8

no do not buy turtle food and stuff just buy fish because in the wild they go under water open their mouth their tounge looks like a worm so thats how it captures its food so fish are good but small ones

Answer 9

Ummm Turtles can't get out of their shell. Except maybe in cartoons So either you're full of sh*t or you've ate too many mushrooms.

Answer 10

Turtles can't come out of their shells. I think you have been watching Franklin too much.

Answer 11

i dont think its good that it came out of its shell, it might be dying call a vet and find out for sure, wild animals should stay wild...hint hint