A winter photo of Axle

[king2005]

I had fun taking these photos. Axle is always so well behaved I couldn't have asked for a better buddy

[Miss Z]

Wow, is he a snapper turtle?

[king2005]

Yes he is

He is a 5yr old Common Snapping Turtle. His shell is about a foot long, his tail is 8 inches long, his claws are an inch long & he weighs more then 20 pounds (not sure how much, but I think hes put on atleast 5-10 pounds this summer)

[Jessika]

For some reason attachments on this forum haven't been wanting to load for me today. I can vaugely make out the picture from the thumbnail, but a snapping turtle? How cool. I've always been told they don't make good pets for handling hehe. I LOVE turtles though! I've owned two turtles and three tortoises in my lifetime so far and I REALLY want a Greek or Russian Tortoise

[Miss Z]

Wow, he's a big guy!

[king2005]

If you handle the turtle from a hatchling, there are little to NO issues. Its the same with Pit bulls, take care of them & they are kind loving pets, neglect & abuse them & they become agressive.

See hes just a big baby with a bad species rep.

[Jessika]

Well that's SO neat. Its just, in my experiences when I raised my RES hatchlings I did handle them frequently and as they got older they started to bite more and more.

[king2005]

Did you give them lots of hiding places in their tank?
Did they have a large tank?
Were they fed too often?
Were they fed food that looked like your skin?

[Jessika]

Did you give them lots of hiding places in their tank?
Did they have a large tank?
Were they fed too often?
Were they fed food that looked like your skin?

yes, yes, no, and no

One bit more than the other two though.

Oh and I never fed them IN their tank, I always took them out and fed them in a separate container

[king2005]

What I've learned is that if you provided hiding places it promoted fear in the pet & caused aggression.

The same theory worked on my fish Jack. He was freaked out by me when I gave him a hiding place. So I removed it & now nothing scares him & hes always out begging for food & following people as they walk by.

My friends on a nother forum has semi agressive snappers, as they ALL have a hiding place. Axle NEVER had a place to hide. I also left the tv on for him & took him outside to get use to bikes, strangers walking by & cars. Axle is 95% fearless & being that he has no reason to snap. As snapping is a reaction to fear

[Jessika]

Well, they didn't have LOTS. They had a cup I'd cleaned and buried in rocks in a corner of the tank (it looked pretty cool ) and a floating log they could get out of the water and climb onto (which they could also hide behind if they'd wanted to, I suppose) and I didn't think that was TOO much, was it?? I didn't have any tank decorations as they're just for looks IMO

I don't have them anymore though. They outgrew their current tank after I adopted a RES from my cousin (she had two but one died because of course they got them from one of those shops where they give you a little plastic container and tell you they only need 1/2 inch of water blah blah blah... so she put them BOTH in like a 5 gallon tank with their fish!! No place for them to climb out of the water, no UVB lighting, nothing! The one got shell rot and died, and the other was stunted in growth from lack of nutrition. Hers and mine were both the same age, but mine were twice the size of hers when I took hers). Anyway, I adopted them out to a reptile fanatic friend of mine who has like a house dedicated to reptiles and aquatic reptiles so they are MUCH, much happier.

[king2005]

Axle has never had a single hiding space & still doesn't. I have a 2X4 floating around in his pond at the moment (too lazy to take it out), so thats all the decor I have, unless you count the Chemo Race Duck that traveled over 70km to my home town.

[Karen]

Great photo! You know we love Axle, such a good snapper he is!

[king2005]

Thanks Karen

[RobiLee]

Merry Christmas, Axle!