When you take on a tortoise as a household pet, you probably won’t be enjoying the kinds of fun, affection and companionship that you get from cats and dogs or even rabbits and rodents. You can say what you like about tortoises, but they are not generally the most expressive of beasts.
Nevertheless, there’s still a lot to get out of the experience – not least, the fact that it’s likely to be a long one. The sort of tortoises we keep as pets can easily reach more than 50 years old (although they’re not going to reach the advanced ages of their Giant cousins which can easily live for over 100 years, with the oldest recorded living for an incredible 190 years!).
Given that it’s not always easy to discern the mood of your pet tortoise, it’s important that you learn to recognise what it’s trying to tell you when it does start to do something out of the ordinary.
This month, we’re providing a helpful guide to key elements of unusual tortoise behaviour you should keep an eye out for so that you can better understand how to keep your pet as happy and healthy as possible.
Interest in its environment
When a tortoise is happy and healthy, it will generally show a lot of interest in what’s going on around it. It will move around its enclosure and be keen to investigate anything new introduced to the area. A curious tortoise will usually move confidently and quickly towards the object of its interest, or else ‘stand tall’ by lifting its body as high as possible and craning its neck to get a better look.
Shelling up
If being lively and interested indicates a happy animal, then ‘shelling up’ is the opposite, being one of the key signs of a stressed tortoise. As the name suggests, it involves the tortoise withdrawing its head and limbs into its shell – a natural and effective form of self-protection. Other possible indicators of stress in a tortoise include lethargy, lack of appetite and rocking backwards and forwards.
Why do tortoises hiss?
Slightly different to the behaviours mentioned above, if you’re wondering ‘why does my tortoise hiss at me?’, it might be because it’s scared or just doesn’t appreciate being bothered. However, unlike a cat, hissing in a tortoise is not usually a sign of aggression.
Head banging
If you want to know what tortoise aggressive behaviour looks like, then head banging or butting is the thing to keep an eye out for. It’s likely to be a male tortoise doing it and could be against just about any object within reach, including the object of its aggression, which will often be another male over whom he’s trying to assert his dominance.
Head bobbing
While head banging is a sign of aggression, the act of head bobbing – the rapid movement of the head up and down – may indicate that your tortoise wants some attention. That could be because it’s hungry, because it wants you to give it a bit of a fuss or just because it’s bored.
Tortoise Squeaking
The last tortoise behaviour we’re going to look at is squeaking, and this is an area you need to be careful with, because it could mean very different things. If the squeaking is loud and regular, then this might just be something that your tortoise does and should be no cause for concern. Squeaking can also be part of tortoise mating behaviour. However, it can also be a sign of a respiratory issue or infection, so if your tortoise starts doing this and seems uncomfortable or is having difficulty breathing, then you should consult your vet as soon as possible.
Here at Green Lane Farm Boarding Kennels, we’re as happy to care for your tortoise as we are your cat or dog. We’ve been looking after all kinds of animals for people living in and around Chessington and Kingston in Surrey for over 50 years and there’s not much we don’t know about providing the right kind of care.
From cats, dogs, rabbits and rats to geese, ducks, tortoises and guinea pigs, we provide an expert, caring and knowledgeable home from home, with the experience to make sure your family friend gets all the love and attention it needs.
Get in touch with us now to find out more.
