Video: How to Take Care of a Snapping Turtle

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Snapping turtles are dangerous and should always be grabbed by the back of their tail and held away from the body. Take care of snapping turtles by providing a proper diet with tips from a reptile specialist in this free video on turtle care.

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SarahFlea Pippi Wojciechowski Matuszki Nov 29, 2010
snapping turtles actually should not be held by their tails. Doing so, can injure their backbones. yes, it is safest for you to hold them this way, but not for the turtle. If they need to be handled it is best to scoop up with something other than your hands, or hold on both sides of back shell by tail. Or do not handle them at all if it isn't necessary.

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm James Dix from Reptile Rescue Service, we're talking about snapping turtles and how to take care of one. A couple things come right off the bat on these, the mind. One is they're very dangerous so if you're not a skilled person and you don't have good knowledge of these, you could loose a finger, you could loose your hand, depending on the size of the turtle itself. If it's a large one, like this particular snapping turtle here, I'm going to reach in and grab him. You never grab these guys by the side of their shell, you grab them by the back of their tail and you hold them away from you. Their neck can go halfway the length of the body so if you grab off of here he can turn his head and come right up. And, as you see, his mouth's opening to take your hand right off. This is not a beginner pet for anyone, you need to have experience with these. You need a large tub, this is a three hundred gallon, eight foot diameter, rubber made cattle trough and you need to put them in one of these to have plenty of room to exercise or he won't eat properly. These guys eat anything that goes in the water so you can give them dog food, rats, mice, live, frozen, pieces of chicken from the store cod, cut up and chopped, they'll eat about anything. You need to make sure you don't put any other aquatic turtles in there too, they'll eat other turtles, so they eat anything that goes in the water, snakes, birds, you name it. It's a very dangerous animal, most states have laws on these and you're required to have a special permit.

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How to Take Care of a Snapping Turtle

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