TURTLE TROUBLE!!!

[sunny_is_me]

I need help with my two yellow bellied sliders
I have had them for months and now I am trying to tame them (trust me and mabe eat from my hand)but at the moment they just run away when I aproach

They still eat fine and are on a diet of pellets cubes of tubiflex an vegiies also 3 or 4 gold fishes a week...

They have a big enough tank and filter and also a basking area. there water is warm aswell.

thank you....

 

[fisher12889]

You might want to try asking this in the reptiles forum, you will probably get more responses.

 

[EricIvins]

I need help with my two yellow bellied sliders
I have had them for months and now I am trying to tame them (trust me and mabe eat from my hand)but at the moment they just run away when I aproach

They still eat fine and are on a diet of pellets cubes of tubiflex an vegiies also 3 or 4 gold fishes a week...

They have a big enough tank and filter and also a basking area. there water is warm aswell.

thank you....

They're programmed to do that.......

 

[TTTT]

My turtle was always afraid of me when he was young. He's big now and is still skittish when I put my hand in the tank, but he's warmed up to me. I can handfeed him, just hold the food about an inch above the water and wait for a few minutes, he might try to take it.

 

[CTU2fan]

Yes, my YBS will eat from my hand if I offer food that way but he is still very skittish when he's basking. As Eric said, it's instinctive in the basking turts; my map turtle is the same way. I've kept painted turtles that would let you touch them while they baked, but that was rare. The sliders I've seen in captivity haven't seemed to be nearly that comfortable with people.

 

[TTTT]

If mine's basking and I make a sudden movement he flips out... other then that he's pretty calm

 

[coura]

First of you dont "tame" turtles like you would tame a iguana, monitor,etc. Handling a turtle only makes it more stressed and afraid of people, the only thing you need to do is to take care of them normaly and they will respond to that, becoming acostumed to your presence and begging for food. However even long term kept turtles will resist handling and no turtle likes to be handled, they are hands of pets.
Second DONT feed gold fish to your turtles, they are a very poor food choice and can make them hill

 

[Fish_Savy :3]

i had nine turtles and all i had to do was spend more time by the tank until they were use to seeing me around the tank and after that i was able to hand feed them :]

 

[axel09]

hey! you're going the right way, classic conditioning using food is definitely the way to go. what i did with mine is i used a long reptile tweezer to feed them at first (so that i could try offering food to them wherever they are in the tank without scaring them much) and after you do this for a while they'll more readily accept food from the tweezers and follow the tweezers to the open area of the tank or even to their basking spots (oh yeah, it helps if you soak the food first). After doing this for a while you can shift to trying to feed them by hand. it should take a couple weeks, but it'll be worth it. hope this helps!