I have a water turtle and recently noticed that his nails have gotten really long. Should they be clipped?

Answers:
a.) If you don't know anything about their care, he would have been better off in the wild- he would have found a pond nearby and been perfectly happy. They migrate pond to pond all the time.

b.) Long nails in sliders and cooters means it is a male. DO NOT clip them!

c.) Learn about the care of these fun pets at sites like http://www.austinsturtlepage.com. For example- the tank should be nice and big and heated. Keeping them in too small of a cage is not doing them any favors.

Please understand- I applaud your desire to rescue this poor animal, but by taking it in, you have made an agreement to try to do right by it- not just 'OK'. Sadly, turtles are tricky animals to care for and take a lot more work than most people really want to give them.

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No

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. water turtle should be in water . I hope you are not keeping under your bed . give him lots of greens to eat . don't let him in dry atmosphere .

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No. Long nails on a turtle mean it is a male. It is completely natural. The nails are how they "woo" the females for mating.

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its a boy turtle.they have long nails because when they mate those nails are for gripping the females shell.but i would try to call a local reptile vet or a herpetologist GOOD LUCK :)

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I'm not an expert on turtles but I would clip them if it's obviously a health or safety risk. Also, I use to put a kinda steep rock in my tank for my turtles to get up on when they wanted to sun themselves, causing them to wear down they're nails by themselves when climbing up on the rock. just an idea? hope this helped you :) I just finished reading other answers and everyone is saying the same thing so I would listen to them which goes back to what I said.I'm not an expert and it shows!!LOL

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Courtney is right. It is one of the identifying features to tell it is a male and they do use them in mating. This is a very interesting spectacle to see. The male looks like he is slapping the female in the face really fast. Leaving the nails long is fine. Another identifying feature is in the tail males have a longer tail. I have worked with animals for years actually reptiles and fish are my specialty.

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u dont need to cut there nails this is how they take care of them selves and to eat their foods like when i would give mine smelts or goldfish they use their nales to tear em apart and eat em. here is a link to help ya out http://www.redearslider.com/ thats if wat you found is red ear slider do you even know wat kinda turtle u found?