9 Signs That Your Tortoise Is Dehydrated (+ What to Do)

Tortoises are very susceptible to dehydration, despite their resemblance to turtles, tortoises don’t live in water, so they can easily get dehydrated if the conditions are not right for them.

The most common signs of dehydration in a tortoise are:

Closed or sunken eyes
Loss of appetite
Dry feces
Thickened or reduced urine
Dry skin
Weight loss
Lack of activity (Lethargy)
Poor muscle tone
Thick mouth mucus

Now let’s go over those signs in a little more detail, and see what you can do to rehydrate your turtle, as giving them water to drink is not always enough.

9 Signs That Your Tortoise Is Dehydrated

Closed or Sunken Eyes

One of the most obvious signs of dehydration. And one of the best ways to figure out how advanced dehydration is.

If your tortoise is just starting to get dehydrated it will only have sunken eyes, but as the dehydration advances they will shut down more and more until they become closed completely.

While they will open their eyes if they hear something around them, they will quickly close them back, as they won’t be able to hold them open for long.

If in one of those moments when your tortoise opens its eyes you notice that the cornea is inflamed, you should quickly take your tortoise to the vet, as this means that the dehydration is very advanced.

Loss of Appetite

The loss of appetite is a universal sign that something drastic is happening. In most cases that something is usually something bad, and dehydration is one of those bad signs.

The loss of appetite is not exclusively related to dehydration, so you will have to look for other signs as well.

Sometimes it can be a sign that your tortoise will lay eggs soon, as female tortoises lay eggs every year even if there is no male around to fertilize the eggs. So after reading this article you should check out this one as well: How to Tell If a Tortoise Is Male or Female (with Pictures), to find out if your tortoise is male or female, and then this one to figure out if your tortoise is pregnant or there is another reason for the lack of appetite: How to Tell if Your Tortoise Is Pregnant (with Pictures).

Dry Feces

While definitely not the most pleasant thing to look at, it’s one of the best ways to figure out the health of your tortoise.

If your tortoise is dehydrated, naturally the feces will also be dehydrated.

Just make sure that you look at them when they are fresh, if you leave them in the open for a few hours they will start dehydrating on their own, and you won’t be able to tell if your tortoise is dehydrated or not.

Thickened or Reduced Urine

Again, not the most pleasant thing to look at but a very good way to figure out if your tortoise is dehydrated or not.

This one is pretty self-explanatory, if you notice that the urine is thicker, or if your tortoise urinates smaller quantities per day, or doesn’t urinate at all, it’s probably due to dehydration.

But if the urine has a different color like white or red, it might be something else, in which case I would recommend you to go to the vet and take a sample with you so he can analyze it.

While dehydration is a serious problem, it doesn’t usually require a specialist to solve, but if you believe that your tortoise is suffering from something else, go to the vet.

Now let’s continue with the list.

Dry Skin

The body of a tortoise is mostly covered by the shell, but there are a few places that are not. Those places are the legs, the tail, the neck, and the head. The legs and the tail are usually covered with scales, so this only leaves the head and the neck.

So try not to look at the legs and the tail, as they can easily mislead you.

If the head and the neck seem dryer than usual, this is a sign that your tortoise is dehydrated.

Weight Loss

Due to the lack of water in the body, a dehydrated tortoise will lose weight, this is unavoidable.

The tricky part is that most of the weight of a tortoise comes from its shell and bones, so the weight loss is usually visible to the eye only when the dehydration becomes quite severe.

This is why I would suggest you periodically weigh your tortoise. Doing this won’t only help you determine if your tortoise is dehydrated, but it will also help you detect other health problems before they become serious. A healthy tortoise has no reason to lose considerable weight.

Small fluctuations in weight are normal and can be influenced by a lot of factors like when your tortoise last ate. So after you weigh your tortoise a few times you will get a good idea of what the average is.

I usually weigh my tortoises once every two weeks, but if you are just starting out you can weigh your tortoise once a week in the beginning to get a better idea of the average weight.

Lack of Activity (Lethargy)

Water is essential for a multitude of body functions, if there isn’t enough water, the body will relocate its energy to keep the vital functions going, and as a result, there won’t be too much energy for other things, like walking or playing.

Lethargy is a common symptom of dehydration, but at the same time it’s a common symptom for a multitude of problems, so don’t assume that your tortoise is dehydrated just because it’s not as active as it usually is.

Poor Muscle Tone

Due to the loss of energy caused by dehydration, your tortoise won’t be able to respond as it used to.

One way to test this is by simply picking up your tortoise. If it normally retracts into its shell or tries to run away, but now it does nothing it’s most likely because it doesn’t have the energy to do so.

Thick Mouth Mucus

A very good way to tell if your tortoise is dehydrated is to look at its saliva/mucus.

The same thing that happens to a dehydrated human as it happens to a dehydrated tortoise.

Because the body of the tortoise doesn’t have enough fluids to replace the ones that it loses, the saliva will become thicker.

How to Hydrate a Tortoise and Prevent Dehydration

Now that we looked at how to identify a dehydrated tortoise, let’s see how we can hydrate it, and prevent this from ever happening again.

I’ll start this list with drinking water, but I will also cover other ways, as just drinking water might not be enough in some cases.

Constant Access to Fresh Water

The first and most important thing is to make sure that your tortoise has constant access to freshwater.

The bowl should be low enough that the tortoise can reach it without struggling, but at the same time deep enough that your tortoise won’t have to take only small sips.

Also, make sure that you change the water daily. While it’s ok if you forget to change it one day, or you simply didn’t have the time to do so, leaving the same water in the bowl for days in a row can make it undrinkable.

Food With Lots of Water

Another great source of water is food.

There are some fruits and vegetables out there that are full of water, for example, cucumbers are 96% water, and watermelons are 92% water.

But there is a problem with those foods, while they are full of water they don’t always have as many nutrients like other fruits and vegetables that aren’t as hydrating, so try to keep a balance between them.

Another thing to keep in mind when feeding your tortoise fruits and vegetables is the amount of phosphorus and oxalic acid that they contain. Both of those things can be dangerous for tortoises in high quantities. So I would suggest you take a look at this article: Can Turtles Eat Fruits? (How Much, How Often + List), and What Vegetables Can Tortoises Eat? There you will find detailed lists which tell you which fruits and vegetables you can safely feed your tortoise, which you should avoid, and which are ok in small quantities.

Shade

A very overlooked but at the same time very important aspect is shade. Tortoises need a shady area where they can escape from the heat.

So make sure that your tortoise has a place like this, even if you don’t keep your tortoise outside.

Soaking

Even if tortoises don’t live in water as turtles do, they still need to get into it from time to time, to properly dehydrate.

There are a few ways you can do this, you could either get them a small platform like this one from Amazon and fill it with water and let your tortoise get into it whenever it needs. Or you could get a separate container, fill it with water and let your tortoise sit in it for 20 minutes, twice a week.

Very important, make sure that whatever method you choose the water won’t get past the neck of the tortoise, as they are not able to breathe underwater like turtles are.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you should avoid weather with chlorine in it. While nothing bad will happen if you use water with chlorine a few times, in the long run, it will have negative effects.

I used to buy bottled water for my tortoises, but I recently switched to filtering cans that seem to be doing quite a good job at removing the chlorine from the water. So there are quite a few affordable ways to dechlorinate the water, you don’t need to install an expensive water filtering system for the whole house.

Misting

Filling a spraying/misting bottle with water and misting your tortoise once a day can be a great way to treat and prevent dehydration.

Just make sure that you don’t overdo it, otherwise, their substrate might become damp which will make mold and bacteria grow.

Final Thoughts

While dehydration is bad, it can be easily cured and it won’t have any long-lasting health effects. But if you see that your tortoise is in really bad shape you should go to the vet immediately.

Now I’m going to leave you with a few common questions that I’ve seen frequently asked while I was doing research for the article. I couldn’t find a way to add them naturally to the main article, so I decided to create a separate section just for them.

Common Questions

Can tortoises drink tap water? Tap water is not necessarily a type of water, it’s the water that comes out of your sink. But where that water originates and how it’s treated can differ greatly from region to region. So the answer to the question: can tortoises drink in tap water? Can be yes for one person and no for another person. The only certain way to know for sure is to test it. Here are the criteria that you should be looking for:

A pH between 6.0 and 8
A chlorine level of 0
An ammonia level of 0
A nitrite level of 0.5 ppm (parts per million) or less (preferably zero)
A nitrate level of 40 ppm or less

If you want to know how you can test your water for free and how to make it safe for your tortoise you should check out my article where I cover those subjects and more: How to Make Tap Water Safe for Turtles – Complete Guide.

Do tortoises drink and pee at the same time? Tortoises have been known to drink and pee at the same time. So if your tortoise is doing this don’t worry it’s perfectly normal. While there is no clear reason why they do this, it is perfectly normal behavior.

How do tortoises get hydrated in the wild? In the wild tortoises don’t always have access to clean drinking water so most of their water comes from the food that they eat and from soaking.

Can tortoises drink water through their tails? No, this is a very old and strange myth, tortoises don’t drink water through their tail or butt. The most likely source of this myth is probably the fact that turtles can breathe through their butt underwater.