Do Turtles Like to Be Held or Petted?

In the case of most pets, you can show your affection towards them by petting them or holding them in your palm, or by embracing them. But turtles are a little different.

Turtles don’t like to be held or petted. Turtles are not very affectionate or friendly and they don’t enjoy the company of others, especially when they have to physically interact with them. But there are other ways in which you can show your affection towards them.

So if you want to show your affection towards your turtle you will have to find a new way to do so. But don’t worry I won’t leave you just with a simple “turtles don’t like to be held or petted”, as in the rest of the article we are going to look at how you can show your affection towards your turtle.

But first, we have to understand what turtles think about and how they see us.

Understanding What a Turtle Thinks About

To better understand what turtles are like, we first have to understand how a turtle thinks. Compared to most pets, turtles maintain a very primitive way of thinking. There are three things that a turtle cares about:

Survival
Food
Basking

Survival

This is the reason why turtles don’t like to be held or petted.

The first thing a turtle will think about is survival, everything else comes after. This means that if they consider that an area is too dangerous for them they will leave as soon as possible. If they think a predator is nearby they will hide. If a predator is about to attack another turtle they will leave to save themselves.

Turtles don’t see any reason why you should hold or pet them, so they will most likely be scared by the way you are showing affection. In the best-case scenario, they will understand that you don’t want to harm them and will become indifferent to this, but in any case, they won’t like it.

Food

If you want to earn the affection of your turtle this is the way to go.

What I am going to tell you now might sound disappointing, but you have to understand that for a pet this means a lot. Turtles mainly see us, their owners, as their food providers.

If another person were to say that to you it won’t really be a compliment, but coming from a turtle is one of the biggest compliments possible. Food is extremely important for turtles. When turtles are in captivity and they feel safe in the place they are, their main priority becomes food, they are not interested in toys, like cats and dogs are, or anything else, in particular, they just care about food.

So one sure way to make your turtle happy, and to show your affection is to give them extra snacks. If you would like what are the best and tastiest snacks for a turtle you should check out this article Best Turtle Food (We Tested 20 Different Brands), where we tested and discussed most of the brands available on the market.

Basking

Another thing that your turtle cares about is basking. Basking is very important for them since it allows them to maintain good health, so finding a good basking area is very important for them.

The only thing that you can do here is to provide them with a good basking area, nothing more nothing less.

Turtles are not social animals

Turtles are not social animals, they interact among themselves very little and they only do it because they have to. They don’t have any other turtle friends, and no human friends either.

They are only interested in survival and for them being social won’t help.

If you want to know more about turtles’ social life check out this article: Are Turtles Social Animals? (with Videos), while most turtles have a nonexistent social life, there are certain species that have established communities, and some of them even walk to the neighboring burrow and knock on the door to have a social chat.

How to Show Your Affection Toward Your Turtle

This part is actually quite simple. All you have to do to show your affection toward your turtle is to provide it with the basic necessities for living plus a few extra snacks from time to time.

For turtles the most important thing is survival, so as long as you provide it with a safe space, food, and a basking area she will be more than happy. Even if she won’t show this as other animals do.

But there are a few things that could make your turtle unhappy, even if you provide the basic needs, let’s go over them.

Things That Could Make Your Turtle Unhappy

Aggressive handling

It’s easy to get too aggressive with your turtle when you are handling them. They look very resistant and this might make you think that they won’t feel anything if you handle them a little rough.

If you put too much pressure on them when you handle them they will feel it and they won’t like it. The same thing happens when a predator will attack them, so naturally, they will think that you want to harm them.

Holding them in your palm is also a bad idea, turtles will feel trapped since they have nowhere to go.

Small living space

If the tank is too small the turtle will feel claustrophobic and they will start being more aggressive toward everybody, or they could just get scared and hide all the time.

This is a very common problem when somebody owns more than one turtle, turtles can be aggressive toward each other, especially when there is little space, this doesn’t only apply to the tank, but also for the basking area. If the basking area is not big enough for all of your turtles they will fight amongst them, and they will start being aggressive towards you as well.

Not enough food

If you don’t give your turtle enough food it will start to go hungry and they will try to bite anything that can be eaten, so they will also try to bite you.

In order to feed your turtle the correct amount of food, I would recommend you to use the size of the head method.

This method says that you should feed your turtle the same amount of food that it would take to fill its head (without the neck).

The simplest way to put this method into practice is to find a small container, like a medicine cup, a shot glass, or a bottle cap. This container has to be approximately the same size as the head of your turtle, without the neck. Then you fill that container to the top, then you can feed the food inside the container to your turtle.

You don’t always have to use a container, you can always just estimate the food that you would need to fill its head.

This method works great because it takes into consideration the size of the turtle, and gives you a fixed amount of food that you have to give your turtle. And as the turtle grows the amount of food will increase as well.

This is the method I use to feed my turtles for years, and the results are great so far.

If you want to know what you should feed your turtle you can check out this article: What do Turtles Eat? (Including Food Lists), or you can use the search function of the site and type the name of your species and diet. Me and my colleagues have written hundreds of articles about the diets of different species, so there is a good chance that you will find your turtle species there as well.

Competition

If you have more than one adult turtle they will be aggressive toward each other for countless reasons, it doesn’t matter what you do they will start to be aggressive. This doesn’t mean that they will be fighting all the time, but they will do it often enough that they will start to be under continuous stress and as a result, they will also be aggressive towards you.

Stress

Any source of stress will affect your turtle, as I said, having another turtle with them is one way your turtle can get stressed, having the music too loud all the time can stress them, even a tank that is too dirty for too long can be a stress source.

Final Thoughts

While you could hold your turtle in your hand, or pet it, your turtle won’t really like it. If you want to show your affection toward your turtle you just have to make sure that it has enough space, a well-balanced diet, and a proper basking area.

I hope this article answered all of your questions. If you have any more questions feel free to leave them in the comment section and I will do my best to answer them as soon as possible.