Just recently I got my first Snapping Turtle baby turtle, and at the moment he has a shell that is nearly 2 inches long. I know that Snapping turtles will get bigger than that, But what I don’t know is how fast they will grow. So I decided to do some research on the growth rate of Snapping Turtle, here is what I found out.
Snapping Turtles grow around 3 inches during their first years, as they reach adulthood they will only grow around 1 inch per year until they reach their full size. Males usually reach sizes between 10 and 12 inches, while females are between 12 and 14 inches.
If your Snapping turtle is not a baby anymore you can expect it to grow around 1 inch per year, but as I said this number doesn’t necessarily apply to all Snapping turtles, and it’s drastically influenced by a lot of factors. So let’s take a closer look at those factors and see how they influence the growth rate.
How the Diet Influences the Growth Rate of a Snapping Turtle
The diet is probably the biggest factor that influences the growth rate. Without a proper diet, no turtle can reach its maximum growth rate.
If you want to help your turtle have a healthy growth rate, then you should make sure that it has a proper and balanced diet. Snapping turtles are omnivorous, which means that they will fruit, vegetables and meat. Since they are able to eat a big variety of food, ensuring that their diet is balanced shouldn’t be that hard. In general, a proper Snapping turtle diet should contain the following:
- Meat
- Fish
- Pellets
- Insects
- Worms
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Aquatic plants
There are a lot of things on the list, especially with the wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and pellets that are out there. But this should also help you since there are a lot to choose from.
The most important thing that turtles take from food that influences their growth is protein. This doesn’t mean that the rest are not important, it just means that they don’t play such a big factor in the growth of a turtle. Protein is the main thing that helps turtles grow and develop a healthy shell.
But be careful, feeding too much protein to your turtle can also cause problems. If a turtle eats too much protein it will start developing a disease called pyramiding. A turtle that suffers from pyramiding will start developing deformations on its shell that bear a resemblance to small pyramids, hence the name. But this is something that doesn’t happen if you give your turtle a balanced diet that contains a healthy mix of fruits and vegetables with protein sources.
Something else that contributes to the growth of the turtle is calcium. A good and natural way to give your turtle calcium is through vegetables, usually, vegetables that are green and have left are a good source of calcium, just make sure that they don’t contain too many oxalates. Oxalates are substances that will intervene in the calcium absorption process, and that is not something that you want. A couple of vegetables that you should stay away from are spinach, even if it contains a good amount of calcium it contains too many oxalates, and iceberg salad, which has little to no nutritional value.
One important thing that you have to keep in mind is that younger Snapping turtles, usually those under 2 years, will rarely eat something else besides meat. Even if they are omnivorous as adults, baby Snapping turtles tend to be carnivorous. So don’t worry if your baby Snapping turtle refuses to eat fruits or vegetables. This is something that also happens with other turtle species as well.
To find out how many proteins or calcium a food has, simply google the name of the food and the answer should appear immediately. After doing this a couple of times, I personally started to learn them, and I am sure the same thing will happen to you. And soon you will have a general idea of what you should give your turtle to eat and what you should not.
Now let’s move to the next influential factor, the basking area.
How Basking Influences the Growth Rate of a Snapping Turtle
When turtles bask they are doing two important things. First, they regulate their body temperature, and second, they get exposed to UVB rays.
UVB light plays a vital role in the production of Vitamin D3 which is essential for the calcium in the body. Without UVB light the turtles won’t be able to get the proper amount of calcium which can lead to improper bone growth, metabolic bone disease, softshell, shell rot, and many other bad things.
So without UVB light turtles wouldn’t be able to properly use the calcium that they store in their body, so they won’t be able to grow at their full capacity. If you want your turtle to reach its maximum growth rate then you should make sure that it has a proper basking area.
If you want more details about how to properly light and heat a basking area, check out this guide: Guide for Lighting and Heating a Turtle Tank and Basking Area. In this guide, you will find all the information you need to make the basking area of your turtle as pleasant and efficient as possible.
Now let’s move to the next factor.
How the Age Influences the Growth Rate of a Snapping Turtle
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article you can expect your Snapping turtle to grow anywhere from 4 to 5 inches in its first year. In general, most Snapping turtles will reach the size of 4 inches during their first year.
After they reach that size their growth rate will drop considerably, and they will only grow about one inch for the next few years. But as they get older, and they approach their maximum sizes, their growth rate will drop even more.
Most Snapping turtles will reach sizes between 15 and 26 inches, so if you have a baby Snapping turtle that is 5 inches now, you can expect it to grow at least another 10 inches, or even another 20 in some cases.
There is not too much to increase the maximum length they will reach besides taking good care of them. The rest is determined by genetics.
Until now I told you about things that you can do to help your pet Snapping turtle have a healthy growth rate, but let’s also take a look at the growth rate of wild Snapping turtles, because things are a little different there.
The Growth Rate of Wild Snapping Turtles
Wild Snapping turtles are biologically speaking the same as pet Snapping turtles, but the environment that they live in is completely different, and there will also be a new factor that drastically influences their growth rate.
When it comes to food, wild turtles definitely have it tougher than pet turtles. Unlike pet turtles that are fed every day by their owners, wild turtles have to hunt and scavenge every day for food. And naturally, they won’t be able to have the same healthy and balanced diet as pet turtles, so their growth rate will suffer because of this.
When it comes to basking, wild turtles don’t have it that bad. They always have access to the sun, which is actually better at delivering UVB rays than most UVB bulbs. So basically there is no downside for the wild turtles when it comes to basking.
Age and genetics are the same for both of them so no difference here.
The biggest difference comes from this new factor, the weather. Pet turtles don’t have to face the changing weather from outside, since they are always in a home, where the temperature is more or less constant. But wild turtles have to deal with the weather and this means that they have to face the winter outside.
During the winter Snapping turtles hibernate, which means that they will usually be inactive for 3 to 5 months per year. During the time that they hibernate, turtles don’t grow at all. So instead of having 12 months per year at their disposal to grow, they only have 9 or even less, depending on the weather.
Hibernation is a little more complicated than that, if you are interested in this subject, I’ve already discussed it in more detail in this article: Do Turtles Hibernate?
Common Questions
Are female turtles always bigger than male turtles? Not always, but for most turtle species that is the case.
Should I be worried if my turtle grows too slow? As long as you feed your turtle, and you provide it with a basking area, and good living conditions in general, you shouldn’t worry. Every turtle is different and some of them will grow slower than others.
Can I make my turtle grow faster? Besides taking proper care of your turtle there is nothing else that you can do. You just have to wait for your turtle to grow.
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