Snap Bit
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| The Outdoors Advice Blog |
At what age will a turtle begin to retaliate (snap) at people?
I have a pet snapping turtle who is 5 months old now and an amazing pet. I was wondering how old will he have to be before I will know if he is going to show aggression. I have had him since he hatched. Please don't answer unless you have valuable info I don't want to hear "Release him into the wild now" "He'll bit off your finger!". It is winter outside now and chanses are likely that he would've have died and I take very good care of him.
he is a common snapping turtle
Of course 
you wouldn't want to release him...You've had him since he was hatched, so he's likely tamed and wouldn't survive wild.
Snappers don't retaliate. They snap at you because they cannot withdraw into their shells so that is how they defend themselves. Their necks are extra long so they can reach anywhere for their defense. The wild ones you see that snap at you as you try to get them off the street are just scared. Yours likely will never snap as aggression as he knows you're not going to hurt him. However, you do have to respect his strong jaws.
For example, any turtle can mistake your fingers for worms. I sometimes like to play a game of "catch me" with my sliders, wiggling my fingers in the water for them to chase. I also like to hand feed all of my turtles. But sliders and box turtles don't have strong jaws and I have rarely even gotten a scratch as a result of a bite from them and they eventually learn to differentiate and stop biting me. However, with a snapper you should NEVER ever do this at the risk of losing a finger when he gets bigger; just ONE mistake bite is enough. He may certainly become very handleable as he is tame, and handling could be good because you'll likely have to eventually like if he should ever get sick and you have to get close and personal to help him. However, you're responsible if you let anyone else handle him and someone gets hurt. Plus, you never know what could happen...Like, say, he gets shell rot on his bottom shell and you have to flip him over to treat it, he might get scared and snap.
They do make very good pets, and they're not aggressive at all, but do remember he is a snapper and not a slider.
