Have you been bitten by your tortoise?

[HarleyK]

I hand feed my 3.5" redfoot almost every night and he accidentally bites me once in awhile.... and it actually hurts pretty bad. The beak is very sharp at the tip.

I'm wondering if any of you have been bitten by larger tortoises and what kind of damage has been done.

 

[PeanutbuttER]

I was bit by my russians while I still had them. It was my fault for trying to only hand feed them because at some point they made too strong of an association between my hand and food and just started trying to bite my hand...

Since then I have only had fed every once in a while.

 

[Skyler Nell]

My little brother has a Greek, it is vicious!
Haha, it bites and it hurts soooo bad! It's still little like 4 inches or so.
It clamps on and wont let go sometimes owww

 

[moswen]

tula does go specifically for my hand some times, she'll smell all around the food and nudge this side and that side, then all of a sudden she'll nudge my finger and then a lightning bite! quicker than i can move away. but she always lets go in about a second. it hurts though! she's a carnivore at heart i tell you, i've seen her eat a dead fly before, and she took a bite out of a worm in my garden once too.

 

[Badgemash]

Octavia bit me once during her soak, just a quick nip before she climbed onto my hand (don't know if she was just checking like parrots do or what). It was surprisingly strong even though she's tiny, but when she's bigger I think she could do some serious damage.

-Devon

 

[Maggie Cummings]

In that same situation I have been bitten by Bob. I go into his shed every night with softened squash to socialize with him and at times he accidentally bites me. He is 80 pounds and bit me 2 nights ago and I bled like heck. He got my finger in his mouth and didn't let go and my eyes went black and I thumped his nose and he held on for a long time. Man it hurt! Sometimes he barely nips me but this time he really got me with those razor sharp jaws. I have decided it is NOT a good idea to hand feed. I still go in and bring him squash and spend time with him. But I don't hand feed. He still thinks my fingers are food so I have to be very careful not to get bit. I am hoping since I stopped feeding him that he stops thinking I am food and stops biting me. The jerk

I also have a tiny hatchling who is very active and very nosy and when I put my hand in his habitat to change the water or clean out poop, he runs over and bites me. Little teeny sharp bites. I laugh, I don't know what he's thinking, but he sure thinks he's something.

 

[Edna]

In that same situation I have been bitten by Bob. I go into his shed every night with softened squash to socialize with him and at times he accidentally bites me. He is 80 pounds and bit me 2 nights ago and I bled like heck. He got my finger in his mouth and didn't let go and my eyes went black and I thumped his nose and he held on for a long time. Man it hurt! Sometimes he barely nips me but this time he really got me with those razor sharp jaws. I have decided it is NOT a good idea to hand feed. I still go in and bring him squash and spend time with him. But I don't hand feed. He still thinks my fingers are food so I have to be very careful not to get bit. I am hoping since I stopped feeding him that he stops thinking I am food and stops biting me. The jerk

To paraphrase Sendak, "He'll eat you up, he loves you so!"

 

[moswen]

In that same situation I have been bitten by Bob. I go into his shed every night with softened squash to socialize with him and at times he accidentally bites me. He is 80 pounds and bit me 2 nights ago and I bled like heck. He got my finger in his mouth and didn't let go and my eyes went black and I thumped his nose and he held on for a long time. Man it hurt! Sometimes he barely nips me but this time he really got me with those razor sharp jaws. I have decided it is NOT a good idea to hand feed. I still go in and bring him squash and spend time with him. But I don't hand feed. He still thinks my fingers are food so I have to be very careful not to get bit. I am hoping since I stopped feeding him that he stops thinking I am food and stops biting me. The jerk

I also have a ting hatchling who is very active and very nosy and when I put my hand in his habitat to change the water or clean out poop, he runs over and bites me. Little teeny sharp bites. I laugh, I don't know what he's thinking, but he sure thinks he's something.

haha maggie that's the funniest post i've read all day!

 

[Yvonne G]

Yeah, Maggie. I know you've been out of sorts, but I really miss those Bob stories.

 

[Laura]

yep.. blood drawn.. best not to hand feed... use tongs..

 

[Yvonne G]

yep.. blood drawn.. best not to hand feed... use tongs..

Slightly off topic and my apologies to the OP:

I use tongs to feed the water turtles in my pond outside. I have a large Phrynops hillari (Argentine side neck) in there and one day I was handing her (tonging her) a piece of chicken. She jumped up out of the water...the chicken and tongs going down her throat, and she got away with the tongs in the blink of an eye! I had forgotten about that incident. When we dug out the pond last month we didn't find the tongs. Wonder if she digested them? (Just kidding, folks...don't go calling Peta on me. They were too big for her to swallow)

 

[Shelli]

I sit with my feet in Jaba's outdoor enclosure and she always comes over and bites my toes!! LOL....

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

Sully, my former 60# sulcata bit one of my big toes once (I'd been working barefoot on the yard/garden, so perhaps it had a "foody" smell to it)...

It DEFINITELY got my attention!

The only other time I came close to getting bit was when I was staying w/ a freind in Florida, in the middle of a tour, and he has a Galapagos, "Gus", who gets VERY excited about bananas and almost grabbed my hand...for a generally slow lumbering beastie, it turns out he CAN move remarkably fast when he gets the right inspiration!

 

[Az tortoise compound]

My wife got bit in the toe once. She had flip flops on with pink toenail polish. I was doing my usual storytelling and talking too much, she was distracted and a 18" sulcy came up and bit her big toe. According to her it hurts like hell. She was even bleeding a little. So much for that pedicure! Ha! Ha!

 

[Shelli]

My wife got bit in the toe once. She had flip flops on with pink toenail polish. I was doing my usual storytelling and talking too much, she was distracted and a 18" sulcy came up and bit her big toe. According to her it hurts like hell. She was even bleeding a little. So much for that pedicure! Ha! Ha!

Terry & AZ Jaba is still only about 4 inches or so.... I guess it's not as cute when they are bigger.. lol!
AZ I was also wearing flip flops with nail polish on... bless!!

 

[Scooter]

I was bitten once by a small sully I was rehabbing, she was still small, so there was no blood and didn't hurt to bad. None of my current torts have bitten me (yet), though my Cuban tree frog "bites" me a couple times a week as I put food in his enclosure lol.

 

[sara]

Bert sometimes gets me when hand feeding him, so i dont do that much, However, he preferrs the "sneak attack". He will sometimes come from behind and take a bite, or when meeting someone new he likes to take a taste. But his favorite are toes in sandles! He likes to actually chase you around going for the toes!! Must look like fat worms or something.

 

[nascarmw]

Elliott my DT thought the flowers on my flip flops where real and tryed to eat them and got my baby toe by mistake, didnt hurt just scared the heck outa me!

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

My wife got bit in the toe once. She had flip flops on with pink toenail polish. I was doing my usual storytelling and talking too much, she was distracted and a 18" sulcy came up and bit her big toe. According to her it hurts like hell. She was even bleeding a little. So much for that pedicure! Ha! Ha!

Terry & AZ Jaba is still only about 4 inches or so.... I guess it's not as cute when they are bigger.. lol!
AZ I was also wearing flip flops with nail polish on... bless!!

Yeah, when the tort can actually remove a body part, toe-nibbling does lose some of it's cuteness...

 

[Kristina]

Closest I came was getting my shoe chewed on...