Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a painted turtle that is about 2 1/2 years old. It is only about 3 inches long. I know turtles can grow at very different rates, but it seems like it is on the small side.

Anyone know about how big 3 yo painted usually are?

thanks

My 3 year old turtles are much bigger than that. They have to be like 7-8 inches (that's just my guess with my ruler right next to me, I have not measured them). How big is his tank. They can only grow as big as their surroundings will let them.

A lot of it depends on what breed of painted turtle you have, average at this age seems to be 3.5/4-6 inches.

Thanks for the replies.

It's and Eastern painted. It has had plenty of room. The first year a 10 gal. tank. The second year, one of those blue kiddie pools. Last spring it has a 100 gal. outdoor pond, and now it's back in the pool.

Is it too young yet to tell if it's male or female?

No you should be able to start sexing them now, the males have long thick tails, and my male has long front claws, almost as if they need to be trimmed.

Well, cool! She must be a female then!

It is just not true that the size of the enclousre limits their growth directly. Sometimes this seems to be the case as in small cages water tends to be dirty very easily and turtles (fish, frogs other animals for which this claim is sometimes made) sicken and sickness definitely slows growth. Plus often people keep these animals in small cages and they die early and it it thought they never grew because of the cage size.

As for the small turtle i'd say that is a little on the small side.

what has this turtle been eating?
How often?
what are the conditions of its cage/tank. Tempoerature is an imporatnt growth factor as well.
Has it hibernated?

One thing for his smaller size might be the fact that he needs a new UV light. All though the UV lights stay luminated for a long time, their true value expires after 6 months. UV lights should be changed every 6 months.

According to "Turtles and Tortoises" by R.D. Bartlett and Patricia P. Bartlett eastern painted turtles average size 6 inches, midlands 5.75 inches, southern 5.5 inches, western painted hardly ever exceeds 9 inches.
So give or take a few inches, ive read in other sources average size is 4"-8" sometimes reaching 10".

Well, she is 2 1/2 years old, and about 3 1/2 inches. So she may be on the small side, but it sounds like she is still in normal range!

She eats mostly turtle food, but she does like bugs, snails and fish too.

She doesn't really hibernate, she just goes into a kinda torpor during the coldest winter months. But fall and spring can be pretty cool.

She's been outside from the last 1/2 of spring to the first 1/2 of summer, so I don't think the uv light is the thing. Although I didn't know that about them only lasting 6 months! Now that she is back inside I should probably get a new one!

The water looks clear and clean. Although the outside pond does tend to get a lot of algae.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Sort of a side thought to this string involves enclosure size as it relates to a creature's growth limitation. Seems to me there is NO relationship between cage size/animal size for any AIR-BREATHING ANIMALS, except for the circumstances you most appropriately described (poor husbandry/poor health/less growth). Cage size probably DOES matter in the case of FISH, whose size might be absolutely limited by the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water. If there's too much fish per given water volume, O2 can be depleted to the point it surely seems as if size could be stunted.

thanks for the post.

I agree that the size of the encloser thingy probably applies to fish rather than turtles. But it's a moot point here anyway, as she has had plenty big enclosers that are kept clean!