Ever been bit by your tort?

[Zabbi0]

All these posts are interesting.
I was told when I bought Sami, my sulcata that she couldn't bite?
I even stuck my finger in her mouth. I don't know I just remember the guy saying she couldn't bite. Is this not true?

 

[stinax182]

All these posts are interesting.
I was told when I bought Sami, my sulcata that she couldn't bite?
I even stuck my finger in her mouth. I don't know I just remember the guy saying she couldn't bite. Is this not true?

anything with a mouth and teeth can bite. and probably will if harassed enough. even a baby tortoises beak can be sharp and hurt in the right place. never purposely put your finger in ANY animals mouth.....what would you do? I'd bite you if you shoved your finger in my mouth.

 

[Zabbi0]

I don't know. He said she didn't have teeth it was just her jaw I would later have to worry about or something like that. In any case- never had any probs with biting.

 

[stinax182]

only one of my torts would bite me, and he's the only one who will eat any kind of worm, so he always thinks my fingers are treats. the odds of your tort biting you to defend itself or punish you is small, but him mistaking it for food, definitely or if you hand feed him, use large leaves. they don't have very good depth perception up close and might bite your finger trying to fit the largest amount of food physically possible in his mouth haha. if you're offering it to him, its fair game

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Bob has bitten me several times and it's all my fault. I have hand fed him since he was little and I never thought much about it until he started biting at the air or my hand even when I didn't have food for him.
Think about this...when a wild tortoise bites at their food they clamp down hard making sure the 'food' doesn't get away. The last time Bob bit me I couldn't get the bleeding to stop and my DIL the medical person had to come over and help me. She says I should have gotten stitches, but the way things get turned around I was afraid that they would call Bob a bad tortoise like the mean dog who bites. And they'd keep track of how many times he bites then they would euthanize him. That would be just horrid. If you can look at a torts jaw line it's serrated like a steak knife. So he gets my hand or finger in his mouth and clamps down hard and I am smacking his face and pushing on him and acting like a crazy person and all that does is makes them clamp harder. So my advice is to never never hand feed them. You don't want the tortoise to associate your hand with food.
Take my experience and pay attention...big tortoises can bite very hard and it bleeds and hurts a bunch..I have no doubt that given the right situation he can bite hard enough to bite a finger off...

 

[CharlieM]

My animals will eat feces and can bite right through large carrots. I prefer not to be bitten.

That's a great example of why I won't hand feed.

 

[IowaGuy28]

The full-time Vegas breeder I got Tilley from, I asked this very question to, said they are herbivores (which is nearly common knowledge) and that should they attempt to bite its most likely because they think that your toes/fingers are just another something to eat....a snack. He told me him wife was nipped at once and immediately released when the food somehow "didn't taste right". I believe this topic goes either way, freak accident(?). Tilley has Never even opened his mouth at me and I rub his chin and head all the time.

My 2 cents...

 

[Holycow]

I work with animals and have been bitten by just about anything you can imagine (with the exception of venomous snakes). I hand feed my sulcatas and red foot and have been bitten by them (completely due to lack of caution on my part). As far as turtle bites go the worst for me was a common snapper +20 years ago. Mud and musk turtles also have strong defensive bites, a stinkpot turtle about the size of a computer mouse took a perfect cartoon-like bite chunk out of my hand once while I was not paying attention. I've never seen a sulcata or redfoot try to bite defensively (although I guess it could happen.) Keep in mind Defensive bites from just about any juv/adult turtle or tortoise can be EXTREMELY PAINFUL and BLOODY. As far as they are concerned they are fighting for their life.
That said, my experience with Feeding Bites from sulcatas are the tortoise lets go as soon as it realizes the finger (or toe) is not food. I'm sure my 50lb tort could do serious damage if he bit and then clamped down with full bite pressure. But he just never has, he kind of gets a puzzled look and then stops the downforce of the bite and I get my finger (or my wife's toe) out of there. The bites are very similar to the bite from a bird like a parrot or macaw except the birds seem to realize what they are doing and DON'T let up on the bite. I've had many feeding bites from pet sulcatas and I can't recall one time where blood was drawn.
My two cents.

 

[avel]

Also been bit by my sulcata while feeding. It weights 50lbs and probably didn't bite down as hard as it could of.

 

[mercurysmom]

At the reptile store, I absentmindedly attempted to pet one of the gigantic Sulcatas on display. I startled him, and he flinched with his mouth open towards my hand. I pulled it away fast enough, but I may have been bitten if I hadn't.

 

[JoesMum]

I've been bitten a couple of times by Joe. It's always a result of me not being careful when I hand feed him. If my fingers smell of strawberry, he makes assumptions

It hurts and I've had a blood blister, but he's never broken the skin.