Took on a Russian tortoise from a neighbour in the summer. Every time I go to pick her up she pulls in hard and makes a sharp hiss. It genuinely sounds like a warning and I have started feeling guilty about handling her at all.
She eats well, she is active, she basks. Is the hiss her telling me off, and if so is there a way to pick her up that she objects to less?
Come at her from the front or the side where she can see you, give her a second to notice, and lift with your hand supporting the plastron so she stays level rather than dangling. Keep it short, because most tortoises tolerate handling without enjoying it.
The thing that changed mine was hand-feeding greens and spending time near the enclosure doing nothing. A hand that sometimes means food gets a very different reception from a hand that only ever means being picked up.
Mine hissed at everything for the first six months and now barely bothers. Settling in is most of it.
The distinction that matters: a hiss while retracting is mechanical. A noise while she is breathing normally and not pulling in is not. Wheezing, clicking, whistling or gurgling, bubbles at the nose or mouth, an open mouth to breathe, nasal discharge, puffy eyes, going quiet and off her food.
That is respiratory and it needs seeing, and in tortoises it usually traces back to being too cold, sitting in a draught or wrong humidity. Worth checking she has a warm basking end, a cooler end, UVB, somewhere to dig, and no cold floor under her.
@lungs_under_shell · 4d ago · 3 replies
It is not really a hiss and she is not really telling you off. Her lungs sit directly under the shell. When she pulls her head and legs in quickly there is suddenly less room in there, air gets pushed out, and the noise is that air leaving.
So it is a reflex attached to being startled rather than a planned threat. Which means the thing to change is not her attitude, it is how much warning she gets before a hand arrives.
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@pulled_in_fast · 4d ago
That is a relief. So the noise is basically her own shell squeezing the air out?
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@lungs_under_shell · 4d ago
Exactly that. Which is also why you hear it when she retracts fast and not when she tucks in slowly to sleep. Same animal, same shell, different speed.
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