Your turtle will probably get lonely in their tank, especially if they are living by themselves. While turtles do tend to be solitary animals, that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy enrichment. You might have seen viral videos online of turtle toys, or maybe you just want to give your turtle something to play with. Whatever the reasons, todays article will being reviewing the some of the top toys for turtles. I bought all of these turtle toys and tested them out to see which one my turtle liked best.
The best toys for turtles in your tank
The best toys for turtles are the vegetable feeding ball, the turtle skateboard, pellet ball, turtle brush, and the robot turtle.
I’ll give a review of each of the turtle toys below. While these are specifically aquatic turtle toys, many of them work for land turtles and tortoises.
Turtle vegetable feeding ball
The vegetable feeding toy is one of my favorite turtle toys. It closely resembles something you would throw to your golden retriever, but don’t let that deter you. One of the reasons I really like this turtle toys is because its simple and easy to use.
All you have to do is stuff it with vegetables, and then throw the toy into your tank. When I first put it inside the tank, my turtle was a bit suspicious. At first she started biting at the orange rubber. However, she eventually realized there was food inside, and the rest is history.
It’s funny because my turtle doesn’t usually go crazy over vegetables, but she was more than happy to rip and tear away at the kale that was stuffed in the ball. This is another reason why I like the ball so much. Vegetables are super important for a turtle’s diet, so anything that can inspire my turtle to eat them is a major plus.
This toy turtle ball is also very durable. Despite my turtle frequently biting at it, there were no signs of deterioration or any marks from her mouth at all. I also like how the ball floats, because even after the vegetables are gone, you can just keep the ball floating in your tank. This is a great aquatic turtle toy, but you can also you use for land turtles and tortoises. You can buy it here.
The only real downside of this toy is that I wish it came in smaller sizes. The reason I say this is because I had to stuff around 3 to 4 servings (turtle serving sizes) of vegetables in order to fill out the ball. This meant that after ten minutes or so I had to remove the remaining vegetables. This isn’t a huge issue, but would just be nice to fill up a smaller ball and then be done with it.
Turtle skateboard
While this turtle toy requires a lit bit of diy, it was totally worth it. I would say that this was probably my turtle’s favorite toy on the list as well. Depending on the size of your turtle, you will need to order 1, 2, or maybe even three of these skateboards.
From there, you will need to find a way to attach the skateboards (if you have multiple). This is pretty simple. All you need to do is super glue an object (ideally something strong like metal) across the skateboards so that they are held together in place.
From there, all you need to do is by some Velcro straps that you will use to attach your turtle to the skateboard. My turtle was definitely scared at first, but after a couple minutes she started riding around my deck. She was able to get to a pretty fast speed, and I could tell she enjoyed the thrill. This was a great exercise for her, and gave her some much needed time out of her tank. It also allowed her to get some natural vitamin D from the sun, which can help prevent turtle shell rot.
This is another example of a good aquatic turtle toy that also works well for tortoises and land turtles.
The type of skateboard you get for your turtle will be very dependent on their size. If your turtle is small and only 1-3 inches, you can probably just order 1 tech deck skateboard. However, if your turtle is 3 or more inches, you will likely need to buy these larger skateboards to support their weight. The key is to get a board that can hold their weight, but is still small enough that their legs can touch the ground.
While skateboards are obviously not natural to a red eared sliders habitat, this is a great turtle toy to test out.
Pellet ball
This toy is very similar to the vegetable ball. The only difference is that the holes in this ball are much smaller, which lets you put pellets inside the ball instead of vegetables. This means you can use this ball every time you feed your turtle.
I felt like this toy was very functional, and my turtle did enjoy pecking at it to loosen up the pellets. The only reason I like the vegetable ball a little better is because it was more difficult for my turtle to get the vegetables, and it presented a good challenge. I felt like the pellet ball made it a little too easy for my turtle to get the pellets.
That beings said, I still think it was a great purchase. You can check it out here: Amazon link.
Turtle brush
In theory, the turtle brush is a great toy. Your turtle is supposed to brush up against it with its shell, and sometimes even use it as a back shell scratcher. I have seen a bunch of videos of turtles using this toy and having an absolute blast.
Unfortunately, my turtle didn’t seem as interested in it. I think she was just pretty confused. I wish I could show her a video of other turtles using it so she could learn how to play with it.
If you want to try out the turtle brush, you can buy it here.
Robo turtle: Swimming turtle toy
The robo turtle is a small plastic turtle that actually swims underwater. As a toy, it is super functional and does everything as advertised. Once you turn it on and place it in water, it starts swimming by itself. While it won’t break any speed records, the motion of the toy is super realistic and it almost looks like a real turtle.
Unfortunately, my turtle was constantly biting at it. I’m pretty sure she thought it was a fish. While I was pretty impressed with how durable the toy was after being bit a hundred times, I have to admit that it’s not the best toy for a large turtle.
However, if you have a small turtle, it could be a cool turtle toy to test out. If you have a baby red eared slider, you should check out my article on how to make a baby red eared slider habitat.
It could also be something cool to put in a fish tank.
