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Help, baby turtle feeding emergency!?

  • I have a baby western painted turtle who has been from the start pretty difficult to feed but recently he injured his leg I think and wont eat at all, previously I fed my turtles pinhead crickets does anyone have a suggestion/s?


  • Cabbage


  • You don't mention his habitat, but my painted turtle is kept in a large aquarium with an area of land and pool of water deep enough for him to completely submerge himself in. We initially tried to get him to eat commercial turtle food, but he isn't too fond of it. He won't eat out of water and through trial and error we found that he prefers feeder guppies or rosies. His feeding difficulty may be related to the type of food and habitat rather than injury. Lucky was found upside down in the middle of a road and was about 3 inches long. That was five years ago, we recently took him to a nature center because he had outgrown our current tank.


  • Hey, Feeding should be done every other day with all they can eat in 45 minutes. Remove all food after that time, except for the greens. Just because they beg for food does not necessarily mean they're hungry, this is a trained condition. Diet should be at least 65% - 85% meat consisting of commercial turtle food, trout chow, beef heart, cooked chicken, fish live or fresh caught (not frozen). Meat should be dusted once a week with a good herp vitamin containing D3. Dark green leafy vegetables can be used to fill the rest of the diet.

    Good Luck..


  • Don't listen to Gavin, doing so will make your turtle worse off.

    Aquatic turtles should best be fed on a low sugar, low protein, veggie diet.This means to cut back on live prey such as fish, shrimp, krill, and those of the dried/frozen variety. Turtle pellets should also only be used to complement leafy greens such as lettuce. Crickets are even worse, don't feed aquatic turtles crickets or live insects. Meats, aquatic fodder food, and pellets are high in protein, too high.

    A healthy turtle should consist of 75% green veggies, and 25% pellets. This is the ideal ratio, but it's hard to follow because most turtles are very picky and don't immediately like veggies such as lettuce unless you are persistent on it for several weeks; don't give up on it. Keep offering lettuce, clean it out at the end of the day. So typically, 50/50 is fine if you can't do 75/25. Only offer live prey and sweet fruit occasionally as treats, about once every 2-3 weeks.

    Young turtles and hatchlings do however take in more of a carnivorous diet over mature turtles, so you can do 50/50, or 25/75 greens to pellets for NOW. But don't keep it that way forever.

    As for feeding quantity, don't follow what it says on container labels, they're dumb and only want you to use more pellets so you'll buy more. The common, "feed as much as your turtle will consume in 5-15 minutes" line is total BS. The rule of thumb is to offer as much pellets as it would fit in your turtle's head if it were hollow, minus the neck. It may not seem like a lot and your turtle may still beg for more food afterwards, but it's in their nature, domesticated turtles that is. Leave them be, if you keep feeding them until they stop taking food, then you've overfed.

    As for your injured turtle, if it was eating little before but even less now, then it may have come down with sickness or infection. Turtles go through trauma very easily with injury or sickness, and will starve themselves to death otherwise. If your turtle's condition doesn't improve in the next 2-3 days, consider seeing a vet, turtles are prone to death easier than other pets, but hatchlings are at the most risk. If your turtle has already stopped eating for almost a week or more, then see a vet right away.


  • try cutting up garden worms, meal worms, snails, crickets, flies, crayfish small frogs, slugs, tadpoles dragon flies and anything that moves, but only as a treat.
    They need leafy greens Romaine, Butter lettuce. (Iceberg and cabbage are bad for them, any other leafy greens will do) for vitamin A that they need at least 3 to 4 times a week.
    They love grapes and strawberries and squash apples.
    .**Swollen cloudy eyes which means lacking in Vitamin A. Which we all need for good eyes. Google ā ˜vegetables with Vitamin A.
    They NEED calcium and protein they get it from the fish meat and the fish bones. Drop 20 or 30 or so feeder guppies, goldfish or minnows in the tank and watch them disappear in a few days! The more they eat the healthier the turtle. When I got these two 36 yrs ago all we had in back then were goldfish to feed so after 36 yrs and still going strong. They can eat goldfish!
    This way when they swim for their dinner they get exercise also!
    TOSS in a bird cuttle bone in the water for calcium that will promote better shell growth, it will dissolve real slow and if they eat it thatā ™s fine!!

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/29035692@N0...

    sick maybe. Increase water to 80 dergrees.

    These turtles in captivity do not hibernate their eating may slow down some but they will not hibernate.
    They will bite very very hard. Under 4" they carry a disease called 'salmonella'. So you must wash after every handling ANY size turtle..
    Total Body length: 5-8" average for males, up to 12 inches max for females. Life span: 15-25+ years
    Males have the longer front nails and are used in mating. And are considered mature at about 5 yrs old. You canā ™t start sexing till about 3ā  across.
    They get sick easily, shell rot is actual holes rotting through the shell.
    Respiratory sickness, lopsided swimming, coughing, vomiting, blowing bubbles from their nose.
    Fungus white cotton patches on their skin, treat by adding a 1/4 of a cup of aquarium salt per 5 gallons to irritate and hopefully kill fungus. The addition of sulfa drugs such as those sold at pet stores under the name "Dr. Turtle" also should help kill fungus. Here is one source that sells Dr. Turtle. They also now sell a Sulfa dip by Zoo Med to treat bacteria and/or fungus.


    Contact the ā œwww.anapsid.org/societies, for a turtle vet / RESCUE in your city and state or country..

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/29035692@N0...







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