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Peculiar eating habits

22 16:00:53

Question
QUESTION: Hello Jeannie,

I have a unique issue with my turtle and really need help as we just introduced a new turtle into our outdoor pond. I have had a Red eared slider for about 8 years now. When we got her, she wouldn't eat anything. I mean nothing! It literally took a complete mistake to get her to eat something. For days we tried to feed her pellets, krill, calcium supliments, feeder fish, raw sushi grade fish. Seriously, everything. Than one day I walked passed her take and someone bumped into me and a piece of canadian bacon landed in the tank and she ate every last bit of it. Just out of pure joy, we started feeding her canadian bacon and she has been eating it ever since. I have tried so many different things to get her to eat normal turtle food. She is a mature female ranging in approximately 6 inches in size. Believe it or not, she is extremely healthy ( we took her to the vet to make sure). We also feed her now other things but she will not eat them as her primary source of food such as calcium supplements, freeze dried shrimp and a feeder fish ( for some reason she is very much attached to the feeder fish and will only eat them the first day they're in her tank) We got her a friend today and the new turtle has been on a diet of pellets and feeder fish. She is new the the environment and very young so she watched my mature turtle eating canadian bacon and immediately dove for it over the pellets she is used to from the pet store.

I need to find a way to get my old turtle off canadian bacon and prevent my new turtle from eating like her without being too tramatizing. I have already scared the poor little guy into a quintessential turtle spin like from the cartoons. Please, help?

Old turtle's age: 8 years
Enclosure: outdoor pond approximately 60 gallon's with pond plants, basking areas and hiding places
temperature: roughly 78-80 degrees F
Type of heat: Heater and Sunlight
Frequency of soaking: constant unless turtle chooses to bask

Question at hand: How do I ween one turtle off Canadian Bacon and prevent the new turtle from developing the bad habit? Also, if my turtle with the bad habit is healthy and has thrived for 8 years on this peculiar diet, is it so bad? Will my new turtle thrive too?

Desperately seeking help so anything you got is all right with me.

Thanks,


Christina

ANSWER: Hi Christina,

Canadian bacon is a very unhealthy diet for a turtle, as you know.  Even though she has gotten a clean bill of health from the vet, it is entirely possibly that her diet is causing unseen health issues that may shorten her life, and you don't want that.  Turtles can get into addictive eating patterns and will sometimes refuse to eat other foods even though what they're eating isn't the best for them.  A healthy turtle will not starve, however, and they can easily go for several weeks without eating (although I doubt it will take that long).  So stop feeding her the bacon, cold turkey.  When she gets hungry enough, she'll eat.  At eight years old, she should be eating more plant matter than animal matter anyway, so now is a good time to start offer a good variety of greens--turnip, dandelion, collards, kale, romaine, spring mix, duckweed, water lily, etc.  The younger turtle may be more carnivorous, but should also be offered plant material.

You will probably need to upgrade their pond.  60 gallons is really too small for one mature RES, and with two it will be difficult to keep the water quality high.  A 200+ gallon pond would be best, with a very high quality filter.  Keeping them outside in the natural sunlight is great for them, and I'm sure they enjoy it!  

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Awesome. This is exactly what I wanted to read. My mother has been stubborn about the diet change for sometime so this is a perfect nudge for her to help me get the turtle back on the right path.

What should I offer my younger RES? Mealworms? She is too small for feeder fish.

Thanks

Christina

Answer
Hi Christina,

Tell your mom that just the fat and salt content alone isn't great for turtles, plus being stuck on just one food is also a problem.  The thing with turtles is that health problems can take a very long time to show up, so just because you don't see anything doesn't mean you should continue with a diet that isn't good for them.

Here are a couple of links with diet information that should help you out.  Anything small enough for her to either swallow whole or bite chunks out of (worms) would be good, as much variety as possible.

http://redearslider.com/index_nutrition.html
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/caresheet-red_ear_slider.htm