Western Painted Turtle diets

Question
QUESTION: I have a very young no older than a month Western Painted Turtle. I have been having trouble trying to get him to eat the Retomin pellets like he is supposed to. He has been eating the Retomin dried up shrimp which is good but Im afraid he is not getting all of is nutrients like he is supposed to. I was wondering if you had any suggestions on how to get him to eat his pellets or of any other type of food that would contain the nutrients he needs without being something nasty like Blood worms...ect.

ANSWER: Hi Kory,

You need to be able to feed your turtle a good variety of foods, and that may include some things you'd rather not deal with, but it's important for your turtle's health, so you need to get over your squeamishness.

Hatchling turtles can live off the yolk sack for up to a month, so don't panic.  Offer small amounts of food daily.  Try to rotate what you're feeding, too.   

Hatchling painteds are much more carnivorous than adults, although they do need some plant matter and should be offered fresh greens often.  Reptomin is excellent as part of the diet, but not the entire diet.  Hatchlings are also much more interested in eating foods that move, so you may have to start with live foods to get him going (and yes, that includes bloodworms).  If you can get baby guppies or mosquito fish, those may work, but anything small and wriggling will trigger his instinct:  tiny earthworms, crickets, bloodworms, shrimp, tubifex worms, mosquito larvae, etc.  Once he's eating well, you can start offering the pellets before the live food.  Turtles learn who feeds them quite quickly, so he will soon learn to associate anything you give him with food, and then you'll be able to feed other than live only.      

http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/caresheet-western_painted.htm


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QUESTION: We have read that if you are having trouble getting your baby turtle to eat you can give them Tetrafin goldfish food...we have a baby western painted turtle...Also read you can soak the turtle pellets in tuna water to entice them to eat it..is this true?

ANSWER: As I said, the best way to trigger the feeding instinct is to offer live foods, because movement will entice the turtle to eat.  You need to feed at least some live foods anyway, because pellets alone aren't an appropriate diet, so you might as well start out with live food.  Don't get too hung up on the pellets for now; once the turtle starts feeding well on the live foods, he should accept the pellets and other foods.  Using tuna juice is one way to make the pellets more attractiive,  but food that moves will be much more appealing at this point.

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QUESTION: Is it better to feed him a comet gold fish or a rosy red minnow keep in mind he is only a little bit bigger than a nickle.

Answer
Sorry not to get back to you sooner!  The minnow would be a better choice, but would have to be a very small one.  Baby guppies or mosquito fish would be best, small insects, earthworms, etc.  If you can get redworms, those might work because he'll be able to bite small pieces off.  You'll have to experiment to see what he responds best to.