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My turtle is peeling what do i do???

22 16:20:42

Question
For the past couple of days my turtle has been peeling its skin and it is floating around in the tank i am really worried please tell me how or what is happening to him? Please tell me if this is normal. (my turtle is a yellow bellied slider and he is about 2 inches and we feed him 2x's a day and we feed him the reptile food from the pet mart for turtles.) Thanks!!

Answer
Excess shedding is usually one of two things.

If the sheds are paper-thin, whitish or translucent, and the skin underneath appears normal (no pits, discoloration, etc.) then it is often die to stress. If it IS thick, oddly colored, discoloration, etc. then it is often shell rot.

The stress may be due to over-feeding, for example. We generally only recommend one feeding a day, and a serving small enough to fit in a bowl about the size of the turtle's head.

We would also usually recommend that only about 1/2 of the diet be pellets, and the other half be live or frozen/thawed 'fish food' like worms, small fish, shrimp, krill, insects, beef heart, etc.

Give a good website like http://www.redearslider.com a try and see if they suggest any cares that you might be able to tweak in your set-up to help out.

Good luck!