Hi everyone, I am new here and this is my first post so please be kind if I do something incorrectly
My son and I recently found a very small baby turtle who was crossing a very busy main road. We did some research and found he is an alligator snapping turtle. I know all the websites are saying how vicious this thing will grow to be and that they make horrible pets, especially with children...but for right now he is just so adorable and looks so innocent. I thought maybe we should keep him until he is a little bigger and has a fighting chance in the wild. Is that okay to do? Would he be okay if he is put in the wild after being here with us for that long? Anyhow, that is probably a different forum question. My question for this forum is can we over feed him? He is very tiny and cannot even eat the very small worms, we have to cut them up for him. He does try very hard to eat them whole but he just cannot get them down, he uses his front claws to try to hold it in place and swallow it and gets almost all of it in there but then the next "snap" the worm comes out again. The cutting up of the worms seems to work much better, we dangle them in front of him and he goes right for them. I think he is figuring out that we mean him no harm. It seems no matter what web site I go to all of the information is conflicting so I was hoping you guys are sort of the "experts," or as close as can be, on turtle care
Do I just keep feeding him until he stops or will he eat himself sick? What else would a baby alligator snapping turtle eat aside of worms? We have tried several different things, including the commercial turtle food, the meal worms they sell and one other kind of floating long green pellet thing from the store. We have only had him about a week. He is about an inch long ( only counting the shell ). There is a small "nub" thing in the center of his underside which I assumed was his version of a "belly button" and which is why I thought he may be a newborn. To think of him crossing that road gives me nightmares!~ I cannot even believe he made it as far as he did without getting run over! He was heading for a cemetery on the other side of the road....a little further and he would have needed a cemetery for his little tiny body
