Feeding and Nutrition :: How much to feed my baby RES

[CrushTheTurtle]

The booklet I have only speaks in terms of adult sliders and I havn't seen much on baby sliders so far anywhere else. I've heard for adults, no more than they can eat in a 10 minute period, once every few days. I've also heard every day and twice a day. I'm just a little confused. Right now I'm feeding my little guy the reptomin baby sticks. I give him about 4-5 in the morning and another 4-5 around my dinner time. He seems to eat them all up by the time I come back to check on him. I heard you can over feed them so I'm just a little concerned that I may be doing so. I've only had him for just over a week, but for the first 4 days he did not eat. His shell is no more than the size of a golf ball so I'm judging that he may be about 3 months old. Are there any rules you guys follow when feeding your turts?

[ljapa]

Great info on the main site about pellets:

http://www.redearslider.com/pellets.html

The general guideline we give is the amount of pellets that would fill your turtle head each day for young ones and once they reach adulthood at around four inches in shell length that amount of pellets every other day.

Over feeding can lead to rapid shell growth and pyramiding if the shell--where the scutes aren't shed and form pyramids. In the extreme case, over feeding can lead to more serious health issues.

We got our turtle a little larger than yours, but not much. I quickly found this site and the advice I just gave you. Here's my more nuanced experience. Your turtle, at its size, will go through growth spurts. There will be times where feeding the amount that will fit in its head will be too much and times when it will be just right. Another bit of advice I found was to watch the skin between its front legs and the shell. If it's bulging out, you are over feeding. If it's too sunken in, you are under feeding.

And because of the uneven growth, you can't rely on a steady X amount of pellets a day.

But, use the what fits in the head/day as a guideline and adjust as you see how it affects your turtle.

At some point you will want to introduce vegetables. Check out the other nutrition pages on that link above. Right now your turtle doesn't need veggies, and may not want them. However, at some point it's growth will slow considerably. At that point you want to transition to fewer pellets and supplement with veggies. Before you reach that, you want your turtle to realize that vegetables are also food.

That transition should happen by the time the shell is 4" long. For me, it was between 3" and 3.5" because of slowed growth and the early signs of pyramiding since I was still feeding head/day in pellets.

[steve]

If you're using baby reptomin, then I'd give him even a little bit less than our guidelines.

[Rickiew04]

Steve,

What pellets would you recommend be fed to a baby RES? Would it be Reptomin? What about for an adult RES?

[ljapa]

Reptomin is fine. Steve's concern, I believe is that the guidelines are for the lower protein content in adult sticks. So if feeding the higher protein baby sticks, perhaps slightly less than will fit in a turtle's head.

I think variety is good, so you don't get stuck with a picky turtle. I do like Omega One as a quality brand.

[steve]

Yes, ljapa nailed it. From what I've seen over the last few years, I'm thinking that the head size amount might be a little too much. Either way, I wouldn't solely rely on that... regularly check the shell for any growth issues.

[L.West]

Along these same lines - what if you have to baby turtles in the same tank. How do you know who is eating what. Should I just put enough pellets in to fill both their heads and leave it up to them to see who gets what??

[steve]

You can usually tell which don't compete very well. For those turtles, I would separate them during feeding. You can try feeding them at separate corners of the tank as well.