Feeding and Nutrition :: Are my turtles being spoiled to death?

[theguys]

I have two turtles, one 4" and one 7". The larger one was rescued from a certain death in a pet store. I have a 75 gallon tank, and it is kept very clean. My two issues are:
1. I let them walk around the house every day for variety. They usually head off under furniture and go to sleep. Should I be doing this? Do they like this? and
2. They won't eat pellets or veggies. They do like raw meat of any kind, fresh salmon, and those fake crab pollock sticks. I feed them every day. So, am I over feeding? Probably yes - how do I wean them off meat, and onto veggies. Should I let them starve a bit?

[Kallistos]

Letting them walk around the house isn't a problem, although I don't think they should sleep under furniture. That's more than 8 hours out of the tank, without a source of water I presume.

Too much protein causes pyramiding and other problems. You can't just completely take them off the diet they are on right now. Slowly offer veggies and slowly reduce the amount of meat. At that size they should be eating primarily veggies and maybe reptomin every other day.

[theguys]

Thanks a lot - I'll start today to wean them off the meat!

[Jessica313]

i would strongly suggest not feeding them raw meat. its just as unhealthy for turtles as it is for humans... a small cooked piece of chicken once and a while as a treat is fine, but other than that id stay away from it..

what kinds of raw meat do u feed them ?

also, how old is your turtle? as far as feeding goes, for turtles over one yr old, they should be fed the amount of food that would fit inside their head if hollow every other day. hope this helps =)

[theguys]

Thanks a lot for the info. Meat includes any raw red meat we are eating that dya, plus raw salmon, and pollock. The little one does have some pyramiding. As of today, they are being plied with veggies, while I wean them off the meat.

Thanks again

[cam722]

You should be feeding them a good commercial pellet like reptomin and supplement that with veggies. You can give them cooked meat, like boiled white chicken as a treat once a month but as you said one of your turtles already has some pyramiding. What age are your turtles? With the size they are you could probably feed them pellets every other day and veggies daily and they'd do just fine. Remember, they should only be fed as many pellets as would fit in their head if it were hollow, the head minus the neck

[flutterby]

And to get them off the meat, just offer them veggies and pellets. If they're hungry they'll learn to eat them.

[Kallistos]

Even if they don't immediately eat the veggies don't give in. If you do give in then they'll go into the mind set of, well as long as I don't eat it, he'll still give me what I want. Slowly ,but surely you'll get him to switch!

[industrial_girl_2000]

1. I let them walk around the house every day for variety. They usually head off under furniture and go to sleep. Should I be doing this? Do they like this? and
2. They won't eat pellets or veggies. They do like raw meat of any kind, fresh salmon, and those fake crab pollock sticks. I feed them every day. So, am I over feeding? Probably yes - how do I wean them off meat, and onto veggies. Should I let them starve a bit?

1.) Yes! You can let them walk around. I do this with my Sheba all the time. They can walk outside of the tank for up to 8 hours without water.

2.) The 7" turt you can feed every other day, the 4" turt every day. Read the following about how I got my turt to eat veggies:
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3998