Feeding and Nutrition :: Is this a decent feeding schedule?

[Rubicon]

Sunday:
Carrots

Monday:
Pellets

Tuesday:
Lettuce

Wednsday:
Pellets

Thursday:
Carrots

Friday:
Pellets

Saturday:
Cuttlebone

[Raphulk]

As appealing and diverse that feeding schedule is, it isn't ideal. Apples are too much to give on a weekly basis. the rest seems good though.

I know some people that keep a cuttlebone in there throughout the week, they usually stick around for a long time.

I personally don't even have a written schedule anymore
I just feed them pellets daily and lettuce whenever Im too lazy to put water in the separate feeding containers haha

[untsmurf]

I would only offer carrots once a week. You could get two different kinds of lettuce if you're looking for variety. Or an aquatic plant.

Or you could have:
Su:lettuce
M:pellets
T: lettuce
W: pellets
R:lettuce
F: Variety
Sa: lettuce

And on the variety day, you could change what you offer, one week carrots, then shrimp, sweet potato, anacharis, some kind of fruit, etc.

This way, your turtles diet has variety, but it's in moderation and your turtle still gets everything he/she needs.

[novroz]

you give them in daily basis...was I doing it wrong??

My schedule is
Morning : veggie
Night : Pellets
all day : cuttlebone.

[TheComputerGremlin]

Novroz - As long as they are getting a head-sized amount of pellets daily if under 4" shell length or a half-head-sized amount daily if over 4", you can feed pellets daily. As for veggies, lettuce is the only veggie allowed daily. Carrots are once per week, apples once per week, etc. And if you have given carrots already, you probably shouldn't give any other veggies or fruits that have sugar in them.

Rubicon - I would up the lettuce intake (since it's essentially a freebie for feeding) and decrease the carrot intake. You can feed smaller portions of anything you want more often, so you can split 1 serving of carrots up into 2 half-servings for feedings on different days. That's pretty much what I do. That gives that variety that appeals to humans while making sure the sugar intake isn't sky-high.

My feeding schedule basically is: M-Sa - Morning - 6-7 pellets; evening - shell-sized piece of lettuce or 3-4 slivers of carrot (like peels of carrot, with a peeler). Alternating days I give a head-sized piece of cuttlebone because she'd blow through a whole bone daily if I let her. And Sun, I've been giving her 2 freeze-dried gut-loaded crickets instead of pellets. Her special treat. And if anyone complains about feeding too much protein, 2 of those crickets are a half-head-size. Oh, and for comparison, I have a 5 or so inch turtle.

[ESG4Life]

i cant get crickets here are cockroaches alright? anyways like untsmurf said, apple on a weekly basis is too much, maybe like once a month.......

[TheComputerGremlin]

I think any type of bug is okay, as long as you know where it came from. If you are feeding cockroaches (yuck!), you want them to be hand-raised or from a pet store. The ones I have are in a plastic bottle and are dead/preserved. You can probably buy them online and have them shipping over.

[ESG4Life]

i know! ill go get roach eggs from my garage and raise them for food!!!

[novroz]

Novroz - As long as they are getting a head-sized amount of pellets daily if under 4" shell length or a half-head-sized amount daily if over 4", you can feed pellets daily. As for veggies, lettuce is the only veggie allowed daily.

My feeding schedule basically is: M-Sa - Morning - 6-7 pellets; evening - shell-sized piece of lettuce or 3-4 slivers of carrot (like peels of carrot, with a peeler). Alternating days I give a head-sized piece of cuttlebone because she'd blow through a whole bone daily if I let her.

the bigger ones has to eat less pellet, is that what you mean? if it is, damn...I've been doing it wrong. Kame is more than 7inch (she was overgrown) and always received head sized pellet while kroten which less than 5 inch got half. I'll change it tonight.

Lettuce is a big problem for me!! kame hates it!! she barely touch it. I give her kangkung (indonesian water plant-I don't know if it exist in US too) and turnip green in turn or combined both of them.

Is it okay to give cuttlebone that way? I mean not everyday? Coz kame sometimes poop undigest cuttlebone (I have my own thread for this one)

thx

[TheComputerGremlin]

novroz, yeah, both of your turtles should get a half-head-sized amount daily or a head-sized amount every other day. Since Kame is bigger, she'll receive more pellets, but not too many more. Smaller turtles rely almost solely on the protein to grow, but once their growth slows down around 4", you need to decrease the protein intake, or they will get pyramiding.

With lettuce, try different lettuces. Sometimes they prefer one over another. Keep trying until you find something she likes. Also, as you decrease the protein amount, she may take to the lettuce better.

And I only give cuttlebone like that because my turtle literally is always eating something, she's nuts! If I put a whole cuttlebone in there, she'd munch through it, either because she wants to or she's bored, who knows. So I give head-sized chunks to regulate her munching. Some turtles will only munch on it when they want it. I guess it depends on your turtle. But there's certainly no harm in regulating your turtle's cuttlebone if they abuse it.

[novroz]

okay I will try to look for other lettuce. All lettuce is okay? (I mean, except for iceberg lettuce).

[TheComputerGremlin]

Depends on the calcium and phosphorus levels. You can google almost anything to find it, or post it on here and someone may know. Iceberg lettuce is bad for them, it just has little nutritional value, so it's not worth eating. Meanwhile, spinach is bad for them because it inhibits the calcium absorption due to a chemical it contains. You want a calcium to phosphorus ratio of greater than 1, but the higher, the better (so more calcium). Leaf lettuces and dandelion greens are excellent, but different countries have different names and different lettuces around.

[novroz]

these are Kame's fav Ipomoea aquatica (kangkung in Iondenesian) and turnip green, I give both of those veggie in turn each day.

and carrot or sweet potato or apple peel once a week

is that okay?? I couldn't find what's in ipomoea, but people in my country said it contain hingh iron

[novroz]

just found it

Analyses of the nutritional composition of water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) Forsk leaves were carried out using standard methods of food analysis. The proximate composition as well as mineral elements were determined. The leaves were found on dry weight basis to have high moisture (72.83±0.29%), ash (10.83±0.80%), crude lipid (11.00±0.50%), crude fibre (17.67±0.35%) and available carbohydrate (54.20±0.68%), but low in crude protein content (6.30±0.27%). The leaves also have energy value (300.94±5.31 kcal/100 g) that is within the range reported in some Nigerian leafy vegetables. The mineral element contents were high with remarkable concentration of K (5,458.33±954.70 mg/100 g) and Fe (210.30±2.47 mg/100 g). Also the leaves content moderate concentrations of Na (135.00±2.50 mg/100 g), calcium (416.70±5.77 mg/100 g), Magnesium (301.64±12.69 mg/100 g) and P (109.29±0.55 mg/100 g), with low Cu (0.36±0.01 mg/100 g), Mn (2.14±0.22 mg/100 g) and Zn (2.47±0.27 mg/100 g) contents. Comparing the mineral content with recommended dietary allowance, it was showed that the plant leaves is good sources of K, Mn and Fe for all categories of people, while Mg is adequate enough for adult female and children.

is that okay?? it's Kame's most favorite food, she would much it even before I finish clipping it

[steve]

I'm not sure what all that data means, is phosphorus represented?