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After weeks I finally saw my baby turtle eating! When I got him he had RI and an eye infection and wouldn't eat at all.
Instead of pellets and lettuce today, I decided to try dropping in a thin sliced carrot, watermelon, and a bit of the tuna. All foods that I had tried when he was sick. He went crazy for the tuna! I was so excited to see him finally eating. But... I'm worried that he might only eat that. I've tried pretty much every food that they can eat. Even worms! And he shows no interest.

I guess what I am asking is, is tuna even that good for them? And do you think now that he is finally eating he might see every thing else that I have been offering him as food? Or continue to not eat it? I've been insanely worried about his not eating. And now that he is I'm worried that he might not eat any thing but tuna! I'm sure that my cat won't mind all of the extra tuna. But I would rather a healthy turtle than a fat cat.

Tuna is a treat. If he really likes it, soak some pellets in the tuna water and let it dry a little before you give it to him.

Tunas too high in sodium. For meaty things I'd stick with bloodworms,krill, and perhaps carnivorous fish food, preferably frozen, not freeze dried.

steve wrote:Tuna is a treat. If he really likes it, soak some pellets in the tuna water and let it dry a little before you give it to him.

Tuna is an excellent way to "trick" your turtle to eat other things. Feed it once in a while. Then other times, soak the pellets or carrot slices or lettuce in tuna juice. They will think its tuna and eat it. Keep that up for a couple week and remove the tuna juice little by little and they will eat carrots or lettuce or pellets just fine!

if he is a baby, a couple of regular pellets a day is recommended, its okay to go more potien than veggies for a baby turtle

Meh Squishy wrote:After weeks I finally saw my baby turtle eating! When I got him he had RI and an eye infection and wouldn't eat at all.
Instead of pellets and lettuce today, I decided to try dropping in a thin sliced carrot, watermelon, and a bit of the tuna. All foods that I had tried when he was sick. He went crazy for the tuna! I was so excited to see him finally eating. But... I'm worried that he might only eat that. I've tried pretty much every food that they can eat. Even worms! And he shows no interest.

I guess what I am asking is, is tuna even that good for them? And do you think now that he is finally eating he might see every thing else that I have been offering him as food? Or continue to not eat it? I've been insanely worried about his not eating. And now that he is I'm worried that he might not eat any thing but tuna! I'm sure that my cat won't mind all of the extra tuna. But I would rather a healthy turtle than a fat cat.

Sliced Carrot is good but I'd ditch the watermelon(too much sugar) and tuna(too much sodium, and mercury too). Fruit should only be an occasional treat and when you do feed it, it'd be better to stick with berries or flowers(dandelion mainly). I'd just stick with the pellets, dark leafy lettuce(primarily red and green leaf, some romaine is ok and no iceberg), and some frozen bloodworms or krill once or twice a week. Garden slugs and earthworms are also good choices assuming your yard has no pesticide, I think it's a lot closer to what they'd find in a pond in the wild than something like tuna or chicken.