Feeding and Nutrition :: Homemade veggie turtle flakes for the picky turtle

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Post Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 3:27 am   Homemade veggie turtle flakes for the picky turtle

So I've been feeding Onion with these homemade veggie flakes and I seem to have a good amount of success. I will post the recipe here so that it can serve as inspiration/guideline for others, and so that I can get some feedback and criticism on how to make the recipe better.

Background: I've been having a very hard time trying to get Onion to eat vegetables. I've offered fresh veggies every day and he just sits in the water and ignores them, or takes a bite and spits it out. I've tried red and green leaf lettuce, kale, watercress, zuccini, and dandelions. I've also tried it in every way possible (whole leaves, chopped, chiffonade'd, dunked in tuna water). The only thing that he seems to eat with gusto is cucumber, which I know doesn't have much nutritional content and it's a bit of a useless food.

I've also made him turtle jelly, but he sometimes has trouble biting at the big piece of frozen jelly and once he does bite through it, it mostly just breaks apart into the water. So I've been thinking of making my own veggie pellets to at least get some vegetables into him while I continue to coax him with fresh vegetables.

The attempt at pellet making turned out more of a flake, which is alright by me since it's actually easier to work with. You'll need a dehydrator or DIY one yourself (which is deceivingly simple. I just stacked a few fine mesh screens together and put a fan next to it for 12 hours). But Onion absolutely LOVES these, he would vacuum these up within minutes. I'm happy because it gets a LOT of vegetables into him (since the flakes are dehydrated) with no trouble. He does get his regular mix of pellets and fresh veggies offered daily, in addition to the veggie flakes.

Here is the recipe. Please let me know if I'm missing/have too much of something so I can adjust it on the next batch.

Begin with:
One head of red leaf lettuce
One bunch of kale
One bunch of dandelions
Two bunches of watercress
One zucchini
Blanch all vegetables and drain. Puree all vegetables and drain of some excess liquid. Add:

1/2 cup Mazuri aquatic turtle pellets
1/4 cup Hikari wheat germ pellets
1/4 cup Omega One pellets
I can't seem to find Omega One turtle sticks in Canada, so I use Omega One chichlid pellets instead. The ingredients are very similar as far as I can tell.

Blend all ingredients again. Add:
Calcium powder, 3 tablespoons
Optional:
Spirulina powder, 1 tablespoon
Kelp powder, 1 teaspoon

Stir until all powders are combined evenly into the mixture. Spread paste onto dehydrator tray or DIY tray and dehydrate until completely dry. Your paste will now look like a thick, rough piece of heavy card paper. Cut into bite-size pieces (I have cut mine to 5mm x 5mm or about 1/5 inch x 1/5inch) using clean scissors and store in airtight container. I keep mine in the freezer in case bacteria does develop in the dried flakes. Serve about 30 flakes at a time. The water will he-hydrate the flakes slightly.

Here is Onion already snapping up his veggie flakes while I'm trying to get a picture:

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Post Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 6:49 pm   Re: Homemade veggie turtle flakes for the picky turtle

Looks interesting. How many flakes does the recipe create?
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Post Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 10:56 pm   Re: Homemade veggie turtle flakes for the picky turtle

I have no idea. I'd say around 1000 or so (it's a lot of cutting!) but I lost a lot of the mixture transferring it between bowls etc.
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Post Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 11:09 pm   Re: Homemade veggie turtle flakes for the picky turtle

That is really cool. I think I will try some of these for my girls. They love to eat raw veggies, but this could be easier at times.
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Post Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 2:52 pm   Re: Homemade veggie turtle flakes for the picky turtle

Eltemp wrote:That is really cool. I think I will try some of these for my girls. They love to eat raw veggies, but this could be easier at times.

Dehydrating destroys vitamin C and carotenes, so if they like fresh vegetables, that may be the better option.
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