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So yesterday, I was able to hand feed Brixie a good meal.

I gave her a few Pellets, all by hand, and she seemed to enjoy them. Then I went upstairs and got a baby carrot and a knife, cut it into small discs of orange, and she happily ate all of the carrots out of my hands. (A baby carrot is about an inch long) She really seemed to love the carrot pieces, and when a piece fell, she ignored it and continued eating out of my hand. Then, after I was done, she immediately dove down and pushed the rocks about the size of her body out of the way to get to a small piece of carrot on the bottom of the tank. I then tried to feed her pieces of Cuttlebone. She would bite them out of my hands and then spit them out, unfortunately. To get her to get more calcium in her diet, I'll either make jello shots, or find some other veggies with high calcium in them. I also got a good look at her face, her eyes and skin look really healthy, but her top shell seems a bit eroded, but it feels as hard as metal when I hold her. There was a bit of algae growth on it that I'm trying to get rid of.

So "By Hand" I mean I hold the food above the surface of the water and she swims up and bites it out of my fingers (she used to bite my fingers too, but now she just bites the food directly). It is exciting seeing her get so excited about it though!

Is there any reason why you want it to hand-feed? You don't want to make it dependent on that method of eating. Also, carrots are very healthy but should be more of a treat than an every-day food.

Some shell pictures would be helpful, too!

Hand Feeding her seems to give her more exercise. I don't do it normally. This is the first time I've fed her carrots in years.

I'll try to post shell pictures soon.

Jeremiah wrote:Is there any reason why you want it to hand-feed? You don't want to make it dependent on that method of eating.

Why not? It's a wonderful way for George and I to bond.

Yeah and Brixie isn't hard to feed otherwise. She just get's so excited when I shake the food container than when I put the pellets in the water, she doesn't notice them until I walk away.