redearslider.com

Until now I've fead my RES a mixture of different greens and the pellets. Recently I heard that carrots are good for RES and bring out their color, so I cut up a few and put them in the tank. As far as I can tell, he hasn't eaten any and they're just sitting on the bottom of the tank.

How can I entice him to eat them? How long can I keep these in there without having any negative effects on the water or my turtle?

Part of it could be because they sink to the bottom instead of floating. How did you cut them up? I've found my turtle eats them more when I buy the ones that are cut up like matchsticks. They float a little (for about 30 seconds anyway) and they are easiest for him to bite.

I wouldn't leave them in your tank too long. Maybe a few hours at the most.

If they are cut too thick, it would be hard for him to bite into. Koopa will only eat carrots slivered with a vegetable peeler because they are super thin and flat. They also float through the water for a while and he likes "sneaking up" on them. I guess he considers them prey.

I only feed them carrots outside of the tank because they sink. I slice them with a carrot peeler.

As far as the basking area, can you build something? How big is the tank? For my 125gal I use a milk crate turned upside down with slate rock on top.

I use a peeler as well and try to make the slices thinnish and wavy like worms. My RES likes to rip them apart. Some times a piece gets impaled on his long nails and he has to bring his paw toward his face to be able to bite at it. It kind of looks like he's eating with this hand.

haha marisa, that must be funny to watch.

Thanks for the tips guys, I bought the little carrot sticks that you can dip and eat, but I just cut them into tiny pieces and let them sink, so maybe I'll try using a peeler. It should work better, I'll let you know.

Jen, I'm not too sure what you mean by the basking area, I didn't really ask a question about it

Brianthedog18 wrote:
Jen, I'm not too sure what you mean by the basking area, I didn't really ask a question about it

I must've mixed your post up with someone else's

Hey; My turtle wont eat greens for anything....but he LOVES carrots. So, one time i tried to give him a thick carrot and he completely ignored it.

You have to slice them up EXTREMELY thin, like hair-thin so they look like elongated pellets. When they are thin, they move around in the water like prey which also attracts turtles.

So, cut up your carrots MAD thin and then it'll eat em

my turtles refuse to eat the carrots even thought they are sliced extremely thin

Steffali, have you tried cooking them lightly to soften them? It was a thought, although maybe they just don't like the taste.

I know it sounds silly, but the first time I got my RES to eat carrots was when they were in my chinese take-out. They were sliced very thin & long. I washed them off (to get the salt off) & fed them to Sheba. I think she thought they were worms & gobbled them right up.

Keep in mind that up until 2 weeks ago when I found this site, I had never fed Sheba any veggies because I didn't know they could eat them. She went 16 yrs with many varieties of pellets, fish, catfood, live worms, guppies, etc., but NO veggies. She's health/happy, but I would like to keep her that way so I started adding veggies into her diet (mixed with a little bit of canned cat food).

So if I can get my turtle to eat new things after 16 yrs, so can you! Check out my progress with Sheba in the thread "16+ RES Sheba is finally eating veggies!"