Feeding and Nutrition :: Regarding Blueberries

[Seroster]

So I hear blueberries can help turtles shed, and my lil guy/gal could certainly use more shedding, so I bought some frozen blueberries at the store.

Questions I have about this, are frozen blueberries OK? I don't know if I can find fresh ones, but I was concerned the freezing would leech out the useful nutrients.

Second question, how much/how often should I feed these to em to entice shedding? Once a day? Once a week? Every other day, like I do w/ lettuce & pellets?

Just feeling the waters.

[Turtle Mummy 101]

Seroster: don't worry, freezing blueberries actually locks in nutrients so you don't have to worry about them being any less nutritional. Secondly, I would say to feed them to your RES (thawed of course so they aren't hard as a rock ) about once a week. Of course, you shouldn't discontinue feeding the lettuce and pellets. Hope it works!!

[Sir Max]

forget that! any blueberries that enter my house are going into my mouth!


nom nom nom nom nom

[BullDog]

forget that! any blueberries that enter my house are going into my mouth!


nom nom nom nom nom

Hehe... Me too!

You can probably put the blueberries frozen right into the water. They'll thaw out in a few seconds anyhow.

As for how often, in general fruit should only be fed about once a month. Sweet potato also contains high vitamin E which helps shedding, and can be fed more often, about once a week.

[gwennie]

Frozen blueberries are better than fresh ones - they IQF them (individually quick freeze).

My turtle loves frozen blueberries. He mostly goes for the skin though - he leaves the water part of them on the bottom of the tank, or eats it and spits it back out.

I don't feed them that often because of their sugar content though.

It's pretty funny to see them the first time you put one in the tank - Timo went around fluttering behind this blueberry for ages before he decided to take a bite XD

[worldpeace]

My turtle is does exactly the opposite. He never eats the skin and that's why I peel it off before I feed him a blueberry. Else, I'll have a lot of tiny bits of peel to clean out from the bottom of the tank.

[Turtle Mummy 101]

I've never tried feeding Charlotte frozen blueberries, only fresh. I only feed her a couple (very rarely) as a snack but it's funny to watch her eat them. She loves to play with them and will poke them with her nose and swim around the tank holding onto it. Than she'll eat the skin and leave the inside part. Later she'll go back and finish the rest. She's not one to leave leftovers

[Seroster]

Heh, mine doesn't seem to like the skin much, he ate all the inside & left the skin on the bottom of his tank. So I peel the outside off before I give it to him, partially on account of when I cut them into smaller peices for consumption, the skin tends to come off anyway. Mine's not really one to leave things for "leftovers" he either eats it all at once or not at all. I've put really big peices of lettuce in there that I expect him to munch on all day, they're gone in 15-20 min.

[theartbook35]

I always freeze my blueberries. It really helped start their shedding. Typhoon has lost a lot of old scutes already.

I just drop them in their whole. Ty usually likes the insides, Cane prefers the skin. Either way, they get the same nutrients.

[Midas420]

Seems like the consensus is all our turtles LOVE blueberries...mine sure do! I feed a couple fresh blueberries every few weeks or so. Seems to really jump start the shedding process...start with a few weeks in between and see what works for your turtle.

[Moose]

LOL Blueberries and Sweet potatoes are DEFINETLY a high favorite of buster and eugene! Go for it!