I have bought some prawns & muscle meat for the turtles. How much and how often should these be fed? Shall I alternate them - for example:
Monday - portion of mussel meat
Tuesday - pellets
Wednesday - prawns
Thursday - pellets
Friday - mussel

and so on...?

Maybe give them a smaller portion and feed every day as above? Or would you still stick to every other day?

I have tried putting a romaine lettuce leaf in the tank but apart from sniffing it, it was ignored!

Oh Gosh I have no idea sorry,I feed King British Complete Turtle and Terrapin food it has loads of yucky things in,shrimps and other creepy things and I also offer a cricket or locust or a worm twice a week

Thanks Jackie, how often do you feed the pellets?

Anyone else have any advice on my first post? Please???

Hi Dawn

I really don't have a clue. But I do think I would alternate the foods as you said. With the pellets being fed in between. I think the more varied the diet the better. And I think I would go along with the old saying, little and often is the best way to feed, whether you are animal or human.

Gail
xx

Thanks Gail, I now have another dilema...

Do I defrost the fish before giving it to them or give it to them frozen??????!!!!!!

Not sure if it is the same thing, but when I had tropical fish, I used to put the blood worm in frozen and the water temp would defrost it. but with it being a more solid fish you are feeding it may not defrost as fast as bloodworm. So I think defrost first. and I would only feed bits at a time, because any uneaten fish bits must surely muck up the water even with a filter?

What do you think?? Does that sound like a plan?

Gail
xx

Dawn,

Your musks are sub adult size so the usual rule of thumb is an amount of food that would fill their head every two days. I've altered this for mine to feeding half that amount every day. In a seven day period I'd feed pellets for four days and fresh stuff the other three. It's tricky getting suppliments onto food dropped into water but you can either stuff some into the food or I find if you coat your mussels, shrimp etc (broken up into bite size pieces) in either a multivitamin suppliment or calcium power then leave it to dry out, some will stick. This is where turtle pudding is useful, the suppliments are bound in by gelatine.

With the pellets included in the diet you dont have to suppliment every time. Keep a lump of cuttlefish in the water and if you ever find small, empty snail shells, boil them up and drop them in the tank. Musks and muds are big snail eaters and I'd think a lot of their natural calcium come from snails and snail shells.

I always drop frozen food into boiling water before feeding it to my turtles. If you are going to feed frozen fish, I'd only recommend salmon or trout. There is a nutritional deficiency associated with turtles and most frozen fish (see http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Articles/Thiaminase.htm ).

On the Romaine, its just a filler really. Some turtles will eat it, some don't. My Maps and spotted turtles love it, my muds eat if if they're hungry.

How spooky is that!!! I was just about to shout out for you Kirkie!!!

Ok I'm a bit confused Are you saying I shouldn't feed prawns & muscles at all, or just not frozen - as in defrost them before feeding????

I'm going to attempt to make the turtle puding. Do you make a big pudding and freeze it into ice cube trays? Then just defrost what you need when you need it?

I will also get some pond snails for them, but understand that these breed like crazy! I have bought a piece of cuttlefish which I have put in the tank for them.

Frozen shellfish is ok, just defrost it. Frozen fish need caution. Not sure what a lump of frozen meat would do to the stomach of a cold blooded reptile but it can't be anything good.

I make a big lump of turtle pudding and divide it up just before the gelatin sets, then freeze it and defrost chunks as I need them.

Be careful with pond snails. Try and get some captively cultivated ones from EBay not out of a pond. There is a liver fluke whose life cycle includes water snails and turtles.

You can feed them small, empty land snail shells and I also feed them these if I happen to tread on one accidently.

A good alternative to these are dried snails

http://shop.naturesgrub.co.uk/Dried-Snails

And mine love the dried whole crayfish from the same supplier but only on their Ebay site

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/natures-grub/T ... =438467016


(Sandy may be interested to know that Box Turtles like these too).

Cheers Dave, as always, a lifesaver! Source of knowledge!!!!