Turtles are omnivores, feeding on everything from fish, insects and vegetation in the wild. In captivity they require commercially prepared turtle pellets as well as live food as well as vegetables and fruit to survive.
Avoid feeding your turtle bread (and other highly processed human foods), which could wreak havoc with their digestive systems and dairy products aren’t recommended either.
Contents
Fish
Though turtles in the wild often consume fish, feeding them fish may pose health risks such as salmonella infections. Furthermore, this food does not meet their nutritional requirements and could even make them dependent on humans and lose their wariness of people in their natural environments.
An often made misstep when providing turtles with food is giving them bread, which is high in sugar and flour that they have difficulty digesting. Furthermore, oily foods should also be avoided; examples include French Fries, Donuts and Onion Rings. Furthermore, dairy products containing lactose that is difficult for turtles to process should also be avoided as much as possible.
Be sure to provide leafy vegetables such as dandelion greens, collard greens, and bok choy as these foods contain essential vitamins and minerals for reptile health. However, be careful with which vegetables you offer your reptile, since some such as rhubarb, spinach and beet greens contain high concentrations of oxalic acid which inhibit reptiles’ ability to absorb calcium effectively.
Meat
Turtles in the wild are opportunistic feeders that will consume almost anything available to them in their environment. Adult loggerhead turtles tend to prefer meatier foods like crabs and fish while olive ridley turtles prefer eating both plants and sea animals.
Pet turtles require a diet composed of commercially available turtle pellets, live insects and leafy vegetables for proper care. Avoid feeding bread or processed foods which can lead to serious gastrointestinal issues; only give small quantities of berries as these may be choking hazards for turtles. Babies should be fed daily while older ones at least every other day – excess food will end up sinking to the bottom of the tank and lead to water quality issues.
Vegetables
Turtles, reptiles with soft bodies concealed behind hard shells, tend to be herbivorous in the wild and should primarily consume vegetables for their diets; with regard to baby painted turtles however, animal prey should make up only approximately 50% of their meals.
Please don’t feed raw meat or fish to turtles as these may carry salmonella and make you sick. Instead, offer earthworms, mealworms, crickets, and grasshoppers instead.
As far as vegetables go, offer watermelons, honeydew melons, cantaloupe, carrots, squash, romaine lettuce and most leafy greens as well as dandelion leaves, berries and most fruit to your turtle. Incorporating pelleted food made specifically for turtles into their diet may help meet protein requirements more efficiently – check with a reptile veterinarian about what would work best for your particular species of turtle!
Insects
While it can be tempting to feed turtles animal prey, it’s wiser to refrain from doing so. Animals such as insects or small rodents could contain harmful bacteria and parasites which could make your turtle ill and cause nutritional imbalances leading to diseases like metabolic bone disease and shell deformation.
Instead of feeding them only dry food, make sure you feed your turtles a variety of fresh foods to give them all of the essential nutrition for optimal growth and development. Examples of healthy options for turtle diets are romaine lettuce, dandelion leaves, kale, carrots, squash peas and most fruits (particularly those with a higher ratio of calcium to phosphorus) such as peas or berries; also consider offering regular offerings of earthworm casts which contain protein and calcium! Finally offer occasional treats of earthworm casts which contain protein as well as calcium source!
Caterpillars
Turtles in the wild are opportunistic feeders, feeding on whatever is available at that particular moment. Sea and freshwater turtles feed on fish, worms, insects and algae while others opt for more plant-based meals such as leafy greens, fruits and grasses.
Pet owners sometimes feed their turtles caterpillars as a source of protein, but this poses health risks. Caterpillars may contain Salmonella bacteria while their prickly exteriors may cause them to choke on them. Furthermore, most caterpillars contain too much phosphorus compared to calcium content which could result in metabolic bone disease; in order to prevent this it would be best to use feeder insects such as hornworms with an appropriate calcium-to-phosphorus ratio or wax worms and mealworms instead.
