Posted by:
PHRatz
at Wed May 3 12:13:55 2006 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by PHRatz ]
>>Can someone tell me how can you tell if a turtle is over weight? Our baby Squirt(about 2 years old?)was outside for the first time this year and he had trouble walking, he swims like a flash and gets up and down on his rocks, but is very awkward on land. It was like it took great effort for him to go a short distance, where as last year he could scoot and run like a hatchling...do they get this way as they grow up? He eats about one medium size earthworm a day, sometimes egg...very picky.(I've posted before on this subject and have been trying other things...)
Uh oh.. that sounds more like the symptoms of a calcium deficiency than being over weight. When they are over weight they look fat, you'll see a lot of "meat" protruding out the leg openings. When they have trouble walking then that sounds much more serious than a weight problem. Do you have UV/B fluorescent lighting for him or are you able to take him outside for real sunlight? Real sunlight is the best. His diet sounds like it's definately lacking calcium if he's only eating an earthworm a day. He needs to eat a huge variety & he needs his food loaded with vitamins & calcium. Try giving him whole live fish, such as minnows. If he can eat a small whole live fish then he'll get a lot of calcium through the fish scales & it's bones. I am not big on pellet foods, because they don't eat pellets in the wild, I like mine to eat a diet that's as close to wild as I can get; however, I do feed mine some pellet food 2-3 times per month because there is a lot of added vitamins & minerals in the pellets. If you could get him to eat a little Mazuri turtle pellet food or Reptomin.. it'd help.
If you really cannot get him to take other foods right away, you should see a vet because a vet can treat this quickly for now then you can work on the diet later. Let us know how it goes and good luck! ----- PHRatz
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