Bucky is a half-grown female Western Painted Turtle, caught wild about 8 months ago. We put her in an outside tank and she began eating immediately, quickly learning to beg for food whenever someone came near. We fed her twice a day, and she grew at least 1/2" (from 3-1/2" to about 4".

We brought her inside in September. This is Minnesota, so it was getting pretty cool outside and maybe we waited a little bit long. She had already started to slow down and eat a bit less. But after we moved her indoors she stopped eating completely for TWO MONTHS! Honest, she did not eat a bite! She had a heated tank with basking and heat lamps, and she seemed perfectly healthy and alert. But when we dropped food in her tank she would swim over and sniff at it, but not eat.

In November she suddenly got a burst of energy and became ravenous again. She now swims around like crazy, and begs for food if you come near her tank or even wave at her from across the room. We're feeding her a mixture of ground beef and moist turtle food, with a bit of turtle vitamins. She has never shown any interest in vegetables, but since she seems to be thriving on this diet we figure it must be good for her. I think she's started growing again, although it's hard to measure a squirming turtle.

Our question is... is it possible to overfeed a turtle? She eats ravenously twice a day, consuming probably 1/2 teaspoon each time. My husband likes to impale a ball of meat on a toothpick or skewer and hold it over the water; she swims after it and lunges athletically into the air to grab it. He stops feeding her when she stops lunging for the food, although she will actually eat more if you drop it into the tank. After a couple of hours she starts begging again, and by late evening she is scrabbling frantically for food again.

Everything we've read suggests that turtles only need to eat every couple of days, but there's no denying that she's hungry more often than that. Are we not feeding her enough at a time? How much food does a turtle of this size need?

And what's with the 2-month hunger strike? I've heard that snakes often go through cycles where they don't eat for weeks or months at a time. Is this part of the normal yearly cycle for turtles?

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