Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Someone recently asked me how often to feed their turtle & I used my standard answer "every other day".. they asked why?
I stood there & thought to myself because that's the way it's done & then I thought too, why?
We don't want them to be obese of course but I thought actually it depends on the situation such as the health of the turtle, age, the amount of exercise it gets, other factors but for a normal healthy adult...
So I started looking around at different box turtle articles & found that some say every other day, some 3 times per week, some twice per week & got to thinking hmmmmmmmmm.
Thinking about it, Hobo the wild boy who's outdoors year round eats when opportunity walks in front of him. He does now chase me for food when he wants me to feed him but all summer long he did that about every other day sometimes just twice a week. I know he found some food on his own out there, he never did chase me every day.

Made me wonder just how often do all of you feed your turtles during spring & summer?
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PHRatz

I offer food every day except when I see that they are not eating, then I skip a day.

same here i offer food daily

Every 2-3 days.
Mine also forage on various goodies in the pen: slugs, worms, crickets, caterpillars, beetles, grubs, etc.
At this point I have several years of records on their weights, so I can say that this routine maintains them at healthy weights throughout the season and gets them into good shape for hibernation.
I think that in the wild they eat when food is available, which may be daily, maybe not. Mine have food available to them on a regular basis and can eat as much or as little as they choose: they seem capable of regulating their intake well.

Not taking into account the age of the turtle...I think it depends on what you feed them. If you offer lots of greens and other veggies like Steph, I think it's fine to offer food every day. If you offer insects like Ratz, I think that's fine every day too. If you allow your turtles to pig out on higher calorie and fatty prepared foods...not so good. Occasionally, it'll probably be ok. You just can't do it every day, or even every other day. Another thing that factors in is temperature. It stays very warm down here even at night. The turtles will burn more calories. In some areas, it gets very cold at night even during the summer. This will slow the turtles' metabolisms.

Species vary too. Ornates are TONS more active than Easterns, in general. My ornates require more volumes of food than any other species I have.

The very best thing to do is to regularly monitor weights like Steph. I do this religiously with my growing turtles. I'm too neglectful in this capacity with my adults. I have a Blanding's turtle that requires TWICE DAILY feedings in order to grow. It's a pain...I had to set up an aquarium style automatic feeder. The other Blandings are just fine with once daily. So, it also depends on the individual turtle.

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>>Made me wonder just how often do all of you feed your turtles during spring & summer?
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>>PHRatz

You are already familiar with the special mix I make up for our babies at work lol. The box/wood turtles get fed every day. However, the amount of food given is NOT enough to feed all of them. We feed them about half of what they could be getting as some days some turtles are hungry while others are not. There is less food wasted this way by the turtles. Most of the wasted food however is because our teen volunteers are just plain sloppy and don't seem to follow instructions very well. They either do not divide the food properly between the turtles and the dragons or more commonly they remove too much from the freezer to put in the fridge to thaw for the next day... I'm like how hard is it to remember to take out only 1 bag of food for the next day.. not 3-6 bags. sheesh.
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PHWyvern

Ok so you all answered with a lot of common sense here... of course I knew you would.
It's not just about how often but what you feed them. In summer 2005 when I had 3 outside 24/7 I was not feeding them daily because they weren't coming to me for food daily.
I can always tell when they want food by the way the come after me when they see me lol.
This year I had the 3 girls in the house most of the time & they have wanted food daily.. but they weren't outside where they could pick up a bug at will. I made them stay inside because I kept thinking ok any day my pen construction will start & I didn't want them meeting up with Mr. Macho aka Hobo.
Hobo wasn't after me for food daily but he was outside all summer. Reminds me of a story.. I'll have to make a new post for that one.

I have been feeding them pretty much daily this year but I seldom give them any type of commercial food, it's all fresh so I guess I have no reason to feel worried about that. I check their weights too maybe not as often as some of you do but their weights stay pretty consistent all the time, they don't look fat or skinny either.

I had no idea that the ornates are more active than other species.. whether indoors or out they march around for at least 2 hours a day so I know they do get a lot of exercise.

Thanks for the input. I started questioning myself when it came up because I really hadn't given it much thought lately.
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PHRatz