Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My Eastern Box turtle just recently started to eating food after refusing to eat for around 6 months. (We took him to two different vets and neither could figure out what was wrong with him). He has always been a very light eater and on the skinny side since I've had him (about 4 years) so needless to say he is underweight. Are there any suggestions for foods that I should be feeding him that are very nutritious. Plus does anyone have any suggestions on how to get him to eat things he doesn't want to. I've tried chopping into little pieces, sprays, not feeding him anything else (I went about a month before I gave up on that one), with all of them he just won't eat it.

There's nothing better than fat earthworms. It may be hard to find them this time of year. WalMart sells them for fishing bait and you can buy them online in a pinch.

Ditto, earthworms and nightcrawlers are probably my turtles' favorite things. I have also had great luck with superworms, especially with juveniles and adults.

One very common reason for why a turtle will not eat is one or more deficiencies in care. It may be worth it for you to give us as many details as possible regarding housing, temperatures, humidity, substrate, etc.. I am not saying that this is definitely the cause of your problem, but it is worth the consideration.

ReptoMin contains vitamins. Some keepers feed it and only it to their turtles. It's mainly for water turtles, but my box turtles like it alot. The best route to go is to put the turtle in a pan of shallow water with the ReptoMin (which are floating food sticks). This food contains fish oil, which has a smell that is attractive to turtles. ReptoMin is available online as well as at many pet stores that carry turtles.

Tim

Third Eye

Reptomin is a great prepared food for box turtles. I soak it a little for the babies, but the adults prefer it dry and crunchy. It's a well rounded, pretty balanced diet and if you can get a turtle to eat it consistently, even if he's picky about other things, he'll be getting his basic nutritional needs. Live food and a variety of fruits and vegetables along with the pelleted food will cover all the bases.

Interesting when, I read the initial question my first thought was nightcrawlers, then reptomin or Wardleys turtle food for the vits and mins, so you guys already covered that, one thing I will add is that when I wanted to get my 3toes to start eating the turtle food as a main staple (to be supplimented with fresh stuff as well) I would lightly moisted the turtle sticks with water then put 1/4 pieces of nightcrawler on top still wriggling but small enough that the sticks would stick and go into the mouth with the worm pieces. This little trick might help get an underweight turtle a quick beef up. You might also try a cut in half pinkie or fuzzy mouse, the cut in half gets that blood and flesh smell strong for enticement.
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake
1.1 Blue garter (Puget Sound)

Wax worms are very high in fat, so feeding this to your eastern will help weight gain. They tend to be small, so many people skip them for bigger turtles. But after a LOT of waxies are eaten frequently, your turtle will gain weight.

Problem around here is that I can't find live wax worms right now - and my turtle rarely eats them unless they're alive. The sporting goods store that sells them for bait says the ones they have are alive, but I can tell by looking at their refrigerated ones that they are most likely dead (even when cold the wriggle at least a little). The pet store I go to has not had any waxies for a long time.

Last spring, I discovered that some Walmart stores carry waxworms. Select stores that are located near prime fishing areas will receive boxes of waxworm cartons from the main worm supplier for Walmart stores...DMF Bait Co.. You can actually contact DMF to get a list of the closest Walmart stores carrying waxworms. I found one within a short drive from my typical territory. They are about 1.88 per carton, which contain (I think) 40 worms. That's not bad. I have purchased so many waxworms and nighcrawlers from this Walmart, they won an award from DMF for live bait sales.