Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Our school has an Eastern Box Turtle that's lived here for over 30 years. He was a rescue and has several healed cracks in his shell. He fell into my care last April and I since then I've been trying to give him the best care possible--he's been unknowingly neglected for a long time. He wasn't very strong, from lack of exercise and his shell had a recessed area over the spine so I figured he was probably suffering from MBD. I took him to my vet who recommended I try to vary his diet and give supplemental calcium. Here's where the problem began. For the last 30 years he has only eaten canadian night crawlers and apple slices (which he only eats when they are peeled--seriously). He wont eat anything with calcium powder on it or vitamin spray. The only thing I've been able to get him to eat are superworms which he will eat dusted with T-rex box turtle dust (he wont eat dusted earthworms or apples). How often should I be feeding him the dusted mealworms?

Over the summer he came with me to camp, we built him a roaming pen outdoors that he got to be in whenever people were in the field. He's much stronger now than before and we've got him some safe exercising locations in the school library under the sky lights.

Here is a list of things we discovered he won't eat, what should we try next?

crickets: live and canned
snails: live and canned
grasshoppers: live and canned
box turtle food: dry or canned
cockroaches
squash
tomatoes
pears
corn
lettuces or cabbage

Thanks for any advice in advance,

Randy

mushrooms
DeadFish Herpetological

At least you know what it WILL eat, which is a place to start!

Have you tried chopping up apple and mixing it with other items?
Or serving up cut up nightcrawler with another food?

Also, try berries: strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and maybe mix them with the apple pieces. Or canteloupe.

Slugs are also a delicacy, as are small snails, pill bugs, grubs, millipedes.

Another thought is that it has grown accustomed to being fed in a certain place: have you completely altered its enclosure? That may be throwing it off balance with lots of changes in rapid succession.

Something to keep in mind is that it may be gearing up for hibernation and is losing interest in eating, period. 'Tis the season.

Hope some of this helps
Stephanie

p.s. Mine won't touch store bought button mushrooms: they devour the toxic looking ones I find in the woods, though.

Thanks for the advice. I haven't changed his school environment too much (other than adding some more space) so I don't think that's the problem. I'll try some berries. I haven't tried mixing the apples with other things because he usually gets bigger pieces, but I'll chop them up smaller and see if he still eats them. He won't eat any worm or insect that isn't moving so I don't think I can chop up the earthworms--not to mention that his fact of life feeding methods on live prey increase his educational value to the students.

Thanks again

Randy
DeadFish Herpetological

Worms still wiggle after they've been cut into smaller pieces. I have hatchlings for whom I cut up worms, and believe me, the worm sections still move plenty.
Also, in the greater scheme of things, wouldn't it also be an opportunity to teach a little bit about nutritional needs while you work on improving your turtle's diet? I know its cool for kids to watch animals feed on other animals, but, since in this case, box turtles are omnivorous, it would actually be more appropriate for the kids to observe the turtle feeding on a greater variety of foods.

My outdoor boxies like to find their own food but they can't resist some banana and plums.Berries are eaten also.And yes, cut up worms wiggle for a very long time.My hatchlings will only eat worms in small pieces.

Mine also love their cooked brocolli

Mine also love their cooked brocolli (mispelled I think) carrots,cauliflower, squash, clemintine, blueberries, watermelon, pinapple, and they will eat the fluker farms box turtle food but only wet, they also enjoy tomato, green or red or orange bell pepper, romaine lettuce, they also enjoy cherries depitted. What I've noticed is that you have to experiment experiment experiment. They also seem to strongly favor bright colors such as red, green, yellow, and orange.

Good luck