Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, I went and did it good this time.

I own two approx. 15 month old stinkpots, one male, one female. I have fed them a variety of foods, pellets, chopped fish, earthworms, shrimp, periwinkles, crabs, etc. But for the last 2 months or so, I got a little lazy, and fed them mostly pellets.

Well, the male will now refuses earthworms, and only eats chopped fish and pellets. But here's the kicker, only a certain brand of pellets. It only wants Wardley's Reptile Sticks, not Reptomin. Reptomin is sniffed, sometimes daintily bit, but then always ignored.

The female devours Reptomin greedily.

My question, anyone have any experience with this behaviour? I want to balance out the diet, and don't want to be tied to one brand. Do I offer only worms or Reptomin until he finally breaks down and eats it?

I suppose the moral of the story is variety, variety, variety when it comes to food.

I feel really bad because those same sticks are all I feed mine. It's all they want! It's what the breeder I bought them from at a reptile show fed them apparently, so it's what they were used to. I didn't want them to starve and those are supposed to have complete nutrition, so I just keep feeding them to them since they make them so darned happy. I know variety is important, same with fish, but so is keeping them fed and happy, right?

Hahaha...some people may say you're lucky to have turtles that just want to eat sticks. After all, what more convenient way is there to feed a supposedly well-balanced diet? A dog or cat technically eats all sorts of stuff before they were domesticated but given canned foods definitely makes it less of a chore.

It is true though that nothing beats a varied diet, however. I'm sure there are certain things in different foods that Reptomin or Wardley didn't take into account of when making their formula.

What I would do is perhaps mash up the sticks and mix it with other foods so that they may slowly associate the smell or look of sticks with the other stuff you're offering. Then slowly wean them over. I feed mine sticks on a daily basis but I like to throw in fruit, feeder fish, tropical fish pellets, veggies, shrimp, snails, water plants, chicken, and all sorts of bugs to spice up their diet. Then again, I've heard of people who have raised turtles quite well on just sticks alone. =)

Johnny