Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 1 1/2 year old RES, I need to go on vacation for a few days, and have noone to take care of him. Will he be OK if he doesn't eat for 2 1/2 days?

No need to worry about 2 1/2 days. Many of my turts won't eat on a daily basis. Sometimes they are more content of eating a lot one day and not any the next 3 or 4 days. Maybe they are just picky or finiky, but at any rate you should not worry. You can always just put some anachorus, feeder fish, snails, etc...anything that lives in water for food. I am assuming you primarily are feeding a commercial pellet and that is your concern about not being able to give your turt while away. Try the things I suggested and in all reality if your turt does get that hungry during your vacation, he/she will either catch a fish or figure out what the heck that thing inside that shell is, or just eat the plants.

the turtle will be fine , just make sure he 's warm enough (and that your house won't burn down by any means you use to achieve this....leaving the house heat on may be safer if you are worried about unsupervised heat lamps)and make sure he can't get out. Usually people overfeed them the day before they go and then clean the tanlk water extra well after the heavy feedinga nf then just leave them with no food. if you want you can leave them with some live plants or fish. But 3 days is fine for not eating for a healthy turtle.

If he is medium sized, he can go for several months without food, in extreme situations. I once had a related species that escaped and wedged himself into a hidden area. I found him 10 weeks later without food or water and he survived many years afterwards.