Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was reading a post from earlier in the week and someone mentioned that indoor turtles know the season and their appetites change; that they decrease. Is this really true?

My turtle has actually been hungrier in the last couple of weeks. He isn't even flinching away when I put my hand in the tank to place the floating sticks (I prefer to lay them against the tank wall in a corner). He's also attacking the cuttle bone pieces that I put in the tank. In the last week or so, he's managed to eat almost a third of a large cuttle bone (yes, I did remove the back plastic in case anyone wonders).

Something else that I find really interesting is the fact that he's shed the last of his scutes just before the weekend and now I've noticed that he's shedding skin. Do they shed scutes and skin at different times?

One of my RES has decreased appetite as well since the weather change has begun. On my other RES, I don't know that ANYTHING could change his appetite (he's a begger). I was really worried about the decreased appetite. He also became much more skittish. I threw a bunch of feeder fish in there this weekend to see if it would help, and it did. They ate them all in twelve hours, and now his appetite seems better. Not as good as it was, but better just the same. He seems a little less skittish.

Shedding skin is usually a sign that your turtle is overfed. Mine eat whatever food I offer, I have never noticed a seasonal change.
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