Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Our eastern box turtle this past winter would only eat bananas
and I mean a lot of bananas. We found out that they were very bad for him and we took him off them. Then he got a respiratory problem and we took him to the vet and was given antibiotic shots for three weeks. We gave him the shots athome.
During his recovery he starts eating worms, now he’s eating worms like the bananas. I know the worms provide protein but I think he needs other foods too. He’s eating one big night crawler a day.
Any suggestions?

Thank you very much

Norristhenut

Stop giving him worms, just like you should have stopped giving him the bananas. Just don't feed it to him cause thats the only thing he'll eat. Make up a mix of veggies and put the worms in the middle, they'll find them. Just stop giving him the worms if you don't like him eating them.. Have you even tried anything else?

Yes we have and do put fresh veggies, berries , and even bananas, but he just goes after the worm. The reason we are giving him worms is the vet said he was under weight and had lost about 4 ounces on top of that.
A least he's got some wieght back we do try other foods.

Thank you very much

Norristhenut

Only 1 night crawler a day? Mine can eat 6 or more a day. The also like small minnows. Wild mushroooms when they are in season and cantalope. In the wild i bet the eat lots of worms when they can find them.

Jack
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Jack

if hes underwieght use fattyer foods at first. cat food is not good for long term use but is very good for skinny turts. it has a lot of stuff in it along with fat. you can mix in stuff like babyfood squash too for more vitamin a, and scraape on some cuttlebone flakes for more calcium. he will gain weite quicker with a mixture of foods like that and theres more nutrition in it than night cralwers that are just protein and almost nothing else. and once the get the turt eating the catfood with other stuff in it, he will probaly be willing to eat more difrent kinds of stuff after that. its a mistake to feed turtles the same thing day after day.