Reptile & Amphibian Forums

bought some raspberries for myself yesterday, i was wondering if they were safe to try on my boxie or if i should skip it. she loves fruit, but wont eat if i mix anything with veggies. its getting kinda frustrating. the good news, though, is i bought some waxworms for my toad & frog & she ended up eating 4 of them, along with 2 mealworms. were on our way to expanding her taste buds, so i feel a little better. looking for a pet shop that sells earthworms, but none around here seem to. id rather not buy them from a bait shop, & its been either dry or cold, so there are none to be found around here.

Raspberries are ok for box turtles to eat, so go ahead and give them a try. Plenty of variety is important for a box turtle, and can help keep your turtle from fixating on a narrow range of foods.
Stephanie

thanks for the help. im gunna put some out before i go to work & see what happens.

Hi Steph,
I have some strong colored eastern boxies and some Florida's ( bauri ). I've been using thornless backberries for twelve years and find they don't sucker and are nothing like rasberries. Mine are much less aggressive than rasberries. I 'm thinking it may depend on the variety....Mine are "Black Satin". But the boxies like my blueberries as well.
Ric

By the way, I've been giving my turtles bait shop night crawlers for a long time with no troubles. I just avoid the ones that are injected with the green dye . . . YUCK!

They inject nightcrawlers with green dye? Ewwwwwwwww
Like PHLaure I've had to buy them at Walmart because here in the desert where I live there are no bait shops. I've never seen one dyed green, that sounds gross!!

PHRatz

I buy my turtles night crawlers at Walmart (no bait shops close to me) and have had no problems. They also get fresh ones from the garden when I can find them. They REALLY love the garden ones as they are BIG. The only thing with digging your own is that you need to make sure that you don't use chemicals.

I have a spot under the porch that I keep watered, it's earthworm & grubworm haven under there. I find tons of them as long as I keep that spot watered.

I've never bought raspberries for them but we have mulberry trees, the box turtles LOVE to eat those.We have a wild male ornate living nearby, he's figured out that if he shows up at our house he gets a free meal, so we've named him Hobo. He loves those mulberries.

PHRatz

I was wondering what to do w/ all those *&#* mulberries all over our front yard! lol! Thanks!
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0.1.0 snapping turtle
0.1.0 painted turtle
0.1.0 ornate box turtle
0.1.0 Australian shepard
0.0.12 chickens
3.2.0 children
1.0.0 husband

I KNOW LOL!! Those mulberries can be so annoying! We have a "white" mulberry tree right next to the front porch & they've suddenly ripened & are falling off the tree. I wasn't paying attention when I walked over there & ended up with berry goo all in the nooks & crannys of my sneakers.
The berries are right next to where I usually dig for worms so I can't avoid stepping on them if I want to dig.
However, yesterday Charity, my big box girl sat on the porch & ate her fill of fresh ripe berries. Shell E the other one won't touch them, they can't ever eat the same food of course.
LOL
PHRatz

Unfortunately, the 'white' does not refer to the color of the berry, but to the species. Did you know that berries have cathartic properties, so birds not only make pretty spectacular messes, but distribute seeds everywhere in the process.
I eradicate them when they volunteer in my yard because they are an invasive, non-native plant, and tend to crowd out native species. Just a pet peeve of mine.
If you don't want to have them sprout everywhere, I would think twice about feeding them to your turtles. Strawberries would be a better choice in that regard: turtles can graze on their own, and any unwanted plants are easier to get rid of than mulberries.
Stephanie

Oh gosh I can't get rid of my mulberry tree, it's taller than the house. I raised it from a stick in another town & when we moved I brought it with me on purpose. I love my tree & the mulberries it produces don't last long, between the birds eating them, the turtles eating them & the sand we live on, their spreading isn't a problem.
They're only annoying for a short time. The red mulberry tree hasn't ripened yet, but that tree doesn't sit near the front door so it doesn't annoy me so much because I don't get gooey shoes lol.
I'll be picking red berries up soon, the boxies will have those to eat all year too. I freeze half of them, I give the other half to our vet who has lots of boxies too.

PHRatz

Here in VA they're a problem... If you like them, have at it!!
I completely understand that you have to grow what you can.

Stephanie

Oh I am envious in a way Steph.. lol. You actually have trees that you need/want to get rid of. The only ones we can't get rid of are mequite & they grow like a plague.
I don't want problem plants but it would be nice to grow something I want to have without a lot of effort.
Here in West TX we're in the far Northern end of the Chihuahua desert, we have sand for soil. It's hard to grow anything & in fact last night I was thinking about this because your post reminded me of it...
When the white mulberry tree came up I didn't even know for years what kind of tree it was because it doesn't look like other mulberry trees which are common around here. Most people have fruitless mulberry & this does not look like one of those.
I found out what it was only when it actually produced berries & then I found it on an online tree guide, & by that time the tree was 13-14 years old.
Then I thought hey, it's a box turtle bonus, free food! LOL
After all the years I've put into it I hate to lose it now. I put up with the berries because thankfully they only happen once a year & the gooey problem only goes on for about a month.

When we moved, 20 years ago, I also took a sprout from our Mulberry tree and planted it in our new yard!

A couple of years ago, we thought the tree had a disease or something as it was nearly bare of leaves. Then one day we found a ground hog high in the tree, eating its fill! lol
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0.1.0 snapping turtle
0.1.0 painted turtle
0.1.0 ornate box turtle
0.1.0 Australian shepard
0.0.12 chickens
3.2.0 children
1.0.0 husband

You found a groundhog in the tree? ROFL!! That must've been a real Kodak moment!!! LOL
Yesterday I saw birds in the tree eating their fill but so far I've not seen a rodent in the tree.. oh that cracks me up!

Right now I have 3 mulberry trees in a flower pot, these were sprouts I found last summer growing by the air conditioner. I guess they sprouted because it's moist & cooler in that area? I've never seen any growing like that anywhere else on our property since we moved here. I think they're mulberry but 2 look alike the other different, it may be a fruitless mulberry I am not sure. We had another sprouted one that turned out to be a black mulberry tree but it dropped dead last year, I guess a late freeze got it, I dunno for sure, I have a brown thumb. lol but..
We have the sulcata tortoise too & mulberry leaves are on her menu so if I can grow another tree for her, I'm gonna try it.
In the mean time the box turtles still get their yearly berry boon. <g>

PHRatz

she ate some raspberries! im excited. i also planted chives, carnations, &...panies, i think, about 2 weeks ago, & this morning i noticed tiny green things coming out of the dirt. weee, i have plants. im hoping to get some started that i can raise so i dont have to keep looking for wild plants, but i only have shoebox sized boxes to put them in, so i cant keep anything too big. i couldnt get her to eat the dandelion greens, & bought milkbones as a treat, which after 4 days she hasnt touched yet, but were making a little process. shes still avoiding all vegetables, & if i sprinkle the vitamin supplements on her food she wont touch it, either. ive had a chunk of cuttle bone in her box for weeks, which she doesnt even look at, so calcium intake is a concern. but shes finally accepting new foods. its a sloooooooowww process, but its worth it.
thanks for all the helpful replies, i appreciate it, & so does neil.
ps-i highly recommend a humidity box for people who are having trouble with keeping the humidity up. i put one in a few weeks ago, & she loves it.

My boxies are ornates who tend to not care much for their veggies. If raspberries are working, that's great!
I have a few pounds of cactus berries in the freezer, we collect them in the fall for the tortoise to eat but I gave some to the box turtles, they LOVED them!
If you live in a place where there is a Mexican marketplace or if your grocery stores carry cactus berries at some point in the year, pick one up & try it too.(These are large berries one berry is enough to try it out)
Then if they eat it, they end up looking like vampire turtles lol.

PHRatz