Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First, just wanted to say sorry for the duplicate post here and on the box turtle forum, just need an answer and I know alot of the tort people also keep boxies. So I have this 37mm 19g boxie. I have it eating regularly but it will only eat crickets. No mealworms, red wigglers, fruit, veggie, canned food ect. These are always offered but rarely eaten, I did see it take 1 bite of mazuri tort chow once. How important is it to get this little guy eating plant/fruit matter at this stage of his life? I figure that eating just crickets is better than not eating at all. I have tried all the approaches (mix in its prefered crickets and stuff it wont eat, the tough love "if it gets hungry it will eat" approach and others, no luck). What should I do?

The boxie is one of the first chelonians I ever kept and they always caused me heart ache. I quit keeping them years ago. Then about 5 years ago an opportunity presented itself and I started keeping them again. I lost a few in the beginning but now have 7 that are well established. They are outdoors in a well planted enclosure with lots of leaf litter. I think this is the key to success. The leaf litter houses many insects and the like and this is what they seem to thrive on. Variety, again, seems to be the imortant factor.

My guys/gals love Mazuri chow but I only feed it once a week.

As to your question, it seems that they really like berries and not much actual greens. I get the impression that these are more closely aligned to water turtles than tortoises but seem to be in between the two in diet preference.

Ed

>>First, just wanted to say sorry for the duplicate post here and on the box turtle forum, just need an answer and I know alot of the tort people also keep boxies. So I have this 37mm 19g boxie. I have it eating regularly but it will only eat crickets. No mealworms, red wigglers, fruit, veggie, canned food ect. These are always offered but rarely eaten, I did see it take 1 bite of mazuri tort chow once. How important is it to get this little guy eating plant/fruit matter at this stage of his life? I figure that eating just crickets is better than not eating at all. I have tried all the approaches (mix in its prefered crickets and stuff it wont eat, the tough love "if it gets hungry it will eat" approach and others, no luck). What should I do?
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Earth worms, wax worms, meal worms... seems to be a favorite. Anything that moves seems to get their attention.

>>First, just wanted to say sorry for the duplicate post here and on the box turtle forum, just need an answer and I know alot of the tort people also keep boxies. So I have this 37mm 19g boxie. I have it eating regularly but it will only eat crickets. No mealworms, red wigglers, fruit, veggie, canned food ect. These are always offered but rarely eaten, I did see it take 1 bite of mazuri tort chow once. How important is it to get this little guy eating plant/fruit matter at this stage of his life? I figure that eating just crickets is better than not eating at all. I have tried all the approaches (mix in its prefered crickets and stuff it wont eat, the tough love "if it gets hungry it will eat" approach and others, no luck). What should I do?
-----
Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

EJ pretty much covered it, but obviously it is more important to have healthy, gutloaded crickets when the turtle selects only these.