Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, I am the responsable son back with a serious concern. I have these 2 turtles in a large space and they have a nice basking spot, hiding spaces, etc. (I'll post pictures in a few days.) Anyway, I believe I have what is called the Yellow Bellied Slider. I am feeding them Hatchling Aquatic Turtle Food made by Zoo Med's. Also, I am trying to get them to eat tiny bits of cooked ham and salad stuff (lettuce and carrots). Anyway, one of the turtles will eat as many pellets as you drop in the tank and occasionally nibble the other stuff. The other eats a little ham and salad, but won't touch the pellets. My question is how much should they be eatting (how much should I be serving) and should I be concerned about their habits as they are just hatchling?
Thank you very much.

Because they are hatchlings there diet needs to contain more protien than an adult turtle would need. Many hatchlings and younger turtles will not touch "salad" until they are adults. So no worries about that. About the ham... I would stop feeding it to them. One, its fatty and not very nutritional and two, many turtles will become spoiled and refuse to eat anything besides a particular meat, in your case ham. Keep offering the pellets and salad, but also try small feeder fish, crickets(live), and a pelleted food called Repto-min. All the picky turtles I have had over the years always ate Repto-min for some reason. I bet yours will to. Feed them twice a day since they are hatchlings. Give the hatchlings as much as they want. You will see when they start to loose interest, stop feeding them then.
Good Luck,
Chris
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0.1 Red Eared Slider, 1.0 Common Snapper, 1.0 Bearded Dragon and a 55gal Native Fish Tank with a 6in LM Bass, 3 Crawdads and a Pleco.
I use to have a collection of Leopard Geckos that I bred, but have sold them.