Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have adopted a RES from a friend. His shell is about 5 inches long and he is 14 months old. We have had him a week and really like him a lot. He seems very social and gets excited when we are around him. He came with a complete set up - tank, filter, bubbling palm tree, floating basking platform, heat lamp and full spectrum light, food, book, etc. We don't know anything about turtles as pets, but are willing to learn!
He didn't seem to eat at all, we were just dropping a couple of the pellets in the tank. Tonight we played "follow a finger to the pellet" and he was wolfing them down like a starving turtle.
He ate 7 pellets that way.
The question is - how much and how often do we feed a turtle this size and age? Is he a juvenile or is he full grown? If we feed him pellets and have him "follow the finger", how many pellets should he get?

he is more of a sub-adult. feed him 2-3 times a day if possible. he should eat it all in about 5 minutes. they usually eat until they are full, so see how much he will eat. dont be surprised if its a lot, they eat a lot more than most people expect. he may also be wanting some fresh produce. when RES are that size a lot of their diet is fresh vegetables and even some fruit. you can try a few things, but that may be what he is expecting, if he has had it before.

A turtle that size should be getting fed 2-3 times a WEEK. Feeding 2-3 times a DAY will make the turtle grow way to fast and lead to pyramiding and damage to the liver.

You can offer romaine lettuce every day if he'll eat it. I would only feed him pellets once a week, if that.

My 5" albino RES is 3.5 years old. He's fed a diet of romaine lettuce, pellets once a week, and worms or other living food item once a week.

Thanks very much for the responses. It seems contradictory and when I research it I also seem to come up with conflicting information about how much to feed him. I would love it if anyone else can offer advice about how often and how much to feed this guy. I am really afraid I will either overfeed him or starve him.
We gave him some romaine, he tasted it but didn't seem to like it. We'll keep giving him some everyday. Are we supposed to break it into bite size pieces for him (like flakes) or can he do that himself?
Thanks again for the help.

Feeding depends on what they look like IMO. I have an adult painted, 11 years old. I fed him twice a day when he was a growing baby, by the time he was 3 years old I cut that down to once every other day.
Now that he is 11 he is about the same size your new turtle is & fed 3 times a week, if he eats more than that he'll look fat. He is full grown though, he'll never be as large as a RES.

When he looked fat that's when I cut him down to 3 times per week. I can tell he's fat when too much "meat" is hanging out of the leg openings.
So now he eats something different each meal. Once a week or sometimes less than that he gets pellets, the other feedings are either live worms, insects, or fish or sometimes he gets thawed out blood worms or brine shrimp packaged for fish or the frozen then thawed for him turtle diet all made by San Francisco Bay Brand fish foods.
I like for my turtles to eat as natural a diet as I can provide.
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PHRatz

I agree with a guy who said feed him 2-3 times a week. Don't worry the turtle will not starve if you will feed him just few times a week.
Abou lettuce. You don't have to cut it into smaller parts. Turtles are attracted by green and also red so you can try tomatoe -but this you have to cut

Good luck with your turtle.

3 times a WEEK is more than sufficient for animal that size. You can offer him a variety of things (fish, shrimp, earthworms, pelleted diet-- no need to break it up-- and greens like chicory, escarole, dandelion greens.

They will always look for food no matter how much you feed them so don't feel as though you are starving him.

Just feed him enough of the non veg material as he can eat in around 10 minutes or so. You can just float the green veg over the top of the water and let him eat that at his leisure.

Feeding him 2 to 3 times daily is way too much and you run the risk of health issues and too rapid a growth rate. If he is truly only one year old and 5 inches long he is already over grown for his age. He should be less than 2 inches long. (Are you absolutely certain of his age?)

Steve