A 6oz. can of box turtle food costs about $3.50. That's about $8 per pound.

Making food from scratch with better quality ingredients is much less expensive. You can buy a 10 lb. bag of chicken quarters (legs and thighs) for less than $7 at Walmart!

Granted, I have more turtles but there's no reason you can't do this on a smaller scale. Buying a whole chicken is much more economical per pound than the canned-food route.

I buy chicken in bulk (see above), boil it and freeze it in smaller portions, then build meals around it, changing the produce combination regularly to create variety.