Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I don't have the time or money to prepare salads. So I tried softened Krislinvill Guinea Pig mix - wa la! Inexpensive and easy.

What's in it? I may be interested in this to add to my turtle "meat balls".
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Vichris
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"- Marcus Aurelius

Um, I think it's mostly alfalfa... I don't have the bag right now... plus some carrots, and lots of vitamina and mineral supplements, including vitaming D3.

Also, bananas are cheap, much less expensive than strawberries (very strongly suggested by people I have communicated with) per lb (and bananas have much less water content per weight), and my boxie likes slices of them more than slices of strawberries.

I have tried to steer away from bananas and strawberries as main fruit staples. I give both only once a month or so. They're considered the junk food of the fruits, so I prefer to feed melons, grapes and apples(which are both just as cheap in season as bananas) just to name a few. I also gather mulberries from my neighbor's tree in the spring and freeze some to feed throughout the year.

bannanas are really not a good, nor natural food to feed box turtles because they have a very poor calcium to phosphate ratio of 1:5. A diet with a calcium ratio of 2:1 to 4:1 is ideal. How often would a wild box turtle see a bannana and eat it? A small bannana treat now and then would be fine, but not used as a significant portion of a staple diet food. Of course that can be compensated using calcium dust, but that can be tricky to keep in balance. How much cheaper does food need to be? Heck I feed my boxies with homeade food balls that are well balanced, with a wide variety of natural fresh/frozen/thawed ingredients, with complete and wide variety nutritional properties, full of vitamins and minerals, and rich in calcium, for probably $5 per turtle per year total cost. I spend that on average shoveling food in my own face in a single day.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

What kind of frozen/thawed do you use? Fresh stuff usually comes in large quantities, and for one box turtle, I throw it away.

What do you feed your Turtles. im looking to improve the diet of mine and $5 a year sounds great.
I cant even seem to feed my mealworms on $5 a month.
Thankyou for the advice

Tom

Your right Curtis, you can't beat free mullberries fresh from the backyard woods. I have a mullberry tree in the back yard too and well as a huge strawberry patch that is shared with the boxies, friends, family, and neighbors.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com