Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i had my painted turtle for a year now... it only grew around 1mm shell size... i really wants it to grow fast and big.. what should i do?? what kind of food should i feed??

You need your turtle to grow at a healthy, normal rate.
They should eat live fish such as minnows & guppies, goldfish are too high in fat to eat on a regular basis. They need live gut loaded insects, worms, etc.
Some pellet food can be used, Mazuri & Reptomin are ok. I like mine to eat more live fresh foods than commercially made.
As they get older they may take some greens such as dandelions, collards but they need to grow at their normal pace to be healthy. A baby can have a couple of small meals a day, as they get older, around 2-3 years you need to cut that back & once adult sized they don't need to eat every single day.
If you feed them too much in order to make them grow too fast they can become deformed, or "pyramid."

PHRatz

thanx.... i will try to get my turtles some fish...

but is worm a really good choice, since they eat mud...and they contain so much mud in their body???

Earthworms & nightcrawlers can be full of dirt but there are other worms you can use. Mealworms (not too many because of the chitin)but you can buy worms sold as fish food such as bloodworms, blackworms, tubifex worms, glass worms.

PHRatz

also... rite now.. i am just feeding the little shrimp...
starting to feed worms once a week...
but that's all they want to eat though..

i also try to feed the pellets..but they seems like they have no interest at all and ignores it. they attempted but it is too hard for them to swallow. after 5-10 minutes when the pellets is not hard, the turtles doesnt even attempt to bite. I really wants my turtle to eat the pellets. Any SUGGESTION????

Shrimp make a good treat but there isn't much nutrition in them for a turtle. What brand of pellet have you tried? Turtles can be picky about their pellets, I have one who'll eat Mazuri but the other won't. Both will eat Reptomin, but neither will eat Wardley's, neither will eat Pretty Pets, Nutrifin, or Rep-Cal.
Sometimes you just have to keep trying different pellets until you find one they'll eat.
Rotating foods, not feeding them the same meal twice in a row is better for them anyway & it can help to keep them from becoming finicky eaters as they grow up.

PHRatz

i am trying to feed the sera raffy P pellets... my snapping turtle and RES is willing to eat it, but not my missi map turtle and painted turtle. For my missi map turtle, i am just feeding shrimp and worms from my backyard.

by the way.. i send u pictures of my sicked painted turtle to your email.....

thank you very much.