Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In an attempt to diversify my turtle's diet, I bought some small crickets tonight at the pet store. After buying the cricket cage, and picking up a potato for moisture (by suggestion of the pet store guy) I feel kind of stupid because I invested $15 in a food source that seems to be trickier than all get out. I finally got a cricket to climb into the stupid tube so I could put him in the tank, for what I hoped would be a feeding frenzy somewhat similar to what a great white shark does to a seal. Tim, my turtle, didn't even seem interested in the stupid thing. I thought, maybe it is because he's in this huge tank, so i fished the cricket out, and put it into the small tank that Tim started in when I first got him, and then fished Tim out and put him in the tank with the cricket. I imagined trumpets blaring and crowds cheering just like the gladiator events of Roman times... nope, the cricket climbed all over Tim and Tim seemed content to let his meal-time snack do so. I finally picked Tim up in my right hand and grabbed the cricket between my thumb and forefinger of my other hand and pressed the cricket to his mouth. Success at last, Tim ate him, but without the furiosity in which I had hoped.

This leads me to my question, how does everyone else feed their turtle crickets? Surely everyone else gets a pretty awesome "show" out of their turtle hunting down these chirpy little devils, while my turtle is content with playing nice with his dinner food.

Any suggestions, let me know.
Jordan

lol..sharks eating seals..thats great, I have seen that on tv and thats some hardcore stuff. Anyway, how in the world did you spend 15 bucks on crickets? All they need is a rubbermaid container with a few small holes poked in the lid, then a moist papertowel and some veggies like carrots and lettuce. Potatoes will work but its not very nutritional. You are what you eat comes into play here. If you feed your cricket crap, your turtle is eating crap. So feed them good stuff like veggies. My turtles would eat crickets but they certainly wouldnt turn into a great white shark and come barreling out of the water for them. I would suggest sticking to feeder fish.
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.

Two things come into play with my stories... one, I have a slight case of ADD, which doesn't make me a bad person or a psycho, it just makes my day alot more interesting than most everyone else's. Secondly, I'm a college student. I'm up for cheap thrills whenever I can find them, so the thought of my turtle tearing the stuffing out of a cricket feeds both my ADD and my need for cheap thrills.

My 15 bucks for crickets came from crickets and some other stuff I forgot I had purchased and found later this morning... i spent like 10 bucks on crickets, 9 bucks for an official cricket cage, and 1 buck for a dozen small crickets.

Here's to cheap thrills and ADD,
Jordan

If this is the first time your turtle has been offered crickets don't be surprised that he didn't recognize them as food. Sometimes mine zooms after them, sometimes she could care less. I never now how she's going to react.

A small hint regarding crickets... next time you get some, tell the person at the store that you want a piece of the egg crate in the bag. When you get home, put that in your cricket container. It's much easier dealing with that then the tubes.

It might take a while for the turtle to get used to the crickets but sooner or later he will probably end up loving them. My turtles will eat anything that moves. They dont care what it is. Was the cricket moving around in the water when you tried to feed it to the turtle or was it just floating there? Sometimes they dont move and then the turtles have no interest in them. If you poke the cricket with something to make it move around a bit the turtle is more likely to chomp it. Good luck with the cricket killing.

~Sara~

Cricket problem solved. He know knows what a cricket is and what it is used for. He really enjoys them actually. He is to the point now that he knows if I'm at the tank that he is going to be fed, so he high tails it over to the corner of the tank where I put his food in. He even chased down a cricket that had swam over to his basking area and climbed on to get out of the water.

Good turtle!
It's great when they finally recognize a new food item as food!
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PHRatz