Yearn to know what do baby turtles eat? Let’s check this article!
Whether you’ve newborn turtles or purchased a baby turtle, you must take special care of it. Until the turtle becomes mature, you must ensure a healthy diet, safe housing, roaming, etcetera.
But, handling this little pet is a bit tricky, most importantly, when it comes to feeding baby turtles. Why? That’s because the baby turtle is sensitive and includes a lower digesting ability.
Unlike the adults, the baby turtle needs high protein and minerals but low fats. The proteins and minerals enhance the turtle’s growth, but the high fat may cause their death.
Amount of Required Nutrients for A Baby Turtle
It is crucial to maintain all the necessary nutrients in the baby pet’s diet chart. Excess or less of these nutrients might cause any disease to the little pet.
Here I need to tell one thing specifically: the baby turtle is more prone to the disease. Now, let’s down to the business and see the nutrients balance for the baby turtles.
- Crude protein: Up to 40%
- Crude fat: Up to 10%
- Crude fat: Up to 5%
- Ash: Up to 9%
- Vitamin E: Up to 160 IU
What Do Baby Turtles Eat?
Turtles are the cute and adorable little creatures of nature. The commercial pallet or gel capsule supplement is the best diet for the baby turtle.
But the food habit of the immature turtle depends on its type. When searching, you’ll end-up meeting with different sorts of a turtle.
Each one of them has their respective choice and style of eating food. But frankly speaking, all types of baby turtle have some common foods: fruits, veggies, feeder fish insects, like a grasshopper, slugs, etcetera.
4 Types of Baby Turtles with Their Food Habit
Nearly all the baby turtles love vegetables, insect meats, fishes and many more things. Indeed, they get adequate nutrients from what they consume.
Let’s dig a little deeper and know the food habit of various types of baby turtles. Here are the 4 types of baby turtles with their food habit.
Red-eared sliders turtle:
First, come to the red ear slider turtle babies! The red-eared slider turtles are so adorable and one of the popular spices of the shelled pet.
The adult red-eared slider loves to eat meat and plants. Regardless, they also prefer to eat the big fishes and snails under the water. Probably, that’s why they like to live under the pond, streams, and lakes.
But the baby turtles cannot digest the large meat and fishes. Instead, they prefer to eat protein-rich staple food. These grow the baby turtles strongly and healthily.
Besides staple food, you must keep the following food in the diet of your up-growing turtle.
- Labeled pallet
- Green leaf lettuce
- Guppy apple
- Pond snails
- Aquatic turtle plants
- Small apples
- Pond snails
- Dandelion leaves
Painter turtles:
The painter turtle is recognized as a pond turtle in North America.
Their favorite foods are dark leafy vegetables, and it is a healthy water turtle food. These painter turtles love to eat whilst they’re swimming. Possibly, this is the reason which specifies them as water turtles.
Although the adult painter can digest almost any given food, the painter baby turtles cannot! So, they are picky about their food. Now, can turtles eat fish food?
In the diet, this baby turtle likes small fishes, worms, carrions, tadpoles. You also can provide commercial diets with water to fill the baby turtle’s protein requirement.
Box turtles:
The box turtle is an extremely popular species because they’re easy to maintain, and they aren’t so picky about food. Unlike others, the box turtle loves meat more than veggies and fruits.
If you’re planning a diet for a box baby turtle, keep at least 50% animal protein in it. The rest 50% will be a mixture of fruits and vegetables. But do turtles eat carrots?
Yes, you can include the following veggies and fruits with the carrots:
- Tomatoes
- Beans
- Mealworms
- Small crickets
- Green lettuce
Snapping turtles:
Snapping turtles are another species of turtles that come with a long life expectancy, almost like a human. They eat at least twice in 24 hours up to 6 months.
Unlike the other species, the snapping turtle isn’t so picky about the food and eats whatever gets. But the pelleted diets, earthworms, water lettuce, crayfish, etcetera are their favorite food.
Top 5 Best turtles Food
Here are the reviews of the 5 best turtle foods.
Tetra ReptoMin Floating Food Sticks:
The Tetra ReptoMin floating food stick is a perfect recipe for the turtle living under the water. This packaged food is not only healthy but also a tasty and versatile diet for turtles.
Précised with vitamin C, high-quality proteins, and calcium, the food is also healthy for the baby turtles. Scientifically proven, the Reptomin is easy to digest, and that’s why various animals love to have the food in their diet.
The Pros:
- Huge amount for the price
- Available in a versatile size
- Get a happy and healthy turtle
The Cons:
- Unsuitable to keep on a daily diet
- Start to sink pretty fast
Fluker’s Buffet Blend Aquatic Turtles Food:
The Fluker’s buffet blend is a natural and tasty food with ample vitamins, fat, and minerals. It is an extremely suitable food for the aquatic turtle. The food includes fish oil, river shrimp, poultry meal, corn, and many more ingredients.
All these ingredients help the baby turtle to maintain a healthy weight with optimal energy. Moreover, the taste of the food makes turtles crazy for this blend food.
The Pros:
- Good choice for better growth
- Provides adequate fat and protein
- Full of river shrimps and mealworms
The Cons:
- The size of a pallet is big for a baby turtle
- Expensive pallet
Zoo Med Sun Dried Large Red Shrimp:
With the high protein and minerals, the Zoo med is a solid diet for the water pet. Including the turtle, you can feed this pallet all your freshwater and aquarium fishes, frogs, etcetera.
This packaged food saves your costs of buying separate staple and raw foods. Handful Zoo med feeding makes a huge difference in the weight of a baby turtle. Still, you better feed the wrapped food to your turtles only occasionally.
The Pros:
- Provides high rich protein
- Enhance the growth of the turtle
- Great for large water pet
The Cons:
- Unpleasant smell for some people
- Crumb’s shrimp instead of the whole
Rep-Cal Maintenance Formula Box Turtle Food:
The Rep-Cal maintenance fulfills the need for the nutrition of the box turtle. It is filled with a variety of dried fruits, plants, and meat. But the dried fruits are the basic ingredients of this turtle formulated food.
Consumption of the formulated food doesn’t make the turtle fatty. Instead, the growth of the turtle becomes faster with the consumption of the food. So, this makes the food balanced diet for the box turtle, including extreme taste.
If your turtle likes worms, snails, tadpoles, or such types of food, it must like this pallet.
The Pros:
- It contains natural and low-fat ingredients
- Balanced food with nutrition
- Regularly consumable
- Costs less
The Cons:
- The water gets a little dirty and cloudy
Fluker’s Aquatic Turtle Medley Treat Food:
First off, the Fluker’s medley treat is a great choice for the baby turtle over the adults. Like others, this food doesn’t cause digestion issues. So, you can often allow this food to your baby turtle to fulfill the protein requirement.
Including the river shrimp, various ingredients like mealworms, crickets make this food. All these ingredients are processed and manufactured after proper drying. Besides juvenile and adult aquatic turtles, this pallet is also allowable for large tropical fish.
The Pros:
- Fulfills all the protein requirement
- Great quality food
- Freeze the diet to hold nutrition
- Reasonable price
The Cons:
- Increase the possibilities of obesity
- Incomplete diet for adults
How to care for baby turtles?
Caring for the baby turtles helps them adjust to a new environment. Indeed, maintaining a baby turtle isn’t so difficult and time-consuming.
The turtles don’t irritate the owner like other animals; in fact, they’re peace-loving animals. So, you can easily handle a baby turtle on your own.
Prepare a house for the baby turtle:
The baby turtle needs proper housing with the right temperature and a beautiful environment. Don’t put your turtle in the fish tank or aquarium if the turtle isn’t Aquatic.
Make sure the water is not so deep or shallow when you put the aquatic turtle in the aquarium. Bring the water temperature 86-degree Farenheight and create a natural environment inside the fish tank.
Add green plants, rocks, and small stones to create a natural environment. Attach a light in the fish tank to give an extraordinary environment and appropriate temperature.
Feed clean water every day:
Feeding the clean water makes the turtles healthy and happy. Although the turtle doesn’t need to provide water every day, ensuring water cleanliness is crucial.
Often, the mixture of pallet food makes the turtle’s drinking water dirty and filthy. Moreover, the provided water to the turtle automatically becomes filthy after a few days. Drinking the dirty water might make the little turtle’s tummy sick.
So, you must change the water of the turtle after each 2-3 days. Or attach a water filtering system with the aquarium of your pet.
Feed nutritious food timely:
Availability of nutritious and protein-rich food is compulsory for a baby turtle’s growth. How to feed a baby turtle? A turtle can get nutrients both from the veg and non-veg, but meat is the most favorite to the turtles.
So, keep 50/50 percent of veggies and meat of different insects and fish in their diet. Feed your baby turtle 1 to 2 times a day, and don’t skip the meal for more than one day.
Give the turtle the necessary supplements:
The baby turtle has to feed necessary supplements and pelleted foods for proper nutrients. Vitamins like D, E are good for the development of the turtle shell. Feed supplements 2/3 times a week to ensure proper growth of your shelled mate.
Spend time with the baby turtle:
Spending time with the pet socializes it and helps to adjust to a new environment quickly. So, every day, try to spend some quality time with your cute pet. The turtle mostly remains active at night. So, you’ll get plenty of time to spend time with your pet.
Still Got Questions?
01. How often do turtles eat?
The density of turtle feeding depends on its age and size. Usually, the adult turtle can survive without food for 2-3 days. But the younger one hasn’t the good ability to survive such a long time with no food.
Particularly, the Juvenile and baby turtles who haven’t developed their hibernation system completely cannot last long without food. So, they consume food at least once every day.
Furthermore, the younger turtles, more than 1 year, have to feed once every other day.
02. How long can a baby turtle survive without eating?
The baby turtle cannot survive long without food and water like the adult turtle. The adult turtles reduce their body activity, lowering their body temperature when it comes to living without food.
But the baby turtles cannot do that, as their immune system just has started to develop. They can live only 1-2 weeks without food and a few days without water.
03. Can baby turtles survive on their own?
A baby turtle can hardly survive on its own, specifically when it is living in the wild. The wild and large animals can harm the baby turtle.
So, raising a turtle baby must need help, whether they help comes from his mother or anyone else.
04. Where should I put a baby turtle?
The baby turtle should put in warm water where the temperature is 86-degree Farenheight. Indeed, heat is essential for the turtle especially, for the baby turtle.
Warm your aquarium water with the heat of light before keeping the turtle into it.
05. What can I do with unwanted pet turtles?
Pet turtles are more sensitive animals than wild turtles. Leaving the pet alone in the jungle might be dangerous for its life. So, take the following steps if you want to get rid of your pet turtle:
- Offer the turtle to your family members, relatives, and friends
- Give advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and different social media for adopting this pet.
- Sell the turtle at your local pet store.
06. What do baby water turtles eat?
Most baby water turtles want to eat insects like grasshoppers, mealworms, slugs, snails, and so on. The meat-lover turtles also like the fish and meat of baby mice. But can baby turtles eat lettuce?
Yes, they can! In fact, veggies like lettuce, green beans, and small pieces of fruits are also favorite of multiple turtle species.
To Summarize
In essence, a happy and healthy turtle is always desirable. A baby turtle demands optimal care about the water quality and enclosure temperature for a healthy life. So, after ensuring, what do baby turtles eat, you must take care of other things.
Otherwise, you cannot give maximum comfort to your shelled pet, and it cannot grow-up properly.
More Topics:
