Feeding Your Pet Turtle

"Hi, my name is Sarah, I’m here at Pet Land in Pembroke Pines tonight, and on behalf of expertvillage.com, I’m going to speak with you a little bit about purchasing and owning a pet turtle. One other need that your pet turtle will have is a proper diet. It is very important that you make sure that you are feeding a turtle a proper diet as the most common problem that reptile veterinarian see turtles for is malnutrition. There are a number of problems that we can see in turtles that are on a poor diet, including but not limited to low calcium, bacterial infections, fungal infections, intestinal parasite overgrowth, vitamin and mineral deficiency, and a host of other heath problems. It is very, very important to keep these problems to a minimum, to feed your turtle a proper diet. A proper turtle diet includes approximately 25% of a formulated turtle diet, 25% animal protein, such as but not limited to feeder goldfish, other small fish, worms—such as mealworms, wax worms and earthworms. You want to make sure that you get earthworms from a safe source and not out of your backyard, as earthworms out of your backyard can have pesticide residue and parasites. And other worms that you want to get from a pet store to make sure that they are from a sanitary source. Approximately 50% of your turtle’s diet should be made up of dark leafy green plant matter. Dark leafy green plant matter can include kale, mustard greens, dandelion greens, spinach, and any other of the dark leafy greens. Other plant material in your turtle’s diet can include fruits and vegetables. Any large or particularly tough fruits and vegetables should be cut up or shredded for your turtle, to make it more easy to eat. And it’s also important, when you are feeding your turtle, that you feed it in a separate container other than the tank or enclosure that it lives in. This is because when turtles eat, they tend to defecate, and feeding them in their enclosure that they live in tends to make it extremely messy. Feeding them in a separate enclosure will cut down on the mess that you have to clean up, and make it all around much more healthy for your turtle."