what to feed a baby red eared turtle

What Do Baby Red Eared Slider Turtles Eat?

• Protein Diet. Turtles of all sorts can consume the same nutrients, including snails and earthworms. If your local pet...
• Vegetable Diet. You can offer carrots, squash, and other dark leafy greens vegetables in an aquarium. Make sure you cut...
• Fruit Based Diet. Baby turtles can only eat a limited number of fruits, but it’s worth...

Full Answer

What do baby red eared slider turtles eat?

Provide your baby turtle with 1 to 2 leafy greens daily. Young red-eared slider turtles may not show interest in vegetables, but you should introduce them to their diet early. Lettuce, dandelion plants, and water lilies are safe to give your young turtle every day along with its protein and pellets.

How often should I Feed my Baby red eared slider?

Baby red eared sliders are voracious eaters and should be fed every day. A major difference between adult and baby red eared sliders is their diet: Adults eat primarily a 50/50 balance of plants to meat. Babies and juveniles need a 30/70 ratio of plants to meat.

What should I Feed my turtle?

Fruits and veggies are very good sources of vitamins and minerals and should be included in your turtle diet. One of the most important things you need to do for your turtle is to give it the right combination of foods in the appropriate quantities. Let’s explain everything step by step.

How do you take care of a baby red ear turtle?

You should also test the water once a week for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels. Stress-Free Tank: Even if their tank setup is perfect, your baby red ear can still become stressed if the environment around the tank is too noisy or busy. Keep your turtle’s enclosure in a calm, quiet room that is out of the reach of dogs, cats, or small children.

What vegetables can baby red-eared sliders eat?

Like humans, red-eared sliders are also omnivorous and have a very varied diet. Sliders can eat many types of vegetables- such as green beans, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, and squash- but also a wide range of fruits – skinned apples, bananas, berries, melons, nectarine, and mango.

How long can a baby red-eared slider turtle go without eating?

Baby or juvenile red-eared sliders would not be able to last more than a week or so without food, whereas older red-eared sliders will be able to last a month or two. A well-fed adult will be able to live without food for up to two months, three at an absolute stretch, but that really is not advised.

How do I get my baby red-eared slider turtle to eat?

4:2815:23What To Feed Baby Red Eared Slider Turtles!!! | DIY Reptiles - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipBut they're gonna eat like aquatic insects and insects that have fallen into the water. And inMoreBut they're gonna eat like aquatic insects and insects that have fallen into the water. And in captivity that can look like crickets or mealworms or lesser meal worms or earthworms.

What can I feed my red-eared slider turtle?

What do red-eared sliders eat? Juveniles and adults can be fed a base diet of commercially available pellets or sticks that are made for aquatic turtles, along with vegetable matter such as dark leafy greens (dandelion, mustard and collard greens with chopped broccoli, carrots, squash and green beans).

How do I know when my baby turtle is hungry?

Most turtles, especially young ones, should be fed daily. For an adult box turtle, a day's food would be three tablespoons of the vegetable mixture and a couple of earthworms. You know your turtle is hungry when it begins to roam around its enclosure checking the place where you feed it.

How many times a day should I feed my baby red-eared slider?

Additionally, baby red-eared sliders must eat more frequently than adults due to their rapid metabolisms at such a young age. While adult turtles only need to eat two or three times a week, babies should eat once per day.

How do you keep a baby red-eared slider turtle alive?

If you do decide to care for a baby red eared slider, keep in mind that they are sensitive to water quality and temperature. Clean your baby's tank weekly to maintain pristine water conditions. They thrive in water and ambient air temperatures of between 75°F and 85°F. Basking temperatures should be 90 to 95°F.

Do baby red-eared sliders eat mealworms?

Food for Red-Eared Slider Turtles Prey Items: Earthworms, crickets, waxworms, silkworms, aquatic snails, bloodworms, daphnia, shrimp, krill, and mealworms.

Can baby red-eared sliders eat fruit?

Some experts recommend fresh fruits such as bananas, berries, apples, and melons. However, this isn't a natural staple in the red-eared sliders diet, and it may cause diarrhea. If you offer any fruit at all, limit it to very small quantities as a special treat. Don't feed frozen fish, or at least not very often.

What food kills turtles?

For example, tomatoes are safe and they're often a favorite of box turtles. But tomato leaves and vines are toxic. Other plants toxic to box turtles include rhubarb leaves, holly, oleander, avocado leaves and seeds, and plants in the nightshade family.

What can baby turtles eat?

People always ask, “What do baby turtles eat”? The answer is simple baby turtle food of course. But seriously baby turtles require a special diet when it comes to feeding them properly. They will usually take to lettuce of all kinds except for iceberg, worms, krill, river shrimp, mealworms and pellet food.

How many pellets do you feed a baby red-eared slider?

Feed them as much as they can eat in 15 to 20 minutes. Give them enough food that would fit inside their head, if it were completely empty.

What are the signs of a dying turtle?

Six Signs That Your Turtle Is DyingIncreased Basking.Lack of Appetite.Foaming/Bubbles At The Mouth and/or Nose.Lethargy.Whistling, Coughing, or Sneezing.Lopsided Swimming.Respiratory Infection.Shell Rot.More items...•

What do you do if your turtle is not eating?

4:165:42TURTLE ISN'T EATING?!? | How to get your turtle to eat pellets - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipThis can be changed by bumping the temperature up a couple of degrees. This will help them be moreMoreThis can be changed by bumping the temperature up a couple of degrees. This will help them be more active.

Variety

Commercial pellets are fairly nutritious, convenient, and beneficial since they contain a good mix of vitamins and minerals. However, as the saying goes, variety is the spice of life. Offering a wide variety of foods is better than just dropping in a commercial turtle pellet for your little guy.

Nutritional Supplements for Red-Eared Sliders

A vet may recommend that a good reptile multivitamin with calcium and vitamin D3 be mixed with the turtle's food a couple of times a week. Also, an excellent way to provide additional calcium is to put a cuttlebone in the turtle tank.

Tips

Catching wild prey can be dangerous if they have pesticides on them and they can carry intestinal parasites. 1 The same goes for vegetation like dandelion greens that you pick outdoors.

2. Baby Red Eared Slider Habitat

Baby red eared sliders need a proper and safe habitat to stay healthy and happy. Before getting a turtle make sure you can provide them with everything in the list below:

3. Baby Red Eared Slider Tank Setup

For every inch of your turtle’s shell length you will need to provide them with a minimum of 10 gallons of space. For adult sliders, this can mean purchasing a tank up to 120-gallons.

4. How To Care For Baby Red Eared Slider Turtles

Babies are more likely to get sick because of their developing immune system.

5. Baby Red Eared Slider Diet

Adults and babies eat the same food items, but the ratio of meat to plant and feeding frequency is different.

6. Why Is My Red Eared Slider Turtle Not Eating?

It is very common for a baby red eared slider to refuse food during the first three days. This is due to the stress of being introduced to a new environment.

7. Is My Turtle Male or Female?

In very young turtles it can be difficult to accurately determine their gender.

8. Handling

A red eared slider baby should be handled only when necessary. Turtles are usually not adaptable to being held, it can cause stress.

Having a Baby Red Eared Slider is Exciting!

If you are in the process of learning how to care for your red ear slider hatchling, you are probably already enthralled by the cute wonder of your new tiny pet. But as cute as baby turtles are, they are also more fragile than an adult turtle ever will be.

There Are Two Main Challenges in Caring For a Hatchling

shell is one of the challenges. Your hatchling turtle’s new shell is still a bit soft, as it was designed to be for hatching. So now your turtle needs access to precise levels of full spectrum UV-A/B lighting plus an appropriate natural protein-rich diet in order for its shell to begin hardening as it should.

The Right Diet in the Right Environment

One of your biggest responsibilities in providing the right type of red eared slider turtle care for a hatchling turtle is offering the right mix of foods in the right quantities. The first thing to know is that, even as a baby, your turtle will likely want to do just about everything (feeding, hiding, excreting) in water.

What To Feed a Baby Red Eared Slider

They might look gross to you, but mealworms will make your turtle smile. The folks at Gimminy Crickets & Worms sell 1100 Count Live Mealworms that are organically grown on Amazon. Their worms are around an inch to an inch and a quarter long.

Provide The Right Minerals and Vitamins for Your Turtle

As you are learning the ropes of baby red eared slider care, there are three main ways to ensure your tiny charge gets all of the vitamins and minerals required for optimal health and shell growth.

Maintain Water and Ambient Aquarium Temperature

Even the most general red ear slider care sheet will likely mention the importance of maintaining the correct temperature – both ambient and basking – for your turtle tank. This is twice as important for baby turtles, which have a stricter, narrower temperature tolerance range than adult turtles.

What Red Eared Slider Turtles Eat

Since red eared slider turtles are omnivorous they can eat a huge variety of ailments. So to make things simpler I will divide them in 5 categories:

How to Properly Feed Your Red Eared Slider Turtle

Over the years I’ve read about countless methods of feeding turtles. But out of all of them two stood out the most, as being the most used and the most efficient. And they are the 15 minutes method and the size of the head method.

Red Eared Slider Turtle Feeding Schedule

The first thing that you have to take into consideration when thinking how often you have to feed your turtle, or when making a feeding schedule, is the age of the turtle. Baby red eared slider turtles need a different amount of food than juveniles, and juveniles need a different amount of food than adult red eared slider turtles.

Occasional Treats

Another thing that I want to address is that you can occasionally give your red eared slider turtle treats. As long as they are not too consistent, you can give your turtle a few live fish, fruits, vegetables or dried insects, without worrying that you disturb their feeding schedule.

Final Thoughts

While red eared slider turtles can eat a lot of things, not all of them can be good for them.

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