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How To Care Of Pet Turtles

Pet Turtles Care in this article will show you that a little homework is in order to successfully keep a turtle safe.

Pet turtle is ideal to have. A turtle makes few demands of you, very little fuss or noise unlike a cat or dog and loves a good meal at home! You don’t need to take him out on long walks, bath or groom him. He doesn’t leave any mess around the yard and pet turtle is happy at his home!!!

Choose among the smaller, hardier species such as the popular Red Eared Slider, the cooter, or the mud or musk turtle, and be prepared to accept most of the responsibility for its care, if you want healthy and happy turtle as a pet.

We recommended and choose to write about popular Red Eared Slider turtles.

They are notorious for their appetites. These pets are known to beg for food and are at high risk of being overfed.

Tank

The best size of a tank is 36″ long with a ramp, submergible heater and filter. The heater is to keep the temperature at a consistent 76 degrees. You will also need a basking lamp so he can sun himself after eating. The tank should NOT be full!!! Fill it up enough that he can climb up on the ramp to sun but can also go completely under water. Your turtle will grow to adapt to the size of the tank u have him in. If you want to keep the turtle on the smaller side, we suggest a 10 gallon starter tank.

Food

Here are some turtle food ideas and guidelines about this kind of turtles.

They start out mostly carnivorous and become more herbivorous as they grow in age and size. The protein intake will be higher when it is younger. Calcium is essential to keep its shell hard and accommodate for growth.

Your turtle’s food should consist of commercial pellets and the appropriate vegetables and calcium. Turtle food needs to be presented to your pet inside water because turtles cannot produce saliva to swallow with. Feed your pet turtle inside a separate container from its tank, which will leave less waste and mess in your turtle tank.

Pellets

Pellets should make up most of your turtle’s diet. Under one year turtles, feed them daily as they need the food to grow! Older turtles should be fed every other day.

One feeding in the size of your turtle’s head (excluding the neck) is enough. Red Eared Slider turtles always beg for more – it is very dangerous to indulge them. It will create an excess of protein that will damage its growth and more waste in your turtle tank.

Greens and Vegetables

Vegetables have great offerings of calcium, vitamin K and A. As Red Eared Sliders get older they should be offered more vegetables in their diet, 75% of its diet can be plant based. Here are suggested veggies and greens your pet turtle will like to eat:

These plants can be offered daily: dandelion leaves, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, turnip greens (the leaves only).

Other vegetables can be a part of turtle’s food: carrots, green bean, kale, celery, pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, and zucchini.

A rare part of your turtle’s food: iceberg lettuce, mustard greens, red pepper, and tomato.

Live Pray

These foods should be avoided as they can be harmful to your pet turtle: amaranth, beet greens, bok choi, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, celery, chives, mushrooms, parsley, peas, rhubarb, spinach.

Red eared sliders love eating live prey. It can be a lot of fun for both owner and turtle, but this food could harbor parasite or diseases. This section is best to make up a rare treat portions of your turtle’s diet. Be careful that what you offer won’t be difficult for your pet turtle to swallow. Also be aware of taking worms from a neighbor’s garden that may use herbicides, pesticides or chemicals.

Limited use live prey include: apple snails, pond snails, guppies, red rose minnows, crickets, earthworms and silkworms. You can feed turtle rarely: mosquito larvae, ghost shrimp, brine shrimp and waxworms.

Live prey not recommended include: crayfish, goldfish, mealworms, slugs and tubifex worms.

Treats (canned, processed, frozen)

Frozen foods are a fairly safe turtle food because they should be parasite free. They can be a good treat to entice your red eared slider to eat.

Moderate: bloodworms and crickets.

Use rarely: brine shrimp, feeder fish, gammarus (shrimp) and krill.

Frozen foods not recommended: mealworms, snails and tubifex worms.

So, here you have a few ideas to keep your pet turtle happy through its stomach. Remember, feeding time is one of the most exciting times inside a turtle tank so a healthy variety will not only keep him healthy, but happy too. Follow these advices and your pet turtle will love you dearly for feeding him .

Do you have experience in taking Care of your Pet Turtle? Write a comment if you find something new about this kind of turtles!!!

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