Weekly diet for turtles
To properly feed turtles, you need to study what they eat in nature. Even the diets of different species of land turtles vary greatly depending on their habitats. So, for example, steppe turtles eat more succulents and steppe plants in nature, but radiant and star-shaped turtles eat vegetables, fruits, and flowers more often. Aquatic turtles do not often eat fish, more often they are content with insects, snails, tadpoles.
The diet below is recommended based on the feeding results of many tortoise owners, but is not mandatory.
The specified menu may be adjusted depending on the recommendations of experienced turtle keepers. On Sunday (Sun) it is better to do a fasting day and not feed the turtles at all.
Important:
- Do not overfeed, especially young animals
- Feed no more than once a day in the morning or afternoon (not in the evening)
- After half an hour for water or after an hour for land, remove the food
- If she does not want to eat, but at the same time she is healthy – do not force, but do not indulge only with what she loves
Diet for the Central Asian steppe tortoise
| Turtles < 7 cm | Turtles > 7 cm | Fry food | Additional fertilizing |
| MON, WED, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY | PN, SR | fresh herbs (dandelions, plantain, clover, alfalfa and other plants) | |
| or store-bought salads (watercress, frisee, lettuce, iceberg, romano, chicory salad, chard) | |||
| or pre-frozen or dried dandelions, clover, etc. from the summer menu | |||
| or grown on the window of the house (lettuce, basil, dandelions, carrot tops, indoor plants) | |||
| PT, SB | Sat | vegetables and their tops (zucchini, pumpkin, cucumbers, carrots) – once every 2 weeks | + vitamins and calcium powder |
| or soaked dry vegetable food for tortoises |
* it is better to collect greens not in the city, away from the roads ** constant presence of sepia (cuttlefish bone) and soft hay in the terrarium
Diet for freshwater (red-eared, marsh) turtles
| Turtles < 7 cm | Turtles 7-12 see | Turtles > 12 cm | Fry food |
| Mon | PN1 | PN1 | river fish with entrails and bones (carp, carp, bream, pike perch, perch, pike) from a store or from fishing |
| Tue, Thu, Fri | Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat | fresh herbs (dandelions, plantain, alfalfa and other plants with large leaves) or store-bought salads (watercress, frisee, lettuce, iceberg, romano, chicory salad, chard) or aquatic plants (duckweed, riccia…) | |
| VT | SR1 | CT1 | live/thawed/sublimated insects (krill, coretra, daphnia, grasshoppers, crickets, marbled cockroaches) |
| cf. | SB1 | PN2 | dry food for turtles Sera, JBL, Tetra |
| Th | PN2 | CT2 | shrimp (preferably green) or mussels / beef or chicken liver or heart |
| PT | SR2 | PN3 | earthworms or tadpoles or frogs |
| Sat | SB2 | CT3 | snails or nude mice |
* gammarus is not dry, but live or frozen for fish ** it is desirable to have snails, small viviparous fish (neons, guppies), aquatic plants, sepia (cuttlefish bone) in the aquarium all the time *** if it is difficult for a turtle to eat snails, fish with bones and sepia, she does not eat, then you can feed her food from tweezers and sprinkle with vitamins and calcium **** The number next to the day of the week indicates the number of the week (first or second).
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