Thoughts (picky eater)

[ashbelys]

Anyone have any thoughts on why one of my turtles will only eat fish and the other will eat turtle pellets or anything I give him?

 

[ascott]

RE: Thoughts

Just a turtle being a turtle...when they are young the "usually" have a great desire/like for meat....so I would perhaps back off a bit on the fish and try to encourage the pellets or maybe even transition to the freeze dried bug mix...crickets, mealworms and river shrimp....even a nightcrawler or two is a good switch (just be sure the nightcrawlers are not from soil high in animal waste)...

 

[ashbelys]

Thoughts

He will literally starve himself to death before he'll eat a turtle pellet. I've even tried flavoring them. It's like he doesn't see them as food.

 

[diamondbp]

Thoughts

Crush the pellets into a powder and dump the fish in the powder before feeding. It should start him getting use to the Flavor. If be shocked if he still refused the powdered fish but let us know.

 

[ashbelys]

Thoughts

I will try that tonight

 

[ashbelys]

Thoughts

He picked the tuna and pellets apart and would only eat the tuna. Smartest turtle ever, I swear. I even crushed the pellets super tiny.

 

[diamondbp]

Thoughts

Then you may have to get surgical and open up the fish to insert whatever pellet dust you can fit in there. A small incision around the fishs cloaca and shove it in from there or the mouth of the fish.
It sounds like you have a turtle Einstein on your hands lol

 

[ashbelys]

I'm not feeding him live fish lol
It's tuna from a can

 

[ascott]

Have you tried the freeze dried bugs cocktails you can purchase in the pet stop?