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I have no idea. Life as a turtle is rough enough but to have to deal with your cuttlebone like that sucks.

Wait, what?! I have to take the backing off? :O I've just been buying the turtle cuttlebone and throwing it in the water. They chomp away at it. Am I hurting them ??

Is it "Turtle Bone"? They sometimes don't have a backing. I don't think small pieces are harmful, though you'll want to avoid it anyway.

Ok, thank you. Yes, it's a turtle bone one, but it still has backing. Had no idea. It's not like the box says "break up and peel backing." Yeesh, why wouldn't they tell us that?

My Turtles ignore (won't eat) the cuttle bone if the hard side is down. Reversed they swim up to it get lip lock on it and push it away, leaving a little furrow. So far they haven't eaten a noticeable portion of the backing. When the edges are stripped to the depth of their mouthes, I pull it out of the water and hit it with a dremel until the hard edges are gone. Even when it's down to smaller pieces they don't seem interested in eating the hard part.
I tried attaching the bone to a long stainless steel bolt & nut. It was great floating just below the surface. That worked for about a week but once the bone sinks, the way the tutles jerk it around, brought me to the brink of terror for my tank; so I went back to just letting the bone swim and drift on its own. When they want it they actively search for it even if it has drifted under the filter. They are really pretty creative when it comes to satisfying a want. The only thing I feel I must say: If you buy a cuttlebone packaged for birds, removing the metal clip meant to hold it to the cage seems pretty important.
I don't understand why the bones sold without the clip and packaged for turtles cost more than the equivalent parakeet bone with a clip.

Any product marketed towards turtle keepers will come with a slight or significant premium

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but here are my two cents:

-I don't think it was ever mentioned why you need to do this - with the reason being that the turtle cannot digest the backing itself.
-It's not mentioned anywhere on the packaging that you have to do this, which is too bad. It doesn't come intuitively to have to remove the backing.
-Don't try to do this after they're wet.... they crumble.

One more point on this topic - I've heard cuttlebone can really screw with your ph. Noticed mine was higher than usual and removed the left-over cuttlebone. Will see if it results in any changes.