General Care Discussion :: Hand feeding my RES?

[Holly Golightly]

If I wanted to hand feed my turtle, would I have to wet the pellets first?

[TheComputerGremlin]

I'm not sure if people hand feed the pellets, but the turtle shouldn't be actually "eating" from your hand, but more like taking the food from your fingers and then eating it in the water. I'd start off with some scraps of tuna or something like that.

[marisa]

No, you don't need to wet the pellets. Just hold the end of one between your thumb and forefinger just above the water in front of your turtle. If s/he's not too timid, s/he should quickly grab the pellet from your fingers and bring it into the water to eat. Beware---turtles have been known to miss and get fingers (a small turtle won't really hurt you, but more startle you). My smallest painted is such a little pig that, even though he clearly sees the pellet (or whatever I'm giving him), he intentionally tries to go around it to get my finger, no doubt because it looks like a bigger (and therefore better) piece of food.

[BullDog]

I hand fed Frankie for the first time about a week ago. She's about 8.5", but she's as gentle as a lamb!
At first I held the pellet halfway under water, and she saw it then took it. Then for the next one I held it out of the water.

[Take-One]

id get food sticks hand feed. They may bite you

[industrial_girl_2000]

If your RES is 5" or larger, you can feed them food with a baby spoon. This helps save your fingers from getting bitten.

[Bascomb]

No you don't need to wet the food. They will take it out of your fingers and go under and wash it down with the water. Mine bite me also. When I feeding one the other will try and take a bite out of me. When I am traveling my wife has to use a very large pair of tweezrs to feed them. '' Little Pigs''

[Bumby's Mom]

It is funny how different they are. Gimli goes nuts trying to get the pellets and is really fiesty about it where Marvolo is very gentle and calm about getting her pellet and if she grabs my finger it is very soft and she spits it right back out but Gimli will grab the finger and bite down as hard as he can pulling at the skin.

[taylor_a]

My new little guy Toby is pretty funny...we'll throw a pellet in right by his face but he'll just keep staring at us if he thinks we're going for more food. He'll especially ignore the floating piece if we're holding a stick in our fingers! Seems to like being hand fed which is a relief considering at first we thought he was going to be shy forever.

[mikee]

No you don't need to wet the pellets before you hand feed them. When they take it from you they use the water to swallow the food. If they are large enough they can bit your finger. You just have to be careful how you hold it.

[Tiny]

We have had the most fun feeding Tiny shavings from carrots and large blueberries lately. Only once a week though.

She comes right up and will even stretch herself an inch or two out of the water to get it. She will even tear bits of lettuce from us and keep coming back to bite it, chewing on it whie holding one end with her paw(just to be sure I won't take it away. It's really been a fun way to bond. But never do we feed her pellets by hand. They are way too small for us to keep our fingers away from those huge chomps our 6 incher puts out! and believe me, she can bite hard, and break the skin, and not even realize she's hurting me.

[imderanged]

I hand feed Sylar everything, lettuce &other vegtables (I found he will eat more vegtables if I shake them around in the water so he can hunt his "prey") and i feed him pellets. I just hold it out to him and he opens his mouth and grabs it. I have BABY reptomin pellets to he definatly gets my fingers sometimes! Also he seems to really want to eat my fingernails, cause they are usually green or purple or something.

[SpotsMama]

A couple of years ago I was feeding Spot a long thin piece of shrimp by hand. I dangled it over his head as he swam, looking up. I felt like his eyes were focusing on my fingers, not the shrimp, but thought "no, that's impossible - he loves shrimp". Suddenly, he leapt out of the water - really high, like an alligator after a bird - and sure enough, he ignored the shrimp and chomped down on my finger! It hurt. He took a little piece out of my finger and it bled like crazy.

I'm a lot more careful with my fingers now.