General Care Discussion :: Too Many veggies????

[Tiny]

Hello Everyone-

Tiny has been on strict diet since I realized she was eating too many pellets and not enough greens and was pyramidding.

I have successfully been feeding her dandelion greens and leaf or romain daily. I was doing a headful of pelets every other day, but I was noticing loose stools and diareah in the tank, so I went to 1/2 headful of pellets daily, and leafies daily too( 1 leave of romain or green leaf- AM and 4 dandelion greens or 1 slice of radiccio PM.) She basically gets greens twice daily, but different ones. She has to have pelets I the AM or she's is disruptive, and munches greens for about 15 minutes and their gone.

I notice that she's still really loose, so I gave in and gave her some pellets this evening hoping it would act like crackers for a sick child and balance her out.

What am I doing wrong?? Too much letteuce??? Not enough pellets???

She acts ok and still begs, has even seemed to thin down a little, and doesn't seem to look as bumpy as before, so I'm thinking it's all about balance, so I guess I'm struggling with finding the correct balance. Any advice??

Tiny

[TheComputerGremlin]

Too much lettuce causes loose stool. I'd say 1 leave of lettuce once daily should be fine, plus half a headful of pellets daily. That way, you can give her the pellets in the morning and lettuce in the evening. I never give more than a shell-sized piece of lettuce to my turtle, personally.

[Nettle]

Instead of making up for a bad diet in the past, just keep to a regular one. They'll be really unbalanced if they go from one extreme to another.

[marisa]

Yes, you're right---balance in the diet is important. If the stools are consistently loose, then I'd cut back on some of the greens now and then. You don't have to feed the same amount every day.

[Take-One]

The reason why people feed pellets with greens is becuse greens will cause loose stall. Don't get totally get rid of greens, just cut back.

[Tiny]

I think I've narrowed it down to the dandilions. they seem to bring it on the most. I have mixed the pellets with greens and cut back to a shell size portion. She does seem to have improved.

Do blueberries and radiccio count as greens, even though they are not green?

[TheComputerGremlin]

Blueberries count as fruit, which can be fed once per week because it's high in sugar. You can easily substitute greens one night for fruit, like blueberries, grapes, strawberries, apple slivers or mango. I probably know what raddiccio is, it's lettuce, right? Even red lettuce is still lettuce.

[Tiny]

Thanks Gremlin-

It looks like lettuce, but i think it's cabbage family or bitter and thin like lettuce- but you're right- it's probably lettuce. so I'll watch it with that too.

I gave her bueberries tonight. We get such a kick out of feeding her them. She takes em right out of my hand, chomp, chomp, gulp. She's so funny with them.

How many would be the max on the berries per night or per week? Would three per night 3 days ina row be bad?

[TheComputerGremlin]

I don't remember what size your turtle is, but I have been using the head-sized rule for most everything, so my turtle's like just under 4" and I gave him 4 blueberries for the week. I don't know if that helps, though!