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hola, ive been reading some of the posts concerining hand feeding. i bought my 1-2" turtle illegally from the indoor swapmeet like 3 weeks ago. he was miserable. i started to hand feed him the reptomin baby pelets. pinching one end, and submeringing my fingers. he bit me once and i accidentaly threw him accross the room. j/k. anyways, so now i put my whole hand under water, drop the pellets into my palm, and he"ll swim up onto my palm and eat, then chill. is this too much phisical interaction? am i going to die from samenilla or whatever? is he going to bite my thumb off? and how old is he/she?

Nope! Another member on this forum feeds their turtle the exact same way. It'll get him more used to you. No, you won't get salmonella if you wash your hands after touching your turtle and or your turtle's water. If he bites you this earlier it's good since it doesn't hurt when he's that small and it'll teach him that fingers are not food. You don't want to teach him this once he's big

and age, You can't tell for sure but I'm guessing 2 or 3 months old.

The bites from a small turtle never hurt. Once they get to be much bigger (6 inches long) that's when it really starts to pinch when they bite.

Just get into the habit of washing your hands with soap & water every time you have any contact with the turtle's water. Handling a turtle is just like handling raw meat before you cook the meat....you have to wash your hands after handling the raw meat. Risk of salmonella is very very low if you get into good habits right from the start. I've had turtles for 18 yrs and have never had a salmonella problem.

The other thing that helps: changing the water regularly and never letting your turtle sit in sewer water.

I feed Tito like that
Itll create a greater bond and hell come to trust you more

I keep a bottle of handsanitizer near his tank so i just squirt squirt and im all clean

Def with the hand sanitizer..thats much more convenient!!