Feeding and Nutrition :: Veggies/Fishies/Pellets

[TheComputerGremlin]

Okay, my RES is like 2" or so in length. I currently feed him two kinds of pellets (both turtle pellets, I think the ones are the ReptoMin floating sticks and I don't remember the other brand), I feed him both because the one claims to be mostly animal protein and the other has veggies/fruits in it.

Anyways, I've tried to feed him food that we keep on hand, romaine lettuce, carrots, radishes, fish from our dinner, canned cat food - all cut into little pieces so he can easily eat them. Well, the cat food went over well, as did the fish, but he won't touch veggies. How hard should I push him to eat the veggies? And are there any fruits they eat, or just veggies? Do they eat grass (we periodically have cat grass available)? Or should I just wait until he gets older?

And the second part of the question, when can I buy him his first fish as a treat? I found the Rosy Reds at PetSmart for 12 cents (and I'm going to a local aquarium store this weekend, so I'll check their prices, as long as they aren't like more than a dollar, I'll probably buy them there rather than PetSmart), but the fish just look so big, and I don't want to put a fish in there that the turtle spends a couple days picking at until it dies. Will he eat it quickly (even though he's so small) enough that it's not cruel torture for the fish?

Thanks!!

[megcornell]

You can feed rosy reds at any time, when I first fed my turtle feeder fish I asked for the tinier rosy reds just to make sure she could eat them.

As for the veggies, it's very important that turtles eat a varied diet. I would cut out the cat food, that's really only used as a last resort to entice turtles to eat, it's not a good snack. You can try some tough love with the veggies, and just offer them exclusively for a few days and see if Mikey takes to them. You may also have to try a few different ones, my turtle for instance loves carrots and romaine but won't touch collard greens or most fruits.
At the top of the nutrition section there is a sticky note on "what to feed RES'' it outlines all the good fruits and veggies and roughly how often to feed them, take a look at that for some ideas of what else to try.