Feeding and Nutrition :: Outdoor Turtle Diet - New Pond and Turtle Owner Advice

[anarse]

We put in a pond about a month ago. My husband surprised me with a yellow-belly slider that the pet store told him we could keep in our outdoor pond. (There are goldfish in the pond too but they are much too large for the turtle to eat.) I'm in Missouri so it gets cold here, and I realize we will have to bring him inside for the winter.

The turtle (Turt McGurt AKA Old Turty Bastard AKA OTB AKA Sir Chomps-a-Lot) seems to be doing really well. It looks healthy, has grown already, is active, uses its cork log to bask in the sun... The problem is it will only eat my lily pads. For the record, I don't care that it's eating them. The problem is that's the ONLY thing it'll eat.

We have water hyacinths in the pond too, he basks on them but doesn't eat them. He won't eat fresh greens I've thrown in (spinach - which I realize I can't feed him often) or his turtle pellets. Today, he was chomping on a lily pad so I threw some pellets in to distract him. One landed right in front of his mouth, but he just turned away from it and started chomping on the next lily pad over.

I'm worried he's not getting what he needs in his diet. Any advice??

[steve]

Hi anarse! How big is the pond? Is Sir Chomps-a-Lot (my favorite of his names ) friendly? A few things you can do...

Take him out to feed him in a container (with water). Added benefits is that you can check him, it will keep water cleaner. You probably only have to do it once every 2-3 days.

Wait for him to get used to you and the food, then he will learn. You might need to tempt him with treats at first, then switch.

Use something like a feeding ring though I think the fish could out compete him.

[anarse]

Hey there! Thanks for the reply! The pond is 5 x 10, 2 feet deep, about 680 gallons.

He isn’t friendly but he sometimes seems a bit curious about us. He wouldn’t be hard to catch though. He hides under the lily pads and thinks he’s being stealthy, but we can totally see him. I was actually able to scratch his shell the other day. And for the record, we don’t really yet know if he is a he or if he is a she. We don’t enforce gender norms on our pets. Lol

Will definitely try taking him out and feeding him in a container of water. Does the water need to be conditioned? Does it need a bubbler or anything else?

Thanks again for all the great advice!

[steve]

For most water sources, you probably don't need any conditioner.

[anarse]

So we tried this last night. I just put some pond water inside of a large plastic container. We put a few rocks in and a small floating log to make him comfortable. Then we took him off his basking log in the pond and put him in the plastic container setup... It did not go well.

He had zero interest in food (turtle pellets first, then steamed sweet potato without the skin) and spent the entire 30 minutes he was in there frantically trying to swim out. When I put him back in the pond on a lily pad, he just laid there with his head and legs inside his shell. I came back over to make sure he was OK, and he bailed into the water as soon as he saw me.

Today, he refuses to make an appearance. Normally I would have seen him basking on a log at least once by this time of day.

Yesterday was the first time we pulled him out of the pond so I got my first look at him up-close. He appears healthy but has some slight pyramiding, which I can only assume was from his days confined to a tank in the pet store eating only pellets. Unless he has been eating too many bugs in my pond? Like I said, I've only ever personally witnessed him eating lily pads. But I of course am not watching him 24/7.

I guess I'll try this exercise again in a few days - if he isn't too scared to show himself to us now. I hope we didn't traumatize him.

[steve]

How large was the container? In a desperate situation, you can take him out overnight and try to get him to adjust in a container before feeding him.