Feeding and Nutrition :: Help Regulate My Feeding!

[fatcatsrule55]

Hey,
So as with many others on this site, I've been doing EVERYTHING wrong. I'm not sure how old my turtle is. He's around 5 inches. But, I'm not sure how accurately this reflects his age considering I've been GROSSLY over feeding him. I have a few questions.

1) How old do you think he is?
2) Based on his age, should I be feeding him everyday?
3) When people say "feed them pellets to equal the size of their head" that seems to me like itd be like 7-8 pellets. That does not seem like any food. Is that true?

Thanks a million. I hope I can get him healthier soon.

[Kemul]

I'll try to answer:

1) No idea. It could be between 2 to 4 years old.

2) Based on his size, you should offer more greens. You can feed pellets
daily, but not more than half headsize. The rule of thumb is headsize pellets once
every 2 days. You can offer lettuce as large as the shell daily.

3) The headsize amount is a tried and true method. It's easy to follow. Besides,
turtle is cold-blooded. It doesn't require as much energy to live compared to the
warm-blooded mammals.

[TheComputerGremlin]

Age is impossible to tell because so many factors play in to it, so more importantly, how long ago did you get him and how big was he when you got him? Also, are you sure he is in fact a "he"?

He is likely older than 2 years, but that's about as specific as we can get given the information. If you got him when he was about 2" and that was 6 months ago, you are probably way overfeeding him. If you got him when he was 4" and that was 6 months ago, you are also probably overfeeding him. Ideally, a RES grows to be about 4" in the first year and 1" after that, but again, it depends on so many factors.

A good way to gauge overfeeding and overall health would be to post some good photos on here. You want to get as close as possible without blurring the photos - top of the shell, bottom of the shell, edge of the shell (esp. near the butt), front arms, front paw (to determine sex), and the underside of the tail as extended as you can get it. From these photos, we can tell if there has been a lot of overfeeding, if there is pyramiding, obesity, shell rot, and gender!

And yes, it feels like you are starving them! I feed my 6" turtle about 8-10 pellets each day and a good portion of lettuce to compensate for my guilt. They can have as much lettuce as they want as long as their stool remains tight and not runny. I'd say she gets about a leaf of lettuce each day which makes her quite happy!