Pet water turtles such as red-eared sliders eat turtle pellets, some animal food and leafy greens, and they eat with their heads underwater. Young turtles eat every day and adults every two or three days.
How old is your turtle?
Diet for this age
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Staple foods
VCA builds the animal part of the diet on good quality turtle or fish pellets. RSPCA serves a dried terrapin food alongside freshwater fish, completely thawed and at room temperature, as fish that isn’t can make a reptile very ill. It adds safe live plants such as pond weed, and live invertebrates such as river shrimps, bloodworms and locusts.
RVC adds rehydrated low-fat cat, dog or trout pellets, but only once or twice a week, with crickets, earthworms and raw whole small fish as occasional treats. Red-eared sliders eat more plants once fully grown.
How much
RSPCA offers a slider only as much as it can eat in five minutes and nets out the rest. RVC gives no more than a turtle eats in 30–40 minutes. The smaller amount is the safe side.
Greens and vegetables
VCA’s leafy greens include romaine lettuce, collard and mustard greens, carrot tops, endive, Swiss chard, kale, parsley, green beans, dandelion and turnip greens, and clover. RSPCA adds vegetables with beta carotene, such as sweet potato.
Foods to avoid
- Iceberg or head lettuce: mostly water, with very little nutrition (VCA).
- Oily fish such as smelt and mackerel: sparingly or not at all, and not a mostly fish diet, which VCA says can leave a turtle short of thiamine (vitamin B1).
- Wild-caught fish and amphibians: they may carry parasites (VCA).
- Raw meat, fish or chicken from the grocery store: the wrong balance of calcium and phosphorus (VCA).
- Processed foods such as hot dogs, lunch meat and bread: never (VCA).
Calcium and vitamins
RSPCA gives pieces of natural cuttlefish bone to chew. Some vets, VCA says, suggest a multivitamin once a week and a calcium block or cuttlebone twice a week. Powder washes off quickly in water, so RVC dusts only the items a turtle eats straight away.
Tank, heat and light for a slider are on what does a red-eared slider need.