Right guys im new here and as ive been flicking around have found some of your information really helpfull!

More to the point ive had a couple of Yellow Bellies male and female for about a week and a half now.

when i first got them they didnt eat much and whenever i went near the tank they ran off and hid but now they seem to be eating everyday and a hell of alot too! and they no longer run away.

Agian more to the point im feeding them on Terrapin pellits which they arnt bad on but ive just bought some dried shrimp for them and they eat it like its going out of fashion! ive also given them abit of cucumber which they ate a lil but not alot.

Would feeding them shrimp be ok or do i need to varey things abit?

Things need to be varied and the diet needs to be based on a good pellet feed, such as Reptomin.

Feeding shrimp should be done not in excess because of the protein, which in large doses over a prolonged time will cause serious problems.

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As Goat says shrimp is far too high in protein to be a regular food, it's hardly surprising they eat loads, it's like feeding kids sweets! Once a week as a treat is OK but I wouldn't feed it more often than that, and then in place of other high protein food, not as well as.

It doesn't do any harm to feed them cucumber, but it doesn't do much good either as it's a rather empty foodstuff in terms of vitamin and mineral content, same with lettuce and other typical salad vegetables.

Duckweed is about the best veg you can feed them, Kale and Watercress are also good.

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2.3.0 Southern Painted Turtles
1.0.0 Florida Red Belly
2.1.1 Common Musks
1.0.0 Classic Cornsnake
0.0.2 GALS + infinite babies
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As with any chelonian... the diet does not have to be based on anything but balance and variety.

If you can provide a balanced live diet (plant and animal) you should be just fine but you either have to be an animal nutritionist or provide enough variety so as to cover all the bases. Some pelleted diets provide this balance but the added stuff always helps... adds to variety.

Instead of the cucumber... try Romaine lettuce... better yet anacris or any of the naturally occuring water plants... you might try some plantain or dandilion greens although I know of no record of them eating this stuff...

Earth worms... wax worms... crickets... fish... some suggestions.

Ed

I'd assume that earthworms, waxworms and so on will also be high in protein, so the same stands for them as stands for shrimp.

As for fish, be very careful with fish. Some fish are from salty water, in fact the majority of fish you can buy haven't ever been near freshwater.

I'd suggest a supply of freshwater fish be sourced before going down that route.

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Thanks for all the help guys!

So if i feed them the reptomin pellits which i have say for 5 days a week and then for 2 days a week give them a treat of dried shrimp that would be ok?

Even better if someone could do me a simple day by day plan of what to feed them, that would be absolutely brilliant!

Thanks again for all the help guys!

Mine eat dandelion leaves!

I'd only give them shrimp or other high protein foods once a week, and pellets the rest of the week. A diet based on good quality pellets will ensure that they get all the essential vits and minerals, you can then supplement this with other foods.

How often you feed them depends on how old they are, up to 12 months feed them once a day every day, then decrease to every other day, after a couple of years you only want to be feeding them a couple of times a week. The amount you feed them should be roughly equivalent to the volume of their heads, obviously as they grow this amount will increase!

This is for pellets and high protein foods, in addition to this they can eat as much veg as they like.

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2.3.0 Southern Painted Turtles
1.0.0 Florida Red Belly
2.1.1 Common Musks
1.0.0 Classic Cornsnake
0.0.2 GALS + infinite babies
0.1.0 Tibetan Spaniel
1.2.0 Brahma Chickens

mine eat dandelion leaves too.

This falls back on the same point the tortoise people have... maybe you know something they don't... what is the required amount of protein for a turtle.

It used to be thought that turtles ate no plant material at all.

Ed

I honestly dont fully understand the point??

I'm unaware of the people that thought turtles ate no plant material at all, i mean, 2 mins in a tank with a plant in it tells me that some do. Try feeding my Mud turtle plant and it'll not look impressed.

As far as protein goes,its a balance. The pellet feed for turtles makes more sense than it does for tortoises (as far as i know...). But excessive feeding of protein-rich feeds will deform the shell, cause increased growth rate which leads to problems a little further in the turtles life, and probably presents further problems too.

A turtle has no idea how much protein it needs. There is no Tesco 'traffic light' system, if a turtle sees food - it eats, it doesn't know when its next food is, and therefore it does as nature intended and chows down. In the wild different foodstuff comes along,in a captive environment you control what it eats. In the natural world its unlikely to suffer problems with excessive protein as it wont eat that much, cause in the food chain everything competes for a limited amount.
In the care of people,people cant help it - they see an animal that looks hungry and they feed - noticing the problems later.

I dont know if you wanted me to say anything like that, i didnt understand what you meant!

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