How to start feeding pellets?

[[email protected]]

My penn cooter I got a week ago wouldn't eat anything for a few days. So I tried some tilapia. So far that is the only thing it will eat. How do I get it to start eating pellets? I feed my painted reptomin, reptotreat, earthworms, and some tilapia. They both like to nip at the cuttle bone I have in the tank once in a while.

 

[luvpetz27]

Hi and welcome!!
I dont know the answer to your question but I wanted to say .......your enclosure is awesome!! Beautiful turtles too!!!

 

[[email protected]]

Hi and welcome!!
I dont know the answer to your question but I wanted to say .......your enclosure is awesome!! Beautiful turtles too!!!

Thanks lol

 

[Lou]

Cold turkey....thats the only thing I have used on aquatic turtles.

Also, as a random thought, if you have a small piece of tilapia, and stuff a pellet in it and see if it would eat it over time...lol.

 

[jjsull33]

I am not sure for turtles but for tortoises you can start adding what you want them to eat shredded up with what they will eat, starting with more of the food they will and less of what you want them to eat and slowly switch to the other way around. I assume the same will work for turtles but with you needing to feed in the water I'm not entirely certain how mixing them will work.

I think the idea of stuffing the fish with pellets would probably work, it would at least get them used to the pellet taste.

 

[Anthony P]

Turtles don't need to eat every day. If you just offer pellets for a few days, the turtle will eat them. You can't be scared to have them go a day without eating. After all, as cliche as it is, turtles aren't known for being fast at many things, right?

I get my aquatics eating varied diets very early on, and do so by giving them a bit of tough love.

 

[[email protected]]

Turtles don't need to eat every day. If you just offer pellets for a few days, the turtle will eat them. You can't be scared to have them go a day without eating. After all, as cliche as it is, turtles aren't known for being fast at many things, right?

I get my aquatics eating varied diets very early on, and do so by giving them a bit of tough love.

haha I was out of town this weekend so they missed a day of feeding. Do you think they will be good when I leave next weekend and they will miss 3 days of feeding? I've read online that they would even be ok if I left them for a week vacation, is this true?

 

[Anthony P]

Yeah it's true that they would be fine. Since we're talking about Pseudemys, you could leave live plants in there or other items that they could nibble if you had to leave. If the two turtles were to be left together, without food for a long while, I'd watch for tail nipping from the painted, towards the cooter. Just a heads up.

 

[[email protected]]

I did get him to eat pellets a few days after I posted this... The cooter eats the reptomin but my painted turtle has stopped eating reptomin and only eating the reptotreat.. How can I get this to change?

 

[banshee4711]

Tough love..... Keep offering, and have a strong will