Last year, when I was still doing turtle rescue, I took in a little female ornate box turtle. I tried everything in my bag of tricks to get her to eat. Nothing worked. The only thing keeping her alive was the daily soaking in Gerber strained carrot water. I struggled with it all summer and finally in about September, I relented and ordered some wax worms online. She wouldn't eat them either, but then I discovered that if I held the worm in my 12" long tweezers in front of her nose she would snap at it. In that fashion, I was able to get about 6 wax worms into her, and that became our daily ritual.
After a couple weeks of feeding her this way I decided to see if she would eat them on her own. I got a bowl of warm water and added a tiny bit of Reptimin Omnivore Mix, Cichlid Gold fish food, Repashy Meat Pie and Zoo Med ReptiSticks. After these had absorbed the water and plumped up, I added a spoonful of the baby tortoises' chopped greens, a tiny bit of chopped fruit and placed all of that on a little feeding tile. Then I placed about 6 of the live wax worms on top of the food and put it into the enclosure.
She was so used to me feeding her that she almost trampled the food trying to get to my hand. I hurried out of her sight and hung back watching. She eventually noticed the wiggling on the food plate and went over to take a look. She actually ate the worms, but in the process of biting at them, she got a little taste of the actual food too.
She ate the worms like this for about a week, and now she eats everything on her plate! Success. I was sure she was going to die of starvation.
After a couple weeks of feeding her this way I decided to see if she would eat them on her own. I got a bowl of warm water and added a tiny bit of Reptimin Omnivore Mix, Cichlid Gold fish food, Repashy Meat Pie and Zoo Med ReptiSticks. After these had absorbed the water and plumped up, I added a spoonful of the baby tortoises' chopped greens, a tiny bit of chopped fruit and placed all of that on a little feeding tile. Then I placed about 6 of the live wax worms on top of the food and put it into the enclosure.
She was so used to me feeding her that she almost trampled the food trying to get to my hand. I hurried out of her sight and hung back watching. She eventually noticed the wiggling on the food plate and went over to take a look. She actually ate the worms, but in the process of biting at them, she got a little taste of the actual food too.
She ate the worms like this for about a week, and now she eats everything on her plate! Success. I was sure she was going to die of starvation.