What do red eared sliders eat in the wild

You also should prepare to adjust feeding and housing as your pet ages. Older turtles will begin to eat a bit less and may need to be fed a full meal only every other day keep some snacks on hand, though.

Now that you know what to feed pet turtles, you can make sure your animal stays healthy and satisfied. What can you feed turtles? However, live feeder fish can present her with something exciting to break up the day. Select your food very carefully and never catch or pick anything from outdoors. Wild-caught fish can carry parasites that will harm your turtle.

Note that too much of even the safe version of these foods, especially extra-fatty ones like goldfish, will cause her to pack on the pounds, so limit feeder fish to once or twice per week. Dark leafy greens: In addition to live animals, your aquatic pet will enjoy plants, especially ones that would grow in her natural habitat.

Sometimes adults will eat small fish, earthworms, redworms, insects, snails, slugs, tadpoles and frogs. Baby red-eared sliders eat much more meat than adults.

Meat gives younger species the extra protein that is needed to help them grow and develop their shell. Babies enjoy invertebrates, very small feeder fish e. Too much protein in adults can cause an issue known as shell pyramiding, which is when the shell becomes more triangular in shape. Red-eared sliders hunt by either sitting motionless, waiting for a fish to swim by and then snatching it, or by chasing and snapping up any bugs that land in the water.

Adults will also swim along the bottom of ponds or lakes and eat aquatic plants or algae. Hunting and foraging for food uses up a lot of energy, so they normally eat multiple times a day. Turtles in the wild will eat whenever they can. However, pet sliders should only be fed every two to three days because they do not have to hunt.

Many turtles will stop eating out of boredom if they are fed the same diet. Providing a variety of foods in their diet is key to keeping a healthy appetite. Feeder fish are good enrichment for turtles as they will have to chase it down to catch it, but they can also contain parasites.

If you decide to feed feeder fish then buy them from a local pet store. You should never feed wild-caught prey. A powdered calcium supplement that also contains vitamin D3 is the best. This calcium supplement will help prevent diseases and shell deformities. Another option is to throw in a cuttlebone once or twice a week. Baby red-eared sliders need a diet that is higher in meat and protein.

Babies should be offered some vegetables, but the majority of their diet should be carnivorous. As your red-eared slider ages you can begin offering less feeder fish or insects and replace it with a variety of vegetables or aquatic plants.

Baby red-ears need to be fed much more frequently than adults. They also need a diet high in protein. Babies should be fed every day as they need a tremendous amount of energy to grow at the proper rate. An equal mix of protein-rich food items, dark leafy greens, and vegetables is ideal for a baby red-eared slider. Let your turtle have a 15 minute feeding session.

Use a feeding schedule to track what you are feeding in the event that your turtle becomes sick. You can find a good feeding schedule below:. Geographically, the species originated from around the Mississippi River and south to the Gulf of Mexico. They prefer warmer climates, particularly the southeastern United States, typically in areas east of and below Colorado to Virginia and continuing south to Florida.

In the wild, they prefer habitats with calm, warm water, as well as logs or rocks for basking, suitable nesting areas, and plenty of vegetation to hide in and consume. Red-eared sliders are omnivorous, eating sub-aquatic vegetation, fruits, aquatic invertebrates, fishes, and amphibians like frogs and newts. Young turtles prey mostly on small fish and amphibian eggs and tadpoles. Most turtles do not venture too far from their established fresh water habitat unless searching for a mate or nest site.

In the wild, mating is seasonal, and in most areas, takes place between March and June. Males will reach sexual maturity at around years of age, while the females reach sexual maturity at years of age. Not all the carnage inflicted by these turtles is their fault, however. That said, they do pack a nasty bite, so keep your fingers clear of their little beaks. However, there are certain ways in which they pose a massive risk to humanity, albeit indirectly.

The first is the fact that when they enter a new habitat, some of the species that they crowd out of the ecosystem are those that perform jobs like mosquito control, for example which red-eared sliders do not help with. Once these animals are gone or severely diminished, mosquito populations can explode, and that can lead to a corresponding explosion of disease in humans.

The other massive risk that they pose comes from the Salmonella that they so often carry. You can get sick from handling them, and attempts to treat them have led to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of the bacteria, which is bad news for you if you do get sick.

Just be careful to keep them inside your house, or else you could do more harm to the environment than you ever thought possible. Quincy never intended to be a cat person. When his wife brought home a kitten one day, he told her she had one week to find it a new home. That week turned into 10 years his wife moves very slowly , and that kitten turned into three they got two more, the kitten didn't self-replicate.

After a decade of sharing his home with the dogs and three cats, one horrifying realization finally set in: oh God, he's a cat person now too, isn't he??? Skip to content.