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Re: Live Foods Digest V1 #108



On Mon, 24 Nov 1997 15:58:13 -0500 (EST)
In Live Foods Digest V1 #108
Carlo <losco at techie_com> wrote;

> ... but I just bought a Red Slider (turtle for those who didn't know) and
> I was wondering, Is it customary for him to be such a bad hunter?

Turtles are not so much hunters as they are scavengers, in the wild the 
only ones they can catch are the weak or sick fish.

> I have a viquarium and decided to put a turtle in it since all I had were a
> couple of fish and plants and the turtle was cheap.  The people I bought it
> from said they will eat most anything so I bought a dozen small feeder goldfish.
> So far he has managed to bite part of the tail off of one of them, but other
> wise he sucks at hunting,

You would be a lot better off buying a bag of frozen schmelt and giving him 
cut up pieces to pick on.

> I have lettuce in there and he eats that just fine.

Unless your giving him leaf type lettuce like Romain he could easily die 
from a lettuce diet! It's important that you supplement his food with 
vitamins and calcium (it is a growing baby) pick a good vitamin powder like 
one of Tetra's and their Reptical is a good calcium suppliment. Your little
friend is also going to need some U.V. light so he can make vitamin D to 
metabolize the calcium with, Vitalight is commonly available and works 
well. Also give him a rock that juts out of the water to bask on and get a 
clamp on reflector at a hardware store and put a 75 to 100 watt bulb in it 
and place it over the rock so he'll get warmed up by the lamp.

> What I was wondering is there something else live that I can feed him, maybe
> something his speed that is a little easier to catch?

Crickets and earthworms are almost always accepted! Most insects are 
accepted except for slugs and sow bugs they won't touch either of them!  
You can OCCASIONALY give them lean beef or chicken meat but it's not really
good to feed them too much of raw meat because it is deficient in too many 
nutrients the best idea is to feed whole creatures that way it will be 
nutritionaly complete.

 
                               Sincerely

                                \\\|///
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                           Alfred A. Skrocki
                   Alfred.Skrocki at CyberNetworking_com
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