How to Care for Box Turtles ox Turtle Diet



This is what I feed my reptiles, my vegetable eating reptiles, which she is one. This is a mixture of different types of vegetables. I like to use a bagged spring mix salad from the grocery stores. And then I throw a little bit of shredded Carrot in there. This one has some Radishes in it. You can also add Corn, Green Beans any kind of fresh vegetable. Only things you want to avoid are Broccoli and Spinach, because both of those things block calcium absorption. So, I'm just going to give her a little bit of these vegetables. This should be her main diet although she likes the insects a little bit better. So, she'll avoid eating this as long as she has the insects. So, I've put a small amount of vegetables there in her dish. And this is a product I like to use. It's called T-Rex, it's made by T-Rex, it's called Box Turtle Dust. Now this is something that I really like because this, this brand, T-Rex here, has come out with a specific vitamin supplement for each different type of reptile. And that's important to me because a lot of different reptiles require different types and quantities of vitamins. So, I'm just going to take this and sprinkle a little bit of it on top of her vegetables here. Now this is not a large dosage of vitamins. This is a supplement that is meant to be used every day. It's not something that you can over do. So don't worry about how much you're giving your Box Turtle. Only if you're using this type of supplement though. Any other type of supplement you're definitely going to want to make sure that you don't overdose because it is possible. Now I'm also going to add Cod Liver Oil on top of her food. This is just, it's oil that I've put inside of this little jar for my convenience so I can drip it onto her food. But what this is, is it's a very good source of Vitamin A and box turtles require high levels of Vitamin A. It is extremely important that they get this. The best way to assure it is to sprinkle a little bit of Cod Liver Oil on top of their greens. Oh I would probably say two times a week would be sufficient in order to maintain high levels of Vitamin A. If your turtle is experiencing problems related to Vitamin A deficiency, then you can increase the dose to every feeding. This, really you can't over do this either. So I'm just going to put it on there, kind of like a dressing. And that completes her vegetable part of her diet. She's walking away from my vegetables because she knows I have something better as far as she's concerned. She loves the Mealworms. These are Super Worms. They're different in meal worms in the sense that they don't need to be refrigerated. They're very, very large. Sometimes they're also referred to as King Worms. Now I was giving some Super Worms to my Bearded Dragon a couple moments ago and she had seen me getting them out and she wanted them very, very badly, but I had to make her wait and that's why she's walking away from my vegetables. She knows I have them. I'm going to pull her down from up here because I don't want her to rush off the edge when she sees the worms. She gets very excited. Now she's learned to recognize my tweezers so sometimes she tries to bite them instead of the worm. So, I've got to make sure that she sees the actual worm here. It's definitely her favorite food. And that's ok, unlike most reptiles that are supposed to be mainly vegetable eaters, it's not going to really harm her if she eats a lot of these meat products. It's actually pretty good for her. As long as she gets the greens down in her stomach she'll be fine. And she'll eat as much as I let her. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to throw several in here. I can throw them right on the carpet here and she'll chase them down. Without this deep substrate I'm able to do that because they can't really get away and burrow underneath the ground.