All Turtles Message Board

Bbasso · Level 3 Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 139

I have three turtles, two RES and one painter. Is feeding crickets to them ok ?
if ok how often can I feed them crickets?
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Rob

toxiceagle2007 · Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:21 pm Post subject: Re: Crickets for turtles?

My turtles occasionally eat crickets. I don\'t generally give them crickets. I had to buy a few for a friends anoles, so I put a few in with the RES. I think that most people agree, turtle pellets etc should make up most of the diet. If you wanna give them crickets, I would limited it to a few crikets every couple of days as a treat. Let\'s see what the others say...
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mariza · Level 4 Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 1339

Feeding crickets to your turtles as part of a varied, balanced diet is fine. You didn't say how big/old your turtles are, but little ones seem to be especially interested in food that moves. You don't want to give them a diet that's too high in protein, which will cause them to grow too fast, and many turtle pellets are just too high in protein to make up most of their diet. You want to give them a variety of foods that include pellets, but also plant matter, worms, etc. I have some 7-month-old hatchlings that have been getting crickets about once a week.

If you chose to give your turtles live crickets, you can make them more nutritious by "gut loading" them. Keep them for a day or two in a container with a little cricket feed (bought at pet stores) and a moistened natural sponge they can drink from. The cricket feed contains calcium, which they will eat and your turtles will eat them, getting the calcium. (Or you could sprinkle calcium powder on a slice of apple, for example.)

A word of caution--I've been keeping crickets in what I thought was an escape-proof box, but some escaped, and now as evening approaches, everyone in the house is serenaded with their chirping!

mrshynd1214 · Level 1 Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Oklahoma

I just wanted to add that you should never feed your turtle a cricket bigger than it's own head. My turtles are still under a year old and are growing, but still small, and when I go to the store there are two kinds of crickets, large and small, and I usually try to give them 3 crickets each once a week.

I have 3 other pets that eat large crickets every other 2 or 3 days, so the cricket guy and I are good friends.

P.S. we have a cricket holder and put in orange pieces, apples, bread, pears, whatever fruit we happen to have at the time, to let the crickets snack on.

Also, we buy a calcium powder. Put the crickets in a baggie, put in some powder, shake things up and you have gut-fruit loaded, calcium covered crickets.
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2 Turtles-Mork & Mindy, 1 Cat-Rumble, 1 Bearded Dragon-Pac, 2 Sugar Gliders-Rowan & Damjia, 2 Degus-Peter & MJ