Can turtles eat apples? Yes, but they should be rarely fed an apple. If you like giving your pet turtle a wide variety of foods including an apple, you need to take a few things into consideration. The apples that you use should be free of pesticides. They should be raw or uncooked and make sure that you remove the seeds. Cooked apple or apple seeds can make your turtle ill. Its digestive system will be affected badly and may even make your pet quite ill.
How Often Can Turtles Eat Apples
Turtles don’t have the enzymes required to break down any food with high acid and sugar content. This is the reason why you should not give your turtle apples every day. When turtles eat apples too often, their stomach may become bloated and cause severe pain, in addition to other possible complications.
Whether you are giving your turtle apples or any other fruit or vegetable, you must wash it thoroughly to ensure that there are no remains of pesticides on it. Pesticides can possibly poison the turtle and may even cause its death.
If you observe any unusual behavior in your pet turtle after eating an apple piece, you must contact a veterinarian who has extensive knowledge about reptiles as he would be able to diagnose the problem and suggest a suitable remedy. He will also be able to suggest what foods should be given to it frequently and which shouldn’t be fed to it at all.
Whenever you feed your turtle apple, you must supervise it to ensure that there is no problem. Cut the apple up into small bits so that it does not eat through to the core. That is dangerous because turtles can choke on the apple core. The seeds are also bad for turtles; therefore, they must be removed.
Suitable Foods for Turtles
There are many foods which are part of your diet that are also suitable for your pet turtle. This basically depends on what type your pet turtle is.
Painted turtles like to eat foods with large amounts of protein when they are young, such as tadpoles, snails, earthworms and guppies. As adults, painted turtles like eating vegetables, such as carrots, sweet potatoes and green beans. You can also feed them fruits, including berries, bananas and apples less frequently. When painted turtles are grown up, they can be fed on alternate days.
Box turtles enjoy sweet fruits like strawberries, apples and cantaloupe, and vegetables like beets, cucumbers and carrots. They also like to eat insects such as flies, crickets and spiders. If your box turtle lives in a garden pond, you may find it digging the ground for earthworms.
Red-eared sliders enjoy more protein-filled foods like meal worms, earthworms and fish. They can also be fed vegetables including cucumbers, carrots and cabbage.
Russian tortoises enjoy eating leafy plants. It may be a good idea to spread the food around it and let it find it on its own. This kind also eats berries, insects and flowers.
Turtle Feeding Tips
Turtles that live in the wild are often more active at dawn and dusk; therefore, feeding your turtle at these times may make it eat with more interest. It has also been observed that some turtles like to eat more keenly after rain. As turtles enjoy warm weather more, in places where the night is cooler, the turtle may prefer to eat closer to midday when it has been able to warm itself up more. If you keep your turtle in the garden, it may be a good idea to put him in a place that it gets more morning sun.
Some kinds of turtles like eating in a sheltered spot rather than in the open. Your turtle may eat more comfortably under a shrub. Other kinds eat only in water.
When the weather is very warm, placing the food in a shady spot might be wiser as this reduces the risk of over-heating.
When turtles have been fed the same foods for longer periods, they tend to develop strong preferences for these kinds of foods. This is important because a balanced diet is essential for the turtle’s health and long life. If your turtle loves cucumbers and does not eat worms, mix them both up so that it realizes that the worms don’t taste too bad. You can gradually train it to eat a variety of foods.
The answer to the original question, can turtles eat apples is more complicated than a simple yes or no. You need to feed your turtle a variety of foods and apple can be one of those. You also need to identify your turtle’s species to establish whether or not apple is safe for it. The bottom line is that an apple is safe for most turtles, but in smaller quantities and not too frequently.
References:
http://boxturtlesite.info/diet.HTML
http://www.boxturtles.com/what-do-box-turtles-eat/
http://exoticpets.about.com/od/aquaticturtles/f/feedingturtles.htm
http://small-pets.lovetoknow.com/what-do-turtles-eat
http://www.what-do-turtles-eat.info/what-do-pet-turtles-eat/
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