General Care Discussion :: I think I'm overfeeding my turtles

[MVB]

Hi all,

I inspected my turtles last night and they show signs of pyramiding, I think. Their shells ripple where their scutes are.

I've been feeding them each a small amount of pellets a day, but I wonder if I may be giving them too many vegetables. I can't find anything about the appropriate vegetable quantity. I've been putting a handful of leaves in a day. Is this too much?

-MVB

[steve]

There really isn't a hard guide on how much veggies to offer. How big are the ripples?

[MVB]

Deeper on one of them than the other. It's hard to say for sure.

This is the one whose shell looks worse, he doesn't hold still for photographs though;

https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos ... 6337_n.jpg

[MVB]

Better image; https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 710376342f

[Into_the_Mystic]

Mine is like that too.. It looks like we are over feeding

[steve]

What's the amount of pellets you are using (roughly)? I would probably cut back on that too.

[Into_the_Mystic]

I use the koi pellets and the gourmet pellets that have dried shrimp and meal worms in it, but I don't give him the fried shrimp very often. I feed the size of his head or about the size of a nickle in the palm of your hand. He's 7 inches and is 2 1/ yrs old now. He gets fed pellets every-other-day and lettuce everyday.

[MVB]

I base it on their head size. I alternate between Fluker's and the sticks. I was feeding them daily though. Since I posted this, I switched to alternating days with the pellets and every day with the leaves.

[steve]

Did the pyramiding start early on?

[MVB]

I believe it may have and I failed to identify it.

[MVB]

The biggest problem I have as a turtle owner is not having any friends with healthy turtles to compare my turtles to.

[steve]

I think it happens pretty often. They grow so fast, it's easy to miss sometimes. I also think we make plenty of mistakes on our first and second times keeping them.