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So I was given a RES a few months ago. He is 7" and had very poor living conditions and was clearly not wanted. Anyway he is much happier now but I'm wondering what to do because I tried to start not feeding him every day. He isn't fat at all but when I got him we knew nothing about turtles. You know how the containers say to feed them "as much as they can eat in 10 minutes?" Yeah...well we didn't find out that was totally wrong until a few weeks later. We were also feeding him every day. At one point we also but some rosey red minnows for him to play with, 10 for a dollar, and he ended up catching and eating all of them within 10 minutes. He wasn't even able to swallow the last couple and kept gagging them up - it was really nasty. So needless to say he wasn't given any more protein for the next 6 weeks.

So after all of these smorgasbords he's become used to, he will not accept not being fed. When I wake up, it is food time. No exceptions. I know RES' are notorious beggars, but this is beyond begging. He will thrash in the water for 30 minutes straight, scratching the tank and making plop noises. I'm worried that this could be stressful for the turtle as well as our cats who watch him have a temper tantrum, so I tried to give him 2 pellets to see if that would take care of the conditioning caused by daily feeding. Well guess what, it didn't, so I've been giving him about 8-10 of the Omega One adult turtle sticks and a leaf of bok choy, once per day. This is the only way to make him not freak out, and like I said, he is not fat and actually looks really good, so is this ok to just keep on doing? Also is it ok to just give him bok choy for greens? He likes kale too but it's really messy and plugs up the filter intake, and he likes mustard greens but those are rare in the stores for some reason. Dandelion greens are also very messy.

Thanks for any input.

What I usually do is have one of those daily pill container things with the days of the week written on it, and fill 3 of the days with a measuring spoon about the size of my turtles head with his pellets. That way if I feel like it I can dump half a serving in on one of his "no pellet" days, and still be sure he's getting the same amount every week. I offer green leaf lettuce daily, usually Sheldon shreds it and I have to net some out. You can look into making some turtle jello shots too viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17486

Pill containers are great for pellets, especially if there are other people around who might sneak some food in. I would skip bok choy and kale... green leaf or red leaf lettuce are much better. Romaine is also good. Try offering smaller amounts if it's too messy.