Feeding and Nutrition :: New baby won't eat :-/

[emmagordon7]

Hello
We just got two babies on Monday and one is eating fine but the other (larger one) wont eat anything we have tried - romaine lettuce, turtle sticks, frozen turtle food, Fullers turtle treats(meal worms/crickets).

Is there anything else that we could try or is this normal?? :-/

Any advice would be great

[ljapa]

Not eating when people first get them is common.

Are they fed together, and is it possible the one that is eating is gobbling up the food before the other has time to show interest? One thing you might try is taking the one that will eat out to feed in a separate container. That way, you give the shyer one time to gain interest in the food in familiar surroundings.

[emmagordon7]

We put them in a separate container together to eat and then when the little one is finished eating we take him out and pop him back in the tank and leave the one that won't eat for a while but he just finds a corner and faces it

[ljapa]

Then, you may want to consider leaving him in the main tank and feeding there when taking the other out. At least until he gets used to what food looks like.

He may just be too skittish and traumatized by the change to eat. Once he gets more used to you and that you provide food, I'll bet you can feed in a separate container.

[penelope]

How big is he or she?

[emmagordon7]

He is around 6cm head to tail.

The tank is large but we could try that thanks

Taking him into the other container alone to eat in peace hasn't helped so far??

[swiltz]

I've had babies who haven't eaten for almost a week, and they seem fine. As someone mentioned above, its still getting used to its surroundings. Give it time! Your turtle is 6cm, ard 2.5 inches, meaning it has grown quite abit.. possibly even gotten used to other foods earlier on. Give it a few more days, it should give in after it feels hungry and comfortable enough

[steve]

Are you using a heater? What is the water temperature?

[Leo&Donny]

Hello, I was having this same exact problem, and last night our baby yellow belly Donny finally ate! We noticed that if the water gets too cold Donny would do the exact same thing that yours is doing. So what we did was separate the two and place Donnys feeding bowl underneath the heat lamp about 6-8 inches away and he started to move around and finally ate his first meal!! We had to feed Donny bloodworms since he was so stubborn lol...also bloodworms shouldn't be given as an everyday diet. You can also try what Steve said, we haven't tried that yet because we think it would be hard for Donny to find the food in a huge 40 gallon tank! Lol

[Yukio]

It's fine! Just let the turtles settle in.

[AlexisAwesome]

They might have ate when you were not looking.