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 #1817907


Emeraldman
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 Baby Snapper. How much food?

Hello all.

Well, my brother found an Alligator Snapping Turtle quite a while ago, at least a month. He’s been doing great, and since my brother has moved back home, and I now get to see it much more, I just wanted to see which food reccomendations you guys would have. I know that they are carnivorous obviously, we’ve never offered veggies. Should we? So far, he get’s around 5 mealworms every day, or every other day. He was eating store-bought pollock as well when he was down at my brother’s place. It’s not a problem for me to go get minnows, or frogs, or anything like that. Should I give him an earthworm every now and then? His shell length is only about two inches. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Trav



08/03/08  09:36am

 #1817973


Gottee guy
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  Message To: Emeraldman   In reference to Message Id: 1817907


 Baby Snapper. How much food?

first it’s best to let it back in the wild.
and second, your feeding is way off.



08/03/08  10:55am

 #1818622


Emeraldman
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  Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1817973


 Baby Snapper. How much food?

That helped. o.O



After further research, I think he’s actually a Northern Common Snapper (C. S. Serpentina).
And, through http://www.chelydra.org/, found what I needed.

-Trav



08/03/08  07:33pm

 #1818776


Gottee guy
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  Message To: Emeraldman   In reference to Message Id: 1818622


 Baby Snapper. How much food?

what size cage is it in?it should be in at least a 20 gallon. 10 gallons of water per inch of turtle,at least.
i hope you know all too well that it will reach 100 pounds 4 feet long and need at least a 300 gallon pond or larger when it grows older and will live for 150 years.that’s why i really would recommend letting it go now.
hopefully you have a UVB light and heat lamp for it.they are necessities for a turtle.
you should be feeding him fruits,veggies,turtle sticks and meats.meats/turtle food about 60 percent of its diet and veggies/fruit/vegetation 40 percent of its diet.
mealworms have a bad phosphorus to calcium ratio so it’s best not to feed them too often.
turtle sticks,minnows, crickets and vegetation/fruit are the best to feed daily or every other day with a mouse or frog of appropriate size once a week.don’t feed ice berg lettuce. it has almost no nutrition. romaine lettuce and collared greens are alot better to feed.
it can eat earthworms.
i wouldn’t recommend feeding it wild caught food since there are loads of parasites in them, especially in frogs and earthworms.in the wild they are free to go anywhere and move around alot so the parasites pass through them quickly but when they are fed with infested food in a terrarium or aquarium the parasites linger in there,even with a filter,unless you do full water or substrate changes daily.but i don’t think very many people do.



08/03/08  09:36pm

 #1819267


Emeraldman
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  Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1818776


 Baby Snapper. How much food?

It’s in a 20 long right now.

And I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be four feet long. The larger specimens can reach 18 to 20" shell length as far as I can tell from my research, and that’s the largest I’ve heard of too. The largest we’ve ever had out by me was 17 or 18" and about 70 pounds. He’s getting regular sunshine in the summer months, and will have UVB on him in the winter. He’s really not much for the veggies either. Well he likes them, but more of "Hey, that looks like it would be fun to sit on", and less "I think I’ll eat that." I’m gonna go make a crayfish trap to see if there’s any in the swamps, I doubt it, but who knows?

-Trav



08/04/08  12:42pm

 #1819274


Gottee guy
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  Message To: Emeraldman   In reference to Message Id: 1819267


 Baby Snapper. How much food?

alligator snappers get nearly 4 feet long but yours is a northern, my mistake. but it WILL get very large.maybe 2-3 feet long.since snappers live so long and no one person has watched them for their WHOLE life span,nothing is really accurate on how big they get.
try giving it a whole small tomato.mine used to love them.



08/04/08  12:49pm

 #1824242


Crablegs
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  Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1819274


 Baby Snapper. How much food?

When you say natural sunlight do you mean he is outside? Because if you have just placed him by a window there is two things wrong

1. It could overheat the enclosure
2. The glass on windows blocks nearly all UVB.



08/08/08  04:43pm


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