How Long Can Baby Turtles Go Without Eating?

At some point every turtle owner will have to leave his turtles home alone for a weekend or two. And at that point a few questions arise: Should I feed the turtle more before I leave, or should I do nothing at all? How long can baby turtles go without eating? So let’s answer those questions.

On average a baby turtle is able to survive 1 month (30 days) without food. The amount of time can increase or decrease based on factors like, age, size, species, environment and prior diet.

If you were planning on leaving your baby turtle home alone for the weekend you can do so without any worry. But if you are going to be away for more than a weekend you should know that while turtles are able to live without eating for long periods of time, this is not necessarily something good for them.

Now let’s take a look at what happens if you leave your baby turtle without food for one weekend, one week, and one month. And after that we will see how you can make sure that your turtle gets enough food while you are away on a vacation.

What Happens If a Baby Turtle Doesn’t Eat for 1 Weekend

This is probably the most common amount of time that turtles are left home alone without food. And fortunately for them and for their owners nothing bad will happen to any turtle if it doesn’t eat for one weekend.

So if you are planning a weekend trip, you shouldn’t worry about your turtle at all, it will be completely fine.

What Happens If a Baby Turtle Doesn’t Eat for 1 Week

In the case of a very young baby turtle, less than 3 months, it would most likely starve at this point. So it’s definitely not safe. But if we are talking about a slightly older baby turtle, that is still not a juvenile. So one that is around 6 months, it should be fine. Not recommended but fine.

After we are done talking about what happens if you leave your turtle without food for certain periods of time, we will also cover what you can do if you have to leave your turtle home alone, so don’t worry, I will also cover that part.

What Happens If a Baby Turtle Doesn’t Eat for 1 Month or More

Most baby turtles won’t be able to survive one month without food.

If a baby turtle doesn’t eat for a long period of time, the first thing that will happen is that it will move less to conserve energy. The immunity system will stop working accordingly, and infections will start appearing.

And will either try to escape the tank, in search of food, or it will try to hide away from possible predators as it will feel weakened and unable to defend itself.

Another thing that will happen is that the turtle will stop growing. The vitamins, minerals and energy that under normal circumstances were used for growth, will be redirected by the body to keep the vital functions running.

While there might be a few more things left to say about what happens if a turtle doesn’t eat, I think it’s pretty clear what’s the general idea.

Now let’s see how we can avoid those things.

Leaving Your Baby Turtle Home Alone for Long Periods of Time

I already have an entire article dedicated to this subject, so in this one I will only cover the basics. If you want a more in-depth guide you should check out this article: Guide for Leaving Your Turtle Home Alone.

Now I am going to tell you what you can do to make sure that your turtle is properly fed while you are away on a long and well deserved vacation. Depending on how long you are going to leave your turtle home alone you might want to use all of those methods or just a few of them.

Aquatic Plants

One of the simplest things that you can do is to add some aquatic plants to the tank.

Turtles are omnivorous so they can eat plants as well as meat, so a couple of plants will provide quite a healthy meal for them while you are away.

The only downside of those plants is that the water will get dirty a lot faster. When turtles bite them, they always live in small parts floating through the water, this is inevitable. But other than that plants are ideal if you were to leave for a weekend or a week.

Aquatic plants can usually be bought at pet stores. Pet stores don’t usually sell plants that are bad for turtles, but just to avoid any problem make sure that you tell them what you want them for.

Feeder Fish

The next solution is to buy some feeder fish. Feeder fish are the kind of fish that you would normally keep as pets in an aquarium. But in this case they will be a food source for the turtle.

Just be careful that there are some fish sold in pet stores that aren’t good for turtles due to various reasons like” too much fat, too many bones, or they are hard to catch.

Pet shops employees should know which fish are good for a turtle, but just in case here are a few species that are suitable to be feeder fish:

Killifish
Guppies
Mosquitofish
Platies
Bluegills
Bass
Crappies

After you get them from the pet store you just place them in the turtle tank.

And just like aquatic plants, feeder fish will make a mess in the tank, but this is something that can’t be avoided.

Automatic Food Dispenser

Probably the simplest solution to the food problem is to get an automatic food dispenser. I personally find this method very comfortable, and it will also come in handy when you are at home but you have a busy schedule and you don’t have that much time to look after your turtle.

This is the model that I use: Eheim Turtle Feeder. I haven’t tried any model besides this one, but at the moment I don’t have any reason to do so. What I really like about this model and I haven’t seen this at any other models is that it’s very flexible. You can have it release food to your turtle up to 4 times per day, and it can be a double or a normal serving. It is important to remember that it can hold a limited amount of food, but I never had any problem with that. But if you are going to leave for 3 months you definitely need to have somebody come over and refill it once a month. If you want to see the dispenser here is a link to Amazon.

Have Somebody Come Over

This is probably the solution that most people think of when they have to leave their turtle home alone for long periods of time.

The only problem with this method is that people who don’t own a turtle don’t know how important it is to give the proper amount of food, and not to simply grab a handful of pellets and throw them in the tank.

What I like to do when I have somebody come over to look after my turtle is to write on a piece of paper exact measurements, or if I have time portion the food in small recipients. This way when they will know exactly how much food to give.

Final Thoughts

Baby turtles can’t go without food for long periods of time, as they need to eat daily.

In the case of pet turtles leaving them without food for a weekend won’t affect them in any way. If you were to leave them without food for a week, once or twice a year, they should still be fine, and there should be no long term effects.

My advice is to not worry if you are going to leave for only a weekend. But if you were to leave for more than a weekend, you should add some aquatic plants, or some feeder fish to the tank, use an automatic food dispenser or have somebody come over and look after your turtle.