How Often Do Box Turtles Eat and How Much Do They Eat?

Two of the most essential things that you have to know when you have a box turtle as a pet is how much you have to feed them and how often you have to feed them. Before I got my first box turtle I spent weeks researching those things because I wanted to make sure that I know what I am doing. In this article, I am going to share the results of my research with you, that way you will know exactly what you are doing when you have to feed your box turtle.

How often do box turtles eat? How often a box turtle has to eat is closely related to how much it eats. Depending on the amount of food that your turtle eats, you can feed it once every day, once every two days, or once every 3 days. The best practice is not to wait more than 3 days between each meal.

How much do box turtles eat? The amount of food that a turtle will eat is determined by its age and size. There are a few methods that will tell you how much food you should give your turtle, two of the most known are the 15 minutes method and the size of the head method.

Now let’s take a closer look at those methods, and then at how to make a proper feeding schedule for your box turtle.

Different Methods of of Choosing the Amount of Food for Your Box Turtle

As I said there are a lot of methods out there, but two of the most talked-about are the 15 minutes method and the size of the head method. I tried both of them and did extensive research to find out what other people have to say about them. So let’s start with the 15 minutes method.

The 15 Minutes Method

The 15 minutes method is very simple, you give your turtle a lot of food, and let it eat for 15 minutes. After that, you remove the food.

As simple as this method might be it’s definitely not the best one. This is because box turtles, wild or pets, are opportunistic feeders by nature. This means that they will eat everything that they can in the fastest time possible because they don’t know when they will have the chance to eat again. Even if you feed them regularly they will not abandon this mentality.

Another way to think about this is how much food can a normal person eat in 15 minutes. At a normal rate, most people will be full if they eat constantly for 15 minutes. And if they eat at a fast pace, there is no doubt that they will be more than full. I know that turtles and humans function differently, but this is comparison is to show that the idea of a timed meal is not that great when you compare it to a fixed amount of food.

There are a few people out there that recommend this feeding method, but there are a lot more than say that is a sure way to overfeed your turtle. And I have to agree to feed your box turtle this way is not a good choice.

Before moving to the next method I want to add that overfeeding your turtle can be a major problem. Unlike most animals that just get chubby if they eat too much, turtles will also develop other health problems, like pyramiding, which affects the growth of the shell and it’s irremediable.

The Size of the Head

This method is not as simple as the 15-minute method, but it’s definitely not complicated. This method says that you should feed your turtle the same amount of food that it would take to fill its head ( without the neck ) if it were hollow.

The simplest way to put this method into practice is to find a small container, like a medicine cup, a shot glass, or a bottle cap. This container has to be approximately the same size as the head of your turtle, without the neck. Then you fill that container to the top, and then you can feed the food inside the container to your turtle.

You don’t always have to use a container, you can always just estimate the food that you would need to fill its head. If you sometimes give your box turtle a little too much food, and sometimes you give it a little too much, things will be just fine. Your box turtle won’t be affected by small differences.

This method works great because it takes into consideration the size of the turtle, and gives you a fixed amount of food that you have to give your turtle. And as the turtle grows the amount of food will change.

This is the method I use to feed my box turtle, and the results are great so far. During my research, a lot of people that used this method had great results, and nobody had any problem with it.

Between the two methods, I would definitely recommend you the size of the head method. Besides the reasons that I already listed, there is another important reason. It allows you to have a more diversified feeding schedule.

How Often to Feed Your Box Turtle | Box Turtle Feeding Schedule

The first thing that you have to take into consideration when thinking about how often you have to feed your turtle, or when making a feeding schedule, is the age of the turtle. Baby box turtles need a different amount of food than juveniles, and juveniles need a different amount of food than adult box turtles. So let’s take a look at each age group.

Feeding Schedule for Baby Box Turtles

Out of all the age groups, baby turtles need to eat the most often. This is because they need a lot of energy to grow. When turtles are are at this stage in life they experience the fastest growth rate. And to be able to grow so fast they will need a lot of energy that they will get from eating.

So baby box turtles should be fed every day using the size of the head method. Using the 15 minutes method will surely result in overfeeding especially in this case.

Making a feeding schedule for a baby turtle is very easy, you have to feed them every day. Now let’s move to juveniles, here you can have some flexibility with their feeding schedule.

Feeding Schedule for Juvenile Box Turtles

Turtles grow from babies into juveniles. Box turtles usually become juveniles after they reach 3 to 4 inches, this usually happens when they are between 8 and 12 months old.

A juvenile won’t grow as fast as a baby turtle, but it will still grow faster than an adult. So they will still need to be fed quite often. So here you have two options.

You can either feed your box turtle once every two days, the amount of food that it will take to fill their head. Or you can feed them half of that amount every day.

There is no difference for them if you feed them every day, or if you feed them every two days, as long as the amount of food is right. So it’s up to you to choose which way you want to do it. I would recommend you to feed your juvenile box turtle every two days, this way the chances of you forgetting to feed your turtle are smaller.

And if it ever happens that you forget to feed your turtle once, don’t worry. In the wild box, turtles can go weeks without eating. So forgetting once in a while is bad, but your turtle won’t be affected.

And if you go with the once every two days method I would also suggest you set up a reminder on your phone that will repeat itself on a certain day, or every two days. This way the chances of you forgetting are way smaller.

Feeding Schedule for Adult Box Turtles

Adult box turtles grow very slowly, and after some time they will not grow at all. So they won’t need as much food as babies and juveniles.

So the best way to way to feed your adult box turtle is once every 3 days, using the size of the head method. This might seem too little food when you compare it to the rest of the age groups, but remember that due to the way the size of the head method works, the size of the food portion also increases so there is no problem, your turtle is getting way more food than it got as a baby when it was eating daily.

Again to make sure that you don’t forget the best thing that you can do is to set up a few reminders on your phone or mark the dates in the calendar. But if you forget and skip one of the feeding days, there is no problem, as I said turtles can go months without eating so they won’t care at all if you forget to feed it once.

Occasional Treats

Another thing that I want to address is that you can occasionally give your box turtle treats. As long they are not too big, you can give your turtle a few live fishes, or similar things that they like, without warning that you disturb their feeding schedule.

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