Turtles favourite food?

[kenwood]

You have the choice to eat junk food & clog your arteries, etc.
Turtles don't, that's the difference.
Blood worms & turtle dinners are definately not to be fed to turtles, at least by people who care about their turtles.

So you are saying that I don't care for my turtle's?
You have a right to your opinion but DO NOT tell someone they do not care for their pet. If you really believe that someone is not caring for their pet then report them to the RSPCA.
I have been told by a couple of vet's that bloodworm's are O.K. as a treat but should not be fed them regularly as they are 6-8% protein and iron rich and have very low protein levels but a turtle's system is adequate to handle this every now and again but would be harmful if fed to often.
Also all food is harmful if given to often.

 

[kenwood]

Hey people,
another post but this one has good info on it lol
I just found this on the AFT site

Bloodworms
Bloodworms are larvae of the mosquito-like midge family Chironomidae (Order Diptera, Class Insecta). Almost all chironomids have aquatic larval and pupal stages. They have a world-wide distribution and occur in running waters (streams and rivers), standing waters (lakes and wetlands), and in waters that range from fresh to saline, from fast flowing to completely still and stagnant.
There may be more than 2000 species but only a small number have been formally identified. There is little difficulty in recognising the larvae; they are small, distinctly segmented worm-like animals. Although, they are not a true worm due to their exoskeleton and small clawed legs. Their colour is variable; some common ones are white, green, yellow, or deep red. The last is due to the presence in the larval blood of a red pigment, erythrocruorin, the presence of which is of respiratory advantage in waters with low levels of dissolved oxygen (stagnant pools). Some are also transparent and are commonly known as Glassworms. However, only those that contain erythrocruorin are red and hence the common name "Bloodworm". In some regions they are also known as "Red Mosquito Larvae".
Chironomidae larvae and pupae are highly nutritious and nourishing and constitute one of the staple food items of rainbowfishes in their natural environment. Chemical analysis shows that bloodworms contain 9.3% dry matter and of this there is 62.5% crude protein, 10.4% crude fat and 11.6% ash with 15.4% nitrogen free extract. They are also a good source of iron for the fish since they contain haemoglobin.

To conclude, providing you defrost your bloodworm's in cold water and not warm or hot water, which would diminish what nutritional value that they have,
it would be ok to feed them once weekly to baby turtles and fish.

 

[garycahill]

This has also just been decided by Craig after nearly 40 years of saying the opposite.
It will be interesting to find out what his conclusions are in the next few months on this.
As is stated in this post, if using them to train hatchlings to eat dead prey items they are ok, but there are far better options for older turtles to eat. I suggest that if you don't own a hatchling & aren't currently training them to eat dead prey items, go for the better options, for your turtles sake.
I have seen the results of people only feeding bloodworm "occasionally" & have included a pic of one, I have plenty more pics of turtles that eat them also.
When you have rehabilitated the amount of turtles that I have, you will also hate blood worms as much as I do as people generally start only feeding as a "treat" & then they get lazy & start feeding them more & more often which results in the turtles health suffering, through lack of nutritional value which has been proven in blood work, also from Turtle specialist herp vets.
Kenwood, I would also like to see a pic of any turtle that's health has suffered from eating too much freshwater fish, as that is just not possible.
So if you want turtles that look like this, go ahead & feed blood worms to your turtles.

Here is also another part from the same post that you conveniently neglected to post;

Hikari also make a blood worm punch out pack that is infused with calcium and other vitamins. I only buy these ones as the cheapie blood worms (the 5 packs for $10 kind of ones) seem to be low quality and cause a protein layer on the water surface making it unsightly.

Bloodworms are a good choice for fish, but probably still as you initially suggested Craig, not that good for larger turtles. There are far better options available for similar or lesser cost.

Todd

 

[aalicatt]

Can I feed live mice to a reptile? - RSPCA Australia knowledgebase