What else can I feed my female red-eared slider turtle?

Whoa, my red eared slider was named lilly too, that’s freaky. I fed her crickets, fruit (bananas apples), the turtle food, lettuce, carrots, and other veggie stuff, here’s some guidelines on what not to feed it.

1.) Reptiles do not utilize milk products at any stage of their lives, and lack the enzymes to break down lactose. So do not feed cheese, yogurt, or other dairy products to your turtles.

2.) Canned and other processed foods often are very high in salt and other preservatives. The effects of these things are not fully known, but they would not be part of a natural diet. It would be prudent to limit their use.

3.) Avoid candy, chocolates, breads, and any other refined sugars and flours, or other highly processed food-like products.

4.) Although some turtles are known to eat poisonous plants in the wild, the specifics of that behavior are not well studied. It is probably wisest to avoid the use of toxic plants in their habitats (i.e. poison ivy, rhubarb plants, avocado plants, etc.)

In general, however, it all comes down to variety. If you feed just cantaloupe and crickets, there will be problems down the line. There’s nothing wrong with those foods. They’re simply insufficient. If you feed a wide variety of foods, the occasional use of cabbage, lettuce, or even cooked beef heart will not cause problems. Further, feeding some foods that are low calcium foods, or high in phosphorous or oxalates, will matter not at all if a separate source of calcium (cuttlebones/ plasterblocks/ eggshells/ crushed oystershell) is always available. This is more in keeping with the way turtles feed in the wild anyway. While some keepers carefully consider the calcium/phosphorus ratio, turtles don’t waste a precious second pondering the chemical analysis of their food. If it’s tasty and it’s there, they’ll eat it! Later, they’ll munch some carrion bones or birds’ eggshells and get caught up on calcium. It may be impossible for us to really “think like a turtle” but we can at least try. Turtles fed a wide variety of foods are happier and less likely to develop dangerous food fetishes.