Box turtles do best in a turtle safe outdoor pen that mimics their natural environment as long as temperatures don t fall below 50 degrees fahrenheit.
Box turtle food chart.
Fresh dried cubed or pelleted hay.
Live or frozen baby or young mice and rats.
Even box turtle experts don t completely agree on how best to care for these animals or how to best meet their needs.
But if well cared for they can live up to 100 years.
It will help keep them healthy and alive.
Box turtles are omnivores so their diet must include insects worms snails mushrooms spiders caterpillars green beans berries grass crickets flowers fruit and all other plants or small insects.
To keep a box turtle healthy it is important to provide it with suitable box turtle food.
So you can give them a chance to make their own decisions.
The information on this site is not veterinary advice and we are not veterinarians.
Use your best judgement when using the information on this site and understand that it is not a substitute for veterinary advice or common sense.
In order to do this it is crucial to keep in mind that there are many different species and subspecies of box turtles and that box turtles live in many different types of environments in mexico and the united states.
Generally hatchlings and juvenile box turtles are more carnivorous than adults which are typically more herbivorous.
You can feed them a salad of items mixed in this ratio or offer different foods at each meal so that the overall diet equals roughly these ratios.
There are six subspecies of eastern box turtles and they all belong to the emydidae family.
Box turtles are omnivores which means they will eat a variety of both animal and plant based foods.
Types of foods for box turtles.
Prepared tortoise chows especially mazuri tortoise diet zoo med natural grassland tortoise food or zoo med natural forest tortoise food.
The proportions of animal versus plant based food items will depend on both the age and the species of box turtle that you are feeding.
Some box turtles like the ornate box turtle eat insects.
Housing the common box turtle.
So when you want to feed your turtles and especially the can box turtles then you may want to try aquatic turtle food instead of the types of starfish.
Pet or feed store foods.
Young growing box turtles up to 4 6 years of age tend to be primarily carnivores and adults tend to be herbivorous.
Here is the eastern box turtle diet plus western one diet plan that you must follow to keep your box turtle alive and healthy.
The pen should have walls that are at least 18 inches tall with an overhang to prevent the turtle from climbing out.
They have a sharp eye and keen sense of smell.
In general the box turtle diet should be about 50 animal matter 40 plant based foods fruits vegetables leaves and 10 fungi mushrooms.