Todd Stockwell
Some hatchlings like Zoo Med’s Hatchling Aquatic Turtle Food, although most of ours have seemed to prefer Reptomin’s Baby mini food sticks. We’ve never had any hatchling refuse Reptomin’s Baby Shrimp Treat. We are now trying a new food mix by Vitakraft that is a blend of several dried “live” food items (available at Petsmart and Petco). Food prices at the Petopia.com, Pets.com and Thatpetplace.com seem to be as good as anywhere and a LOT cheaper than at pet stores (especially the Petopia Bottomless Bowl deal that gives an extra 20% off). Our juvenile DBTs all love T-Rex Juvenile aquatic pellets. They’re cheaper than Reptomin sticks and they don’t dissolve in the water nearly as bad as other brands. The pellets are too big for hatchlings and small juveniles, though. We also really like LM Farms Tropical Magic Aquatic pellets. They’re also less expensive than Reptomin or Wardley’s sticks and they also don’t cloud the water as bad as other brands. Has anyone tried Fluker’s aquatic pellets? I see you can buy that in 25 lb sacks plus freight. We recently bought two 50 lb sacks of Aquamax Carnivorous fish pellets (used to be Purina trout chow) for $27.00 a bag from a feed store in Austin. It’s cheap food and most of our adult turtles including the DBTs love it – but it really smells, both in the bag and then in the tank! It’s great for outdoor ponds, but we’re reconsidering on our inside tanks setups! We’ve also had a hatchling spotted turtle and some hatchling DBTs get started on frozen blood worm cubes and frozen glass worm (mosquito larvae) cubes when nothing else appealed to them. We removed the hatchlings from their regular tanks and offered these in separate small plastic food containers twice a day in shallow water (quarter inch to half inch deep) until they got started on the bigger food items. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve also used ghost shrimp, feeder guppies and small crickets in the small containers (so we’re sure the hatchling turtles can corner the prey and catch it) to stimulate some eating. So far temperature has seemed to be the stimulus to get some of our most reluctant hatchlings eating. We start them in a ten gallon aquarium with plastic vines and a foam island suctioned cupped under a basking light, but the most important item for us has been a submergible tank heater with a thermostat set to 85 degrees. The warm water has saved a few of ours when nothing else was working and now we just start all of our hatchlings in that set up. With summer temps in the high 90s and recently over 113 degrees, we’ve just turned the tank heaters back on as our turtle room stays around 85 degrees most of the summer anyway. While a basking light is necessary, it seems the constant warm water of the whole tank provided by a submergible, thermostatically-contolled heater really has worked for us. Some Texas DBT hatchlings were being sold for $65.00 each at the recent Houston Breeder’s expo. The ones I’ve checked out offered on the internet have ranged between $60.00 and $150.00 depending on the color (light verses dark) of the individuals being offered. Is anyone else on the net offering Texas DBT hatchlings for sale besides Turtletown and Don Hamper? We’re looking for Texas DBTs with the slate blue heads. We’ve been told that Pets N Us in Detroit, Michigan, has had them. They never answer my e-mail queries and I haven’t been able to speak with their “turtle expert” when I’ve tried calling. Has anyone bought DBTs from them successfully? They list both Texas and macrospilotas. Todd Stockwell Brenham, Texas GDanes4eva@… wrote: