For all of you who have, had, or can shed light on the subject I need some help, I have a 4 inch AST it eats anything, live, frozen, pretty much what every I dump in he eats right now it's on a diet of shrimp, fish fillets, some chicken scraps, and live feeders when ever my brother n law has too many fry. I am going to move him to my 120 soon and have been wondering about feeding him outside of his tank. Has any one done this? Only reason I want to is to keep up water quality as he is a messy eater. do I feed him on dry land? In a separate tank with water? Thanks for your help
Feeding alligator snapping turtle help
- Thread starter Jag586
- Start date
I could be wrong but I don't think that they eat unless they are submerged.
My AST tends to be really picky. I'm still trying to get him back on frozen foods, I regrettably put him back on live foods for a while and now I'm struggling to get him off them. I've tried the separate container feeding, it's never worked with my AST but my CST cooperated pretty easily. My AST won't eat unless he's completely comfortable in his habitat, every time I switch his tank around it takes a couple days before he starts feeding.
BUT from the sound of it, mine is a lot more timid of an eater than yours... You can give it a shot, I've seen it done pretty often, even with AST's. One thing, make sure you feed them in water... I know this applies to other turtles and CSTs so I assume it applies to ASTs too, but they can't actually swallow their food unless they're in the water.
What Lindsey said,but add a couple water hyacinth or water lettuce to help filter the water a bit more
They won't eat outve water. When I feed mine something messy I just put him in a small plastic tub with the water at about 7 inches high about the same height as his tank.
I always keep a cleaner crew with any yurts,I use expendable crews of baby sunfish,pond snails,baby crayfish etc,my snapping turtle also enjoyed them as snacks.
I do this as well with my snapper... Red-clawed and fiddler crabs are also good
