We have an Ornate Wood turtle who is really into mealworms and red worms but we're unsure of how many she should be getting of each. She's very skinny (we're trying to strengthen her up and have her gain some weight so we're feeding her everyday) and all of the stuff that the store said she would eat, she just turns her nose up to. She will eat fruit but when I try to mix any turtle food (canned) or vegetables in...she just ignores the whole thing. We're excited that she's eating something other than fruit now (the worms)...but I want to make sure she's getting the right amounts and types. I have looked all over the internet but it seems like almost every site that I've looked at completely conflicts with what I read on other sites. Help!!!

I'm afraid that I've never had an ornate wood turtle so I cannot tell you exactly what I would suggest as far as feeding. How much she should eat depends on what else she's eating, temperature, her size, etc. If she's say 3" long, she might eat 5 mealworms or a few earthworms a day if she's not getting much else. As I said, it's hard to judge. Just keep giving/offering her variety daily and hopefully she'll be okay. As long as she's not fat, you can offer her as much as she'll eat of most foods before becoming bored and disinterested in the foods. If she doesn't seem to want to stop eating live mealworms or red worms, you will have to stop at some point because some animals will overeat, and their bodies can't digest too much protein at once.

From what I have gathered on the internet, the diet of an Ornate Wood is pretty much the same as a box turtle. She is probably a couple inches bigger than the palm of your hand. Yesterday she ate 20 mealworms and a red worm but today I gave her a mixture of romaine and pears which I added 5 mealworms and a small red worm to intice her to eat something other than just worms and it seems like she went through and picked out the worms. I know she likes strawberries and apples...she'll eat almost any fruit but really doesn't seem to like the vegetables at all!

Sounds like typical behavior for most animals! They just want to eat the "good stuff!" My sailfin lizard picks out grapes and leaves the veggies. My hedgehog eats the bugs but not the commercial food or fruits and veggies normally. All I can offer is to continue to provide a mix of foods, and if she decides to not eat what she should, there's not much you can do. You could try to force her to eat veggies by offering nothing but but then she'd probably starve herself.

Alrighty...she's still eating strong and seems to be enjoying the variety. I can see a big difference in her health already and she's even showing off some of her personality. I have some quick questions about vitamins now. I bought the Rep-Cal's Herptivite and Tetrafauna's Reptocal Calcium and Vitamin D3 (I wanted to get the Rep-Cal calcium with the D3 but they didn't have any of it). First, I asked the clerk if using both were ok and honestly I don't think he really cared but he said sure. Is it really ok?? I know I'm only supposed to give the calcium and D3 once or twice a week but how often do I give the Herptivite? We are currently feeding her daily and once she is healthy we're going to go to every other day feedings or should we stick to the daily feedings???

I mix two kinds of reptile vitamins in a container with crickets that I feed to my sailfin lizard. You can mix vitamins. I dust the crickets each time I feed them, every other day as most of the vitamins fall off before the lizard eats the bugs anyway. She'll grab a couple, and the rest have a party in the tank for days or weeks by which time, they're vitamin-free.

How often that you feed depends on the temperature and your preferences. I like to feed all animals daily (unless hibernating) but you can do it every other day (with a little bit more food than if you did it daily). In nature, most animals eat a little bit at a time but reptiles may encounter a nice big bug or something and that meal can tide them over for days before they eat again. So, it also depends on the size of the foods.

How often you use the vitamins depends on how you're using them. If the turtle gets the full dose, once a week is probably enough. If you're dusting bugs with the vitamins, then you might do it a few times a week.