The diet of a box turtle is one of the most significant foundations for its health and longevity. Box turtles are omnivores and opportunists, consuming a wide variety of food in the wild. To give your box turtle the healthiest diet possible, you should not only try to mimic its natural diet as much as you can, but also offer a wide variety of plant matter and protein sources.
Dietary Habits of Wild Box Turtles
Wild box turtles are omnivores and consume both plant and animal matter. In fact, 75-80% of their diet consists of protein, like slugs and bugs. They eat lots of invertebrates and whatever else they can find. This includes:
- Insects
- Worms
- Salamanders
- Snails
- Carrion
- Eggs
They also consume various plant materials, such as:
- Berries
- Flowers
- Roots
Feeding Juvenile Box Turtles
Young turtles need to be fed a full meal every day or every other day. Your baby box turtle may ignore the plant material, especially in the first few months of life, but don’t panic. This is fine. Mimicking their natural diet as much as possible is key.
Feeding Adult Box Turtles
Healthy adults only need to be fed full meals every 2-3 days. To give your box turtle the healthiest diet possible, you should not only try to mimic its natural diet as much as you can, but also offer a wide variety of plant matter and protein sources. You should aim to offer food from each food group for most meals, even if your box turtle ignores certain foods.
Read also: Carnivorous Turtles in Florida
Specific Food Recommendations
When feeding box turtles, a variety of foods should be offered to ensure they receive a balanced diet. Some examples include:
- Melons: cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon
- Dark greens: romaine, kale
- Fruit: grapes, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, apples, pears, peaches, plums
- Orange veggies: pumpkin, sweet potatoes, carrots
- Occasionally corn, tomatoes, bananas
Water Requirements
Your box turtle should always have access to clean, fresh water in a shallow container that they can climb into and won’t drown.
Supplementing with Backyard Finds
Expert Tip: It can also be fun to supplement your boxie’s store-bought diet with more “exotic” insects and plants from your own backyard! Just make sure that your yard is organically grown, with no artificial fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides.
Gut Loading Crickets
Consider gut loading the crickets to improve your turtle's nutrition. Get some Fluker's cricket meal. It has lots of vitamins and minerals including Vit D and calcium. You feed the crickets the meal and then feed the turtle the crickets so the turtle gets the good nutrition. Meal worms are also good. They come in 3 sizes.
Food Preferences and Variety
My box turtle adult goes through times when she does not want the same food she wanted last week. They just are this way. Offer romaine lettuce pieces with cut up strawberries, shredded carrots, or cooked sweet potato. They will pick through the food to get what they want. My boxie does not really like red wigglers but likes larger nightcrawlers/earthworms. But you have to keep these refrigerated also or they will die. And they do carry internal parasites that the turtle can catch. So I feed crickets and meal worms. They do not carry any parasites.
Read also: What Do Alligator Snapping Turtles Eat?
Feeding Live Foods:
Feed live foods such as earthworms and crickets with long, blunt end tongs so they do not escape into the moss. I know it's gross, but consider using scissors to cut sections of the earthworm up to offer to the turtle. You have a little guy. Often the entire whole worm will scare them so they only want to hide, not eat. Smaller pieces work well, unless you are the worm, of course!
The Western Box Turtle (Ornate Box Turtle)
The Western Box Turtle, or Ornate Box Turtle, is a species of turtle that typically inhabits the terrestrial, prairie, or grasslands regions of the Midwestern United States. They range from 4-5 inches in length and are characterized by their dome-like, dark brown shell with flashy yellow lines stemming from the center (hence the name Ornate!). Western box turtles are omnivores that enjoy eating a variety of insects, vegetables, greens, and fruit.
Habitat and Distribution:
Western box turtles are found in central and western United States and the adjoining areas of northern Mexico. You can find them from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, in the Sonora Desert and northwards up to South Dakota and Wisconsin. They prefer desert or semi-desert areas in an arid climate with high temperatures, low humidity, and cool soil, or in waterways within these areas. Western box turtles live on prairies and in deserts, depending on subspecies. It usually spends it whole life in a small area (less than a few acres).
Physical Characteristics:
Western box turtles are a smaller species of turtle averaging in size from 4-5 inches; females are larger compared to males. The carapace, or top portion, of the shell is less domed and a bit flatter than that of other box turtle species. The coloration of the carapace is usually black or dark brown with yellow striping. Females tend to be duller in color when compared to males.
Shell Structure:
A turtle’s shell is actually a part of its body. The turtle’s ribs and backbone fuse together to form the shell. The shell is covered with a layer of protective plates called scutes. These scutes are made of keratin, the same stuff that makes up our nails and hair, and can be shed.
Read also: Feeding Your Box Turtle
Adaptations:
Box turtles are not your typical turtle. Most turtles are adapted to life underwater with flat, streamlined shells, webbed feet for swimming, and a primarily carnivorous diet. Box turtles, on the other hand, have domed shells, thicker limbs with claws for digging, and are more omnivorous, all of which allow for a more terrestrial lifestyle. Box turtles also have a unique plastron, or bottom of the shell. Their plastron is actually hinged, which allows the turtle to close up completely inside their shell, hence the name “box” turtle. The domed shell allows the turtle to pull its limbs in and the hinged plastron will act like a trap door and shut the turtle inside. Box turtles have sharp beaks for tearing food items into smaller, more manageable bite-sized pieces.
Reproduction:
Box turtles are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs outside the body. They will typically lay 3-6 eggs, each of which are thin-shelled eggs. Unlike most species, the eggs are laid and left unguarded. Mating usually takes place in the spring. Each year, females will usually have 1-2 clutches of eggs, which consist of 1-8 eggs. These eggs are white, brittle, and incubate for 70 days. When hatched, they are about 3 cm in size. Most male western box turtles reach sexual maturity when their plastron is 10- 11 cm long. For females, the number is 11-13 cm. Incubation lasts 70-days, and newborn turtles are typically around 3cm when hatched. Maturity occurs between 7-8 years.
Conservation:
Habitat destruction and fragmentation are a major concern for the box turtle populations and have put them at risk.
What can we do?:
If you see a box turtle on the road and would like to help it be sure you are moving the turtle in the direction that it was headed. Never remove an animal from the wild! Some well-meaning people will trap and relocate “pest” animals but the truth is, trapping rarely ends well for wildlife and is not a long term solution. While you might be thinking you are helping that animal, most people don’t realize the amount of care and time that goes in to caring for these animals, and removing them from their natural environment can be detrimental to the wild populations. If wild animals are not causing damage or posing danger, the best solution is to coexist! The most important thing that we can do to help sustain their habitats is to “Leave No Trace”. Once you leave nature, no one should know that you’ve been there. This means bringing out anything that you’ve brought in.
The Eastern Box Turtle
Identification:
Small to medium-sized turtles with a domed shell. The eastern box turtle subspecies has a brown shell (carapace) with variable orange or yellow markings. The bottom shell (plastron) - which can be yellow, brown, black, or a combination thereof - has a distinct hinge that allows the turtle to “box” itself in for protection against predators. This subspecies has four toes on its hind feet
Connection to the Mississippi River Watershed:
These turtles are found within the Mississippi River Watershed.
Behavior:
Diurnal, though their activity levels may drop significantly during the hottest parts of the day. Stays cool during the summer by hiding under decaying logs and leaves, crawling into mammal burrows, and taking refuge in mud, shady pools, and puddles. Winters in a state of dormancy. Hibernation takes place up to two feet below ground in loose earth, mud, stream bottoms, old stump holes, and mammal burrows. Home ranges often overlap, and it is not uncommon to find these turtles gathered in groups
Reproduction:
Mating season for Eastern Box Turtles begins in spring and continues throughout the summer and into October. Females use their hind legs to excavate nests in loamy or sandy soil. Box turtle eggs are elliptical in shape, roughly 3 cm long by 2 cm wide, and protected by thin, white, flexible shells. Clutch size ranges from 3 to 8, with 4-5 being the most typical. Incubation normally lasts three months, though the exact duration varies depending on soil temperature and moisture. The temperature of the nest determines the sex of the offspring; males develop under cooler conditions (<82°F) than females (>82°F). Young box turtles grow quickly (studies suggest a rate of 1.5 cm per year for the first five years). After that, growth slows down but will continue for at least 20 years. Females reach sexual maturity at the age of 7 - 10 years.
Conservation:
Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and listed on Appendix II of CITES. Species of special concern in several states, including Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire and Ohio. A wide variety of population datasets indicate a widespread, persistent, and ongoing gradual decline of box turtle populations that likely exceeds 30% over three generations.
Enclosure Considerations for Juvenile Box Turtles
Until they are about 3-4 years old, they hide in the forest floor litter. Get a large plastic tub. Prop it up by putting something under one side so it is not completely level. The low side should be an inch or two lower than the high side. Place clean water in the low side. I use bottled spring water. Get a hand pump to remove the water daily. Daily water changes are very important b/c the turtle will use the water to drink, soak, pee and poop in. The hand pump from a hardware store makes it very easy and quick to pump out the water before you add clean, new water. Now for the substrate, the material in the bottom of the tank. Get some sphagnum moss from ZooMed. Not forest moss and not another brand. Rinse the moss in a collander very well. Then let it nearly dry. Mound it in the tub, making little tunnels for the turtle to hide in. This moss is sturdy and can be rerinsed from time to time. Be sure the moss does NOT go over the top as these turtles are great climbers and will climb out of the tub if they can get even one foot over the top! They are very strong, too, especially considering their size! Get a little saucer or top of a jar to use as a food dish. Or even a piece of flagstone/sandstone. Live foods will crawl away into the moss and the turtle probably won't find them. So the dish is better for diced/finely cut up strawberries, romaine lettuce, and maybe cooked sweet potato. Get a hygrometer to measure the humidity from the pet store. Place it on the side of the tub near the top of the tub. The humidity should be around 80% all the time. Otherwise, these juveniles can often develop respiratory infections which are hard to treat. If the humidity does not stay high enough then get some orchid bark from a garden center. This is more economical than buying from a floral store. Soak it before adding it to the tank under the sphagnum. The orchid bark can be wet all the time and does not rot. This will help keep the air humid. And get some plastic wrap/saran wrap to put across 1/3 or 2/3 the top of the tub. Leave the open end for the light. Get the UVB light. Consider the ZooMed PowerSun UV which delivers UVA (heat) and UVB for shell health. You will need a domed bulb holder and a stand. Adjust the stand higher and lower to change the temp in the tank. Use a probe/wire/monitor thermometer to measure the temp of the tank. Should be about 77 degrees F. Turn the light off at night as these turtles like to sleep in the dark as we do. Consider getting a timer to make the on/off light easier. And it is okay if the temps drop a little at night. This is a much different habitat than required by an adult box turtle. But the juveniles do certainly need the warmth and humidity b/c it simply keeps them healthy. A person here on this site just set up his boxie hatchling with this enclosure along with some forest dirt. The baby is tunneling in the dirt and moss and doing very well.
Feeding Tips
A few ideas about feeding. My box turtle loves crickets who have eaten cut up red grapes. She seems to think these taste much better than just regular crickets! Choose the smallest crickets for your boxie. Often called pinhead crickets b/c of their small size. Get a cricket cage b/c it is so much easier to keep them in it than in a glass jar. And pick up some cricket food, too. Fluker's or Mazuri cricket food has lots of vitamins and minerals. You feed this food to the crickets and then feed the crickets to the turtle, giving great balanced nutrition to the turtle. This process is called "gut loading". This will take care of the calcium and Vitamin D needs of the turtle to grow strong bones and shell. The long, blunt tongs from the pet store are great to use to offer the cricket to your turtle. These little guys are very shy. They are programmed to hide for safety and survival. But they do get more tame as time goes by. Limit handling them. Take lots of pics as they grow FAST!