Me: SAY NO MORE *opens 10 tabs immediately*

Thank you!

Looking at the pictures of painted turtles vs red eared sliders, I'm pretty sure you are right in that Ninja is a painted turtle.

Hey Rich! Wow--I don't personally know of many turtles as old as Ollie. He has had a good long life (though, knowing turtles, it's very possible that he still has many good years ahead of him).

As I'm sure you know, it can be hard to gauge whether a turtle is at a healthy weight since so much of their body is in the shell. One way is to look at the arms, legs, and tail--do they look skinny/sunken or are they filled out with appropriate muscle and fat deposits? You can also look at the skin between the front legs and the head--it should go more or less straight across, not be deeply sunken in and hollow-looking (underweight) or bulging out between the neck and legs (overweight).

Often the first sign of declining health in a turtle is losing weight and a decreased appetite--so I wouldn't be terribly worried about him seeking out more food. It's possible that he is hungrier due to environmental changes (change in temperature, light cycle, seasons, etc.).

If you want a numeric way to measure his health, I highly recommend weighing him regularly. This will let you spot a concerning decline in weight faster than you may have noticed it from visual cues alone. Especially with an older turtle who might be more vulnerable to stress and illness.

you give him a substrate he can eat and ask him how he likes sleeping in his food, eh?

... not really 😂 it was a temporary fix, he's got some organic top soil now and he's attempted to dig himself in the corner to sleep

I needed to get the reptibark out before he could eat any more and I had a bail of timothy hay. I know some tort parents use it as substrate but I find it to be too dusty and def not deep enough for Nik's tank. I just needed to lay something down for the interim while I ran to go get something to lay in there until I can get some substrate he won't eat

I decided to update the leaf boat from spinach to a baby kale leaf, because:

Did you know?

You shouldn’t feed spinach as apart of your turtle’s regular diet. This is due to spinach having Oxalic acids which block calcium absorption thus leading bone disease and shell deformation. It is possible to feed your turtle spinach once in a blue moon and be fine, but it is best to be avoided due to the health risks. this goes for peas, beans, iceberg lettuce, and cabbage as well.

the best plant things to feed aquatic turtles are aquatic plants (such as Hornwort, water lettuce, and water weed) kale, fresh collared greens, mustard greens, dandelion and romaine lettuce.

Now I will admit I was feeding spinach when I first got him (mostly because everywhere I looked said ‘leafy greens’ but didn’t specify that spinach was the one leafy green you shouldn't do, just that cabbage and iceberg lettuce was bad.) However I immediately changed him to kale and such as quickly as possible (as well as started him on reptile calcium powder supplements on top of the cuttlebone pieces already in his tank). He doesn’t seem effected by the spinach, he is growing and doing normal turtle things. He can climb onto his basking pier, inhales food like normal, swim fine, poops on the reg, and shell isn’t showing any deformity so far. Though I will have to take him to the vet when I can find an actual reptile vet in my area (bum fuck nowhere is kind of low on those lol)

I did make this a while ago, just things got crazier and i wasn’t able to do a lot due too it. But since things have calmed down enough that I could finally update this now. and the reason i am even bothering to update is because, by chance, if other green horn turtle owners see this, then they won’t make the same mistake as I. Also as a reminder to any new pet owner, always double check your research and don’t assume things based on your preconceptions (or knowledge you get from randos that do not currently care for said pet with up to date care or chain pet stores that just don’t care for anything other then sales), I have found they are often wrong.

A brief discussion of turtles in the snake group.