Turtle Care - Turtle Vitamins and Light
Vitamins
Ok, let's make it simple. The perfect situation for your pet would be that you feed it the exact mix of food to create a perfect diet, so that your turtle will not need any other vitamins supliments. But, let's be honest and admit the fact that it's very hard to achieve this performance. So some turtle vitamins are needed from time to time. The vitamins dosage should be given once or two times per week.
This is a list of vitamins that you should administrate to your turtle pets:
- Calcium. Every turtle needs to have a healthy, strong shell and a good bone structure. In order for these to be achieved, the turtle must be getting all the calcium she needs. The best way to solve this turtle care problem would be to give your turtle a cuttle fish bone. This will supply the turtle with the amount of calcium that she needs. You can also find special calcium supplements on the market.
- Vitamin D3. This is a vitamin that is Synthesized in the pet's body through exposure to natural sunlight. You can easily find turtle vitamins supplements at the pet shop that contain Ca/D3. Also you can try to feed it dog food that includes D3 vitamin. But take my advise and belive me that the best way for your turtle to get all the D3 vitamine she needs is by synthesizeing it using natural sunlight.
- Vitamine A is one of the most important vitamins for turtles. The lack of this vitamin can lead to some health problems (which are explained in the turtle health section of this site). This disease could mean loss of apettite and swollen eyes which are usually results of bad turtle feeding. If this happens to your turtle then different diets are recommended. The pet's health condition can reach more severe stages of this disease if it's not properly taken care of, and in this cases, you should administrate eye drops. But remeber do not use any drops on your turtle if they are not prescribed by a vet that you trust. The problem is that feeding the turtle with too much Vitamin A can lead to side effects. Those side effects would be the skin peeling and coming off the turtle's flesh. Believe me when I say that this is a very nasty situation for the little pet. The turtle will look horrible, it will suffer great pain and in the majority of cases it will die. So my advice to you is trying to keep a perfect dosage of vitamin A so you can prevent any future problems.
So, you see that there are methods that will help you to give the exact supplements your turtle needs to be healthy. But you always have to be careful not to feed more vitamins than it's recommended.
Light
Turtles ae outdoor animals. So you have to them some natural sunlight every day. First of all this is important because, like i said before the D3 vitamin is synthesized through unfiltered sunlight. If the place where you keep you turtle is outside with sunny and shady areas then you won't have any problems. But if your turtle stays indoor all the time then you should have an UV light. Spectrum lights are the best choice. But be careful because there are many brands of light bulbs that claim that their products are good and are full-spectrum. So try to find the best ones. They can be very expensive and you should change them once an year, but it's vital for an indoor turtle's health.
But I repeat that the best thing for your turtle is the natural sunlight. It can't be so hard for you to take your turtle outside from time to time. This is very good for them. But always keep an eye on the pet when you are out side because you can easily loose it. They can hide very well in the surroundings.
Anyway the on light periods depends on where your turtle comes from