My turtle / tortoise hatched 3 days ago and still has not eaten – what should I do?
[Martha Messinger, George Patton and Darrell Senneke] Many neonates do not eat food for several days or a week. The yoke sac provides them with nourishment until they do eat. Even after the yolk sac is no longer externally evident, internally it is still providing nourishment. For Box turtles try tiny earthworms, slugs, very thin slices of peeled cucumber. Many times an earthworm is too large, so I break it up into several small pieces. This causes the pieces of earthworm to wiggle and the excitement of several pieces “wiggling” will entice the new neonate to eat. Slugs are very slow moving. A newly hatched neonate does not have good coordination and will be able to catch the slug. For aquatics good starter foods are small worms and brine shrimp with perhaps a little romaine lettuce. Some people have reported good success using well washed tubifex worms as a starter food. For tortoises generally the same foods fed the adults are used as starter foods. In exceptionally stubborn cases a
