What do you do when your baby red ear slider has not eaten all week and sleeps all the time?

Answer 1

The most likely cause of the problem is that the weather is getting cold. Turtles are cold-blooded animals, meaning, they cannot create their own body heat. They use the sun's heat and light. A captive turtle living indoors does not get much (if any) direct sunlight, so you have to provide it artificially, using a UV heat lamp.

Furthermore, turtles go into hibernation during the winter months, meaning, they slow down their metabolism to the point where food energy is not required. This is not healthy for a captive turtle. In the wild, turtles bury themselves deep in the mud to hibernate, and this obviously isn't possible for a turtle that lives in a tank.

Since most baby turtles are hatched in the spring and summer, people typically do not notice that their turtle is suffering from lack of heat and light until the weather starts getting colder. That's when the turtle stops eating and starts acting sluggish and sleepy.

What you need to do is prevent the turtle from going into hibernation, by buying a UV heat lamp to put/hang over the tank. This will provide the turtle with the heat and UV light that it is not receiving from the sun.

When I first got my baby red-eared slider, she started doing the exact same thing you are describing, once the summer ended and the weather started getting colder. I bought her a UV heat lamp and she perked right up (well, it took a few days), and I've never had that problem since.

You can buy UV heat lamps at Petco and other pet stores. You can also buy a timer for the lamp, so you don't have to be home to turn it on every morning, and off every night. I have included two links, one to the Petco webpage where you can buy Zoo Med Reptile Basking Spot Lamp Bulbs, and a lamp to put those bulbs in, and another to the website where you can buy a timer for the lamp.

Do NOT wait to buy a UV heat lamp. Once the symptoms start, you have about 3 weeks to provide the turtle with heat and UV light, before it may die.

Once the UV heat lamp is set up, you should leave it on all year round, even in the summer months. The turtle may not need the extra heat in the summer months, but it still needs the UV light.

However, note that hatchling turtles typically do not eat for the first 1 to 2 weeks out of the egg. While it still has its "egg tooth," it most likely will not eat, as it is still living off of the placenta of the egg. If it does not eat after 10 days of birth you need to see a vet (or about 5 days after it loses it's egg tooth, which normally occurs 5 to 7 days after birth.

There are also underlying medical problems that could be the reason, but would also accompany other signs, i.e., difficulty breathing, eye infections, shell softening. Most vets that deal with reptiles can help.

The turtle could also have a respiratory infection. This is mainly caused by it being kept too cold. Other signs are crooked swimming, not swimming away when it sees you like it normally does, bubbles coming out of it's nose and mouth, and the very unpleasant opening of the mouth like if it was trying to breath out really hard, floating, and not being able to swim down.

This is bad because it can die, but if you notice it early, then a shot from the vet and making the water much warmer will help it recover just fine. You have to slightly spoil them with treats to encourage them to start eating again. Cooked, wet, ground beef was the only thing mine ate when she was in the late stage of floating. Try small live earth worms too. But most importantly, you need a UV heat lamp.