What Fruits Turtles Can’t Eat: Never Feed These 6 Blacklisted Items

Dear fellow turtle keepers, I am often asked:

“Can my turtle eat such-and-such fruit?”

Actually, although some turtles love fruit, they can’t eat just anything. Today, let’s talk about the fruit blacklist of items that should be “fed sparingly.”

Fruit Blacklist

Fruits with “double high” water and sugar content include: watermelons, lychees, and grapes. These fruits easily cause digestive issues, diarrhea, edema, and even kidney damage; especially grapes, which may induce severe gastrointestinal discomfort. However, occasional feeding of grapes, if not too much, is still okay.

Fruits with excessively high sugar content include: longans and red dates. The sugar content is extremely high, easily causing the turtle to gain weight, affecting the digestive system, and leading to constipation or diarrhea.

The fruit prone to causing diarrhea is: the banana. Bananas are high in sugar and have a “cold” nature, easily leading to gastrointestinal discomfort and runny stools; high potassium content may also affect electrolyte balance. However, many semi-aquatic turtles simply love bananas, so eating a small amount isn’t a big problem.

Recommended Healthy Fruits

Fruits suitable for moderate feeding include: apples (moderate moisture, rich in fiber), strawberries, blackberries, pomegranates (to supplement vitamins and antioxidants), passion fruit (rich in nutrients, feed sparingly, remove seeds), cherries, and Chinese bayberries (moderately sweet and sour, low burden on the stomach).

Note that fruits cannot be the staple food; a turtle’s main food should be turtle pellets, vegetables, and aquatic plants. Feed fruit 1 to 2 times a week; a small piece each time is sufficient.

Handling Picky Eaters

If the turtle only eats fruit and refuses turtle pellets, you can try “hunger therapy.” Stop the fruit, provide only healthy food, and when it gets hungry, it will naturally eat the pellets.

Don’t let your turtle become a “fruit addict.” Fruits like watermelon, lychee, grapes, longan, red dates, bananas, etc., need to be fed with caution. The staple diet should be mainly turtle pellets and vegetables, with fruit just as a garnish. Feed reasonably so the turtle eats happily and healthily! Of course, those who like fruit are mostly semi-aquatic turtles; not many aquatic turtles eat vegetarian food.