Building a feeding station where the food is an earthworm

[DaveC426913]

TL;DR Summary

I am looking for ideas to contain an earthworm so that a (large) turtle can get at it and eat it without it (the worm) escaping.

Winston the Reeves Turtle is too dumb to chase after (terrestrial) live food. More accurately, she is highly distracted by any pinkies or knuckles anywhere within three yards of her enclosure, and so she can easily be outsmarted by a lowly earthworm. The worms will invariably crawl off the platform and die on the floor, or fall in the water and drown.

I literally need to hand feed her. And even then, it's even odds that she will drop the worm on her way to the water and then forget it until it's too late. I'd like to encourage her to be a little more independent and at least pretend she doesn't need to be hand-fed. I'd like to be able to leave the room for ten seconds without her food outwitting her.

So I'm blue-skying ideas for how I can trap and earthworm in such a way that she can see it, and eat it, but it can't escape.

Any grill she can put her (one inch diameter) head through is far too large to hold an earthworm.

I don't think my method for mealworms will work. I used a length of thread to make a noose and hung them from the grate over her basking area. They would stay there until she ripped them down. I don't think I can secure an earthworm with a loop of thread.

A simple box with an open top might hold an earthworm but it would probably need to be about five inches tall. And then it would have to be quite wide for her to get her 8" carapace in.

I don't know if putting out a little sandbox or dirt box for them to bury themselves in would work. For one: if she doesn't see them she won't eat them; two: I'm not sure they wouldn't try to escape anyway. And three: all that dirt dragged around will mess up the aqua-terrarium.


Winston, hunting her absolute favourite meal:

Winston, on her front porch, eyeing ten of her favourite meals hanging from my arms:

Outside-the-box suggestions?

 

[Randolph]

No turtle feeding expert here, so I Googled and got this among others. It seems they like a varied diet and probably only eat when hungry unlike people.
https://www.wikihow.com/Know-What-to-Feed-a-Turtle

 

[DaveC426913]

No turtle feeding expert here, so I Googled and got this among others. It seems they like a varied diet and probably only eat when hungry unlike people.
https://www.wikihow.com/Know-What-to-Feed-a-Turtle

What to feed her isn't the issue here.

I'm trying to figure out how to get a little back towards a more natural "foraging" style feeding, rathe than hand-feeding. A way she can eat an earthworm (just one per feeding) without my supervision.

(And she's always hungry.)

 

[Baluncore]

1. Stitch the thread through the worm, rather than tying it on. That will make it topologically more difficult for the worm.

2. Slow the worm down, by spearing it with a rod of dry spaghetti.

3. Use a drop of superglue to attach the earthworm to the feeding station. Superglue was designed to glue wounds together. You might need to dry off a small patch of the worm, maybe with ethanol, but try it wet first.

 

[DaveC426913]

Those are ... good ideas ...

(Man, I was halfway there with the thread idea. I thought 'I could put it on a fishhook', but rejected that as too dangerous for the turtle. If my designing mind had just pushed the worm one more inch, I could have dispensed with the hook!)

 

[Baluncore]

I topologically inverted the problem from having the worm in the loop of thread, to having the loop of thread in the worm.

 

[BillTre]

It depends on your turtle and its housing set-up.

I would be tempted to try:
Don't give the worms a bunch of water to keep them from drying out, use a wet paper towel or something like that instead. I would try doing that in something like a large petri dish (or maybe a saucer) that does not have tall sides so the turtle can easily get to the worm.
Don't give the worm easy access to sand or dirt to dig into. Put the petri plate on a peice of wood, plastic of something like that.
The worms will tend to go to dark areas. Keep the illumination of where you want the worms to be lower than the surroundings of possible.
If you know the timing of when the turtle might be looking for food, put the worms out them.

Smaller worms for aquarium fish are often put into a mesh bottom container hanging down part way into the water. The worms slowly wiggle so the fish have a descent chance of getting them before they get into to substrate on the bottom (gravel usually).
A hanging mesh bag of worms slowly wiggling out may appeal to the turtle.

There are different kinds of earthworms, some do well in water. The little red ones we have around here can survive indefinitely underwater. I pulled some out from some leaf litter at the bottom of a goldfish pond I had. I used them to seed a composter I was setting up.
The bigger ones don't do so well in the water.

When I had water turtles as a kid, they were trained to take food from me when presented (morning or afternoon). My box turtles were slower on the uptake and less inquisitive. Your pictured turtle looks more like a terrapin which I would expect to be more fast moving and less likely to just hid in its shell than a box turtle.

Pellets could work if they are interested in them.
When I was concerned about the turtle's nutrition, I got some co liver oil (recommended turtle suppliment at the time). It was difficult to get them to eat until I started waving an eyedropper of the stuff around in front of them.They would bit to dropper and I would squirt a bunch of oil into their mouths. If your little guy willl bite at such things, you could chop or mashup the worm, put it n some fluid in the dropper and give it to them that way.

You might want to research what our species would normally eat. It may not be as carnivorous as you thing. My box turtles te a lot of vegetables.

 

[DaveC426913]

Smaller worms for aquarium fish are often put into a mesh bottom container hanging down part way into the water. The worms slowly wiggle so the fish have a descent chance of getting them before they get into to substrate on the bottom (gravel usually).
A hanging mesh bag of worms slowly wiggling out may appeal to the turtle.

There are different kinds of earthworms, some do well in water. The little red ones we have around here can survive indefinitely underwater. I pulled some out from some leaf litter at the bottom of a goldfish pond I had. I used them to seed a composter I was setting up.
The bigger ones don't do so well in the water.

Those aren't earthworms; those are blood worms (midge fly larvae) or tubifex worms. Both aquatic. Too small for Winston.

Earthworms (night crawlers) get very active and mobile. They won't stay ten seconds unless contained. And they aren't contained by anything less than a 3 inch height.

Pellets could work if they are interested in them.

Yes. She gets pellets by routine and worms as a treat.

When I was concerned about the turtle's nutrition, I got some co liver oil (recommended turtle suppliment at the time). It was difficult to get them to eat until I started waving an eyedropper of the stuff around in front of them.They would bit to dropper and I would squirt a bunch of oil into their mouths.

Interesting. The only supplement she really needs is vitamin A, which comes in a powder I'm supposed to sprinkle on her food. Unfortunately, she prefers to drag her food into the water, so it's all lost.
For a while I rolled the earthworms in the powder but that got incredibly messy, not to mention staining everything. But an eyedropper might be a cleaner solution.

If your little guy willl bite at such things, you could chop or mashup the worm, put it n some fluid in the dropper and give it to them that way.

Yeah, but I'm trying to reduce my work involved.
Maybe an eyedropper is too small, but I could get a turkey baster.

You might want to research what our species would normally eat. It may not be as carnivorous as you thing. My box turtles te a lot of vegetables.

She is/was pretty averse to fruit and veggies. She gets the bulk of her nutrition needs from pellets, which she likes a lot, so I'm not too concerned about her diet. I feed her worms as a way of providing stimulation and keeping her life interesting. Foraging is what turtles like to do.

 

[BillTre]

Those aren't earthworms; those are blood worms (midge fly larvae) or tubifex worms. Both aquatic. Too small for Winston.

No these were definitely earthworms, just not night crawlers.
Same diameter as earthworms, just shorter and redder.
Much larger than tubifex worms.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It seems they like a varied diet and probably only eat when hungry unlike people.

The most entertaining thing about such pets is to see them eat or reproduce (once in a blue moon). There's a massive temptation to over feed them. Reptiles need very little food, compared with small voracious mammals.

 

[DaveC426913]

I have settled on a solution. BTW.

I use a tiny safety pin and hook them by the tail so I can dangle them in her enclosure. That it's a safey pin means she can't hurt herself in my absence. A worm'll stay put until she finds it, and she's plenty strong enough to rip it off the pin.

Thanks all, but in particular to @Baluncore.

 

[sophiecentaur]

probably only eat when hungry unlike people.

. . . and spaniel dogs.