Appropriate diet plays an incredibly important role in the life of every living animal. Even human beings should keep their dietary habits the right way in order to avoid a number of diseases that can result from bad habits or simply poor food choices. Mushrooms are of significant importance for people, and so is for animals. What about turtles? Can these reptiles eat mushrooms? The answer is yes, turtles can and even should eat mushrooms!
However, there are quite a lot of different things to consider as far as picking the right mix of mushrooms is concerned. What is more, a well informed pet owner will know how these food pieces will help their turtles and what all advantages are. Another important thing to know is the frequency of mushroom feeding. In this article I will try to share all the knowledge I gathered from the last 20 years of owning a turtle. Since I was able to give him a range of different mushrooms, I know a few things about the subject matter.
How can mushrooms influence the dietary habits of our turtle?
The first thing to understand is how mushrooms influence our turtles. By that we mean looking at the number of benefits that these bodies of fungus have got to offer. You see, we can distinguish up to 5 or even more different dietary benefits related to introducing mushrooms to a turtle’s dietary plan.
All the advantages that come from adding mushrooms to our turtle’s diet
Protein
Protein is crucial for every animal. The more we consume meals that are rich in protein, the healthier our body will get. Protein is also the main ingredient needed for a proper development of the turtle. Luckily for us, a diet with mushrooms included in it guarantees large quantities of protein.
Low calories
Turtles are probably one of the most vulnerable animals as far as gaining too much weight is concerned. Providing them with a large number of fatty acids or simply fat in general will surely lead to obesity and problems with liver. Luckily for us, mushrooms do not pose a risk, since they are low in calories. However, we have to bear in mind that providing turtles with the right amount of these snacks is crucial and we can’t overdo it.
Vitamins and minerals
Another important reason why mushrooms will serve as a right addition to turtles’ diet is the fact that thanks to this food we can grant our turtles large amounts of vitamins and minerals. Two of the most important substances that come from the bodies of fungus are Vitamin D and Potassium.
The first thing is of significant importance for bone development as well as immunity of the entire turtle’s body. Potassium, on the other hand, is well known for its positive impact on the functioning of nerves as well as muscles. What is more, it improves the stability of heartbeats and has a wide range of other, smaller benefits to turtles’ organisms.
Miscellaneous
Besides that, we should also remember that mushrooms are great if we wish to boost the immune system of our turtles or simply fix their weight, since being a low calorie source of fiber, protein, and some other nutritional values, mushrooms are great at losing weight.
How often can you feed mushrooms to your turtle?
As it happens with many different meals, giving mushrooms to your turtle cannot happen too often because of one simple reason – if they eat it too much, there will surely be some types of repercussions in the future. For this reason, you should know that giving too much mushrooms is not great as well. These high-protein “vegetables” cannot be implemented into the turtle’s dietary plans more than once a week (do a turtles eat tomato).
And even if we limit it to only that, we still have to remember to adjust the “dosage” to the size of our turtle. For example, smaller reptiles should receive no more than 3-4 buttons of mushrooms. It is great at the beginning, because thanks to that they will have a much easier time digesting the newly added food pieces.
It means that at the beginning we should be giving mushrooms to our turtles only once a week and at relatively low numbers. With time, we can provide favorite pets with mushrooms even twice a week provided we keep the smaller doses.
What species can eat mushrooms?
There are dozens of different turtle species and to be fair, most of them will surely enjoy mushrooms. As a result, we do not have to worry about a particular subfamily – especially if we start with smaller quantities and move on to numbers provided above. Quite often people feed mushrooms to Hermann Tortoises, Sulcata Tortoises, Marginated Tortoises, Box Turtles, Red-eared slider turtles, as well as all other aquatic and terrestrial turtles.
What mushrooms should we look for?
The most important thing as far as picking the right body of a fungus is concerned is purchasing these food pieces from legitimate shops. There, people who are capable of identifying mushrooms gather the ones that are not toxic and enable safe and healthy feeding.
Store-bought mushrooms are usually as valuable in terms of their nutritional values, vitamins, and minerals, as the ones collected in the wild. However, it is much safer, since there are more than 50,000 mushroom species – or at least the ones that have been already identified. Obviously, we are not going to look for all of them, because only 20-50 are truly edible due to their great smell and taste.
There are entire lists of available, edible mushrooms that you can use. As far as the best ones are concerned, we should look at some of the subspecies of Brown mushrooms as well as Oyster mushrooms. Also, Shiitake, Lion’s Mane, Porcini, Chanterelle, and even Reishi or Enoki mushrooms may appear to be great. Still, it is much easier to look for the most popular ones and see whether your turtle enjoys eating mushrooms. In the end, you’re not going to feed your reptile with things they do not like.
Now you know whether your turtle can eat mushrooms!
Eating mushrooms by your turtle will surely help in more than one way. They can be eaten raw, are healthy, and at the same time these food pieces can help in keeping the right weight of our turtles. Obviously, we have to remember to wash them carefully, so there will be no dangerous microorganisms out there. Also, we should remember that the best way to give mushrooms to a turtle is to mix it with a salad, so it is easier to digest and get used to new elements of their diet.
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