If you have an axolotl as a pet, you may wonder if it can eat turtle food. These reptiles are carnivores and must be fed meat.
Axolotls swallow their food whole due to their rudimentary teeth, designed for gripping rather than biting or tearing.
I also know a few other people who feed their axolotls turtle food, so it’s something to consider. It’s easy to find at pet stores. It is usually cheaper than buying specific axolotl food, so it’s a great option if you’re looking for an affordable way to feed your pet.
Ensure you don’t overfeed your axolotl with turtle food since they need a balanced diet. So while it’s perfectly fine to give them the occasional treat of turtle food, make sure you’re giving them plenty of live or frozen foods like worms or shrimp too!
Can Axolotls Eat Turtle Food?
Axolotls eat wild aquatic animals like fish, insects, and shellfish. Reptile experts recommend replicating this diet as closely as possible in captivity.
Their main food sources are earthworms, bloodworms, and brine shrimp (a small aquatic crustacean). They also eat vegetables, daphnia, and lean meat or chicken.
Axolotls can smell underwater food in murky lakes and rivers thanks to their incredible sense of smell. After vacuuming it into their mouths, axolotls inhale gravel to break up their prey.
Axolotls can not digest hard-cooked food. Thus, only soft pellets soaked in water should be fed to them.
Nutritional Content of Turtle Food
Axolotls can eat a variety of foods, some of which are healthier.
Axolotls can eat nightcrawlers, blackworms, daphnia, raw meats like beef liver or brine shrimp, and salmon pellets, but they should choose soft foods that are easy to chew.
Hard pellets are indigestible to axolotls and may cause constipation. Soak the pellets in water before feeding them to make them easier to digest.
Health Benefits and Risks of Turtle Food
Turtles eat snails, worms, freshwater shrimp, tadpoles, and small insects. In captivity, they may be fed brine shrimp, small strips of beef or liver, earthworms, bloodworms, tubifex worms, or commercial fish pellets. In the wild, they eat aquatic animals.
Adults eat most of these foods, while children are less picky. Once every two to three days, they can snack on brine shrimp, bloodworms, blackworms, red wigglers, nightcrawlers, and pellets.
Pellets are easy to feed and provide all essential nutrients without the mess of worms, making them ideal for axolotls. However, it would help if you always tried different pellet brands to find one your pet likes.
Other Alternatives to Turtle Food
There are many alternatives to turtle food for your axolotl. Chicken, beef, and fish are even tiny pieces of meat!
Your axolotl should eat fresh fruit like strawberries, raspberries, bananas, watermelon, grapes, and kiwis. Feeding small amounts or cutting it up before dropping it in the tank works.
You can feed your axolotl dried apples, peaches, pears, plums, pumpkin, squash, and beet greens. For extra calcium absorption, dust these items with reptile calcium powder or crushed cuttlebone.
Axolotls prefer live prey like crickets, moths, shrimp, krill, and feeder fish. To ensure quality and safety, purchase these insects from a pet store or an undeveloped field, or raise them yourself.
Conclusion about Eating Turtle Food
You can feed axolotl pellets in several ways. Some people use tongs to drop the food over their axolotl’s head, hoping it will grab and swallow it whole. Others drop the pellets at the bottom of their tank, hoping they will float to the surface and be picked up.
Newborn and juvenile axolotls should be fed twice daily to ensure their health and growth, but some owners feed them once until they are subadults or adults. Age determines how long an axolotl can go without eating.
