Myth #1 “It’s illegal to buy a baby turtle under 4 inches”

Not even close to being true! People posting this are trying to reference the Title 21 FDA – Baby Turtle statute without really understanding what the law actually dictates. This 1975 law was initiated by the Federal Drug Administration to regulate the retail sales of specific sized turtles by commercial distribution channels. Simply put, Title 21 makes it illegal to sell a pet turtle under 4” by certain business, namely a retail pet store. It does NOT restrict the purchase of a turtle by someone who would love to own one, only where and how you can buy it. Baby turtles can easily be purchased legally in two ways: one, they can be used in an “educational” capacity and so be purchased from assorted retailers under those grounds, or a much better choice is to buy your turtle from a breeder or fellow hobbyist. Baby turtle sales are allowed under Title 21 by these individuals because they are “not in connection with a business”.  So yes, you can certainly buy a “legal” baby turtle, just purchase it through the right channels.

Myth #2    Sprinkle Vitamins on EVERYTHING!

This is most certainly one of the most alarming and potentially dangerous recommendations coming from allot of social media sources. Post after post persuades the group follower to use excessive amounts of vitamin and mineral supplements on everything they feed, a process that can easily, with time, kill the turtle.  Vitamin and Mineral supplements are designed to be used in very specific applications, since the long term overuse can lead to actually poisoning the animal through hypervitaminosis. These concentrated vitamin/mineral formulas are to be used only in conditions where the major food source is severally deficient in vital nutrients. Where these supplements can be very beneficial in the right circumstance, they can be equally damaging when thrown on top of an already well supplemented or complete diet. In feeding Aquatic Turtles, if you are already using a high quality prepared diet (TropicZone, Zoo Med etc.) there is no need to supplement further as these manufacturers already properly supplement their food. Adding additional vitamin/mineral supplementation is not needed or recommended!

Myth #3    Turtles Naturally love to eat their own poop

It makes sense to consider that when turtles are swimming in nature: creeks, rivers, lakes, and ponds, its highly unlikely that a turtle will ever see the poop from his last defecation. Once he’s “gone”-it’s gone, long gone.  So to say on these social media group posts that turtles love to eat their own excretion, or that it is somehow “natural” is simply ridiculous.  But we all know that nature’s way can get twisted around a bit in a captive situation, so could it be that in some rare cases aquatic turtles, in a confined aquarium environment, would eat a “re-discovered” poop? Conceivable, but why?

Even though a turtle does not “naturally love” to eat their own waste, is it possible that these select turtles are missing vital nutrition in their individual diets? and so see the defecation as an additional source of nutrition? That’s at least a logical question, and animal nutritionist are quick to confirm that animals that consume feces are generally looking to correct some form of deficiencies in their diets.  But after decades of caring for literately thousands of turtles we have not seen this occur in aquatic turtles. Though that may be because these turtles were fed high quality diets, with proper amounts of required animal protein, and so had no need to look for additional sources of nutrients.

So, where it is extremally misguided to say that all Aquatic Turtles “love to eat their own poop”, there is a slight possibility that turtles being fed an improper diet (lacking proper animal proteins) could possibly look to “un-natural” food sources to fill this void. If this should be the case, feeding a high quality turtle diet (TropicZone, Zoo Med etc.) should eliminate any of this very un-natural feeding behavior.