Hi there,

Yes, it’s Brenda again with another Farishta “incident report”…..

Refer to my post titled “what do I do now?” below. I followed Danny’s advice and dug her out and tried to get her eating, which she did the next day, but not quite as I intended:

When I took her out for a walk at 2:00 PM this afternoon she didn’t seem very energetic, but once she woke up and started moving around a bit, I moved her down into the portulacas that she had begun eating last Wednesday, but she showed no interest, and made her way slowly down the slope. When she got to the bottom it looked like she was eating something a little too close to a newly-planted cactus with lots of long, thin spines, and I fervently hoped she wouldn’t poke herself in the eye or get one embedded in the soft skin between her limbs and shell….

When I went closer to investigate, I couldn’t see anything except dirt with an accumulation of white fertilizer bits from the portulaca plants that had washed down the hill in the recent rain, and some twigs, so I picked her up and moved her back into the portulacas. Well, the little stinker marched right back down the hill defiantly swishing her tail, and started eating the dirt again. This time I noted that she was after the partially decomposed burlap the succulents were planted in!! I grabbed her and tried to gently pull as much of it as I could out of her tightly closed jaws, but she had seized a big chunk and swallowed about half of it.

Since burlap is generally composed of hemp or other vegetable fibers, is it ok, or is this something that can harm her, and if so what should I do? I thought of her native habitat and it occurred to me that the dried out weeds and things she would be eating there probably would not be much different from that burlap (other than not being processed), so is it ok to let her eat that if the other alternative is her refusing to eat anything at all since she still won’t eat anything I put in her food dish??

Are tortoises usually this ornery or is Farishta being especially difficult?!

By the way, when I took her out yesterday it was a little too late in the day, so I brought her in and gave her a long, warm soak. After about an hour in the tub she passed a large-ish glob of white stuff and a smaller wad of green stuff with reddish-brown bits in it that I assume was the portulaca she had eaten last week. I then offered her some more treats (cut heirloom tomato, a blackberry and sprig of portulaca from outside), but she didn’t eat them.

Many thanks for advice as always,

Brenda