My leopards have always been close to my heart. They have also been the most problematic tortoise I've ever kept from day one... 1978. I have not kept them all that time because before I left NY I got rid of those... 2 females, no male but I quickly got some in TX which I recently lost. Those are the ones I had 23 years... anyway...
This was the only offspring I personally raised to adult. Someone was nice enough to point out that she is grossly pyramided... I think she is... but not grossly. She's taught me a great deal over the years... roughly 17 years. It was the last tortoise that was produced for me in Texas which is why I think I kept her.

This is a shot of what I call my learning curve. You'll notice that the slope gradually decreases and the most recent part is the flattest. That's always made me wonder especially when I'm always saying that diet has little to do with shell shape but you do have to understand that I changed other things like adding outdoor heat and keeping her outdoors 24/7.

I finally get to the final phase of my use of this diet... using it exclusively on the tortoises I keep indoors. Up until now it was about 2/3 of their diet but time constraints took over and the produce section at Walmart here in Georgia is not much different than the best produce section you can find in the UK... not real good. This forced me into a situation which I probably would have fallen into regardless.

There are 2 sets of tortoises I thought I'd try this on... some leopards... the first hatched here in Georgia and some Stars which I've had terrible luck with... until now. I did also tried this with the only Spider I hatched out. In fact it was the Spider that gave me the idea. I'd been feeding her the diet almost exclusively from day one from the start and this is the current result...

Until now the diet was fed moistened. The diet is a pelleted diet and dry so it was impossible for the smaller tortoises to eat so it was moistened which they would readily eat. The problem here is that it was messy and would go bad if left for to long so it had to be removed once the tortoises were finished. Also, the tortoises would sometimes have to be cleaned because they seem to like walking through it as much as they liked eating it. My solution to this was to run it through a grinder and feed it dry ad lib. I fill the dish daily with as much as I thin their little tummies will hold for one day.

I am amazed at the current results. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop but I'm putting a good deal of trust in that the manufacturers know what they are doing. First is the leopards. I've only been doing this for about 2 months. Also note the tortoises are kept hot. They have basking sites of over 100F which they use. This is the Leopards.

The above girl was growing so slowly. I think she is about 3 years old. The new growth is obvious. She is displaying that abnormality I mentioned earlier but it is starting to show growth.

Here is one of the last Leopards I hatched. One of my Third generation babies...

Finally, the tortoises that have given me the most joy in the last 2 months with what I've been doing. They are also the ones responsible for the most questions... my Stars. I started with 12 confiscated imports and slowly lost them one by one. I lost 2 after the move to Georgia and it really bummed me out. I figured I can't do any worse so what the heck... I am blown away with the results. They were 2 inches when I got them. The largest is now about 3+ inches.

This is the largest.

This is the smallest which did not show any growth in almost 2 years. You can see the new growth after 2 months... unreal. These guys weigh a ton also.


There are 2 important points I'd like to note. The first is that the thing that killed most if not all the Stars is dehydration/urates/stones. I'm convinced it was from a green diet. With this diet the salts are minimal and they hardly pass any urates at all.

The other point is that on this diet they are inclined to drink a great deal. This applies to all the tortoises.

I've been wanting to do this post for a while because it might give a little insight into my point of view on this topic which I feel pretty strongly about.

Nutrition is a very controversial topic regardless of animal or people and I'll bet it will be as much in years to come.

This is intended to be a note and nothing more.

Very comprehensive and Well Done, thank you EJ

Thats great that you found something that works for you. I feed my tortoise a similar pelleted diet a few days a week to keep him hydrated and like you said he really seems to love it.

Not to be dense, but do I understand the Leopards get Mazuri only? Nothing else? Ground up?

All of my indoor tortoises are fed Mazuri exclusively. They include Leopards, Spiders, Flattails, Chacos, Hingebacks, Greeks, Egyptians Stars and Redfoots.

The ground up stuff I don't do often because it is labor intensive.

And to think I go every week and buy more greens and veggies for my RF than I use for my family in a month(and we eat healthy) Can you over do it feeding them Mazuri only? I use it every other day and they scarf it down and seem to want more. (you may be making my day!) I seem to go into panic mode if I run out more than a day of greens etc...
Nay

You can overfeed the stuff. Because it is so nutritious they will put on some rapid growth. If the shape is good I don't worry about it.

You can either limit each feeding as you are doing or allow them to eat as much as they can in one sitting but limit the frequency. I do once a week in the winter and twice a week in the summer.

Nice post. It has definitely inspired me to do more research and rethink the usefulness of a packaged diet. I just want to say rapid growth and tortoises don't go together at all. Hope we can all agree on that. That said our main focus when feeding tortoises is nutrition. Some tortoises eat a lot more fruit then others, some only eat dry grasses and some even eat meat from time to time. There is no magic bullet.....or pellet. My point being feed a variety of food items!

Tortoises are prone to kidney stones and even kidney failure from being feed an improper diet. Glad to hear a report that says Mazuri not only doesn't cause kidney problems but has corrected it in EJs star tortoises. Very nice. EJ , it may be true about to many greens causing kidney stones. Kidney stones as I am sure you know are caused by a build up of calcium and other minerals and mainly form because of dehydration. So a dehydrated tortoise eating dark leafy greens all the time is prone to kidney problems. Once you add supplements to the party (like calcium / vitamin powder or mineral blocks ) it adds to the risk.

Sorry... gotta disagree with you all around.

Odds are that the rate of growth has nothing to do with the overall health of the tortoise if environment and the available nutrition is balanced.

Again... if you look at the overall diet of most tortoises you will see that their diets are very similar. Most tortoises are opportunistic feeders.

There are not many complete lists of what tortoises feed on in the wild. Where many keepers and researchers make a huge error is to fixate on a single particular food item... Flattails/Mushrooms... Redfoots/fruit... Leopards/grasses. While these animals might like these items in captivity... I'll bet their diet comprises of much more than these single items. You know leopards will take fruit and Redfoots do graze...

You can tell people there is no magic bullet... I beg to differ... This opinion is not based on theory but on actual use.

So you add plenty of calcium to your green diet... no problems... I believe this is wrong.

If you are not very careful in monitoring the oxalic acid content of the plants you are feeding you are most likely going to have a problem. All that added calcium is now free to bond with the oxalic acid to form calcium oxalate... a very insoluable salt... producing stones and possible renal failure... or so I guess... as pointed out to me by a very observant new keeper lately.

So... While I do preach a varied diet... I do so with the stipulation that the variety should be at least 20 or 30 different plants.

Mazuri, in particular, does remove a great deal of the guess work and for me... the worry.

This is the Mazuri link with feeding directions and tortoise species designed for: http://www.mazuri.com/PDF/5M21-5E06.pdf I'll let the company speak for itself

This post was last modified: 04-03-2008 02:53 PM by Itort.