# Do tortoises know better about plants than we think?



## DoctorCosmonaut (Feb 6, 2010)

I was thinking the other day (when my Redfoot decided to eat one of the plants in its enclosure, the only time it ever has eaten one growing in there, and it happened to be not toxic for her and the plant also happened to be from where she is native to), do tortoises know what they can and can't eat? I know you shouldn't throw food at them that is obviously not good for them, but if you have them around live plants that aren't edible, will they know not to consume them? They've survived forever in the wild without humans picking out what they can eat. Don't most animals either naturally know not to consume something poisonous or spit it out if they bite into it and can tell its not quite right? Maybe this even depends on the species?


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## Tom (Feb 6, 2010)

I've wondered about this a lot too. Here are some observations:

My sullies turn any weed patch I put them near into bare dirt. Each time I've built them a new pen the area is full of weeds and within days or weeks, depending on the size, bare dirt.

Goats and sheep in a large pen, will eat their favorites first and when there is nothing else, they eat the less desirable stuff. I have several weeds in my area that are supposed to be toxic, but everything eats them anyway with no ill effect. I have a toxic weed called fiddleneck, Amsinckia douglasiana, that is eaten by goats, sheep, camel, kangaroo, tortoises and chickens. All of these animals eat up all the other weeds first and my donkey won't touch it at all. The wild bunnies, ground squirrels and such in the area leave it alone. They eat my spineless opuntia instead. Rotten little [email protected]$&%*#*'s!!!

I think in a captive environment they'll eat just about anything whether its good for them or not. In the wild, I think they just keep wandering until they find something more suitable.

I've been careful not to allow them to eat anything REALLY toxic, like oleander, but I bet if I put it in front of them they would.


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## Yvonne G (Feb 6, 2010)

Tom makes a good point. If you have yellow star thistle in your horse pasture, the horses (or Tom's donkey) will eat all around the plant but won't eat the toxic star thistle. However, if you hire someone to come in and mow and bale your pasture, and the star thistle gets baled up with the good grasses, the horses and Tom's donkey WILL eat the thistle, because they really don't have a choice in this situation.

(It isn't so much the fiddleneck plant that's toxic, as the toxicity from the seeds builds up in the kidneys)

There are instances of wild animals eating certain toxic plants to help rid themselves of parasites.

Tortoises are better able to withstand the alkaloids in toxic plants than mammals are. When I first moved here the Manouria tortoises ate some iris down to the dirt then dug up the bulbs and ate them too. Iris are on the toxic plant lists.

I have always said that tortoises know what to eat or what to not eat, but this is in an outdoor situation where the tortoise has the opportunity to eat around a toxic plant, not indoors where we might cut one up and place it on the feeding station.

Just my opinion...no actual research to refer to.


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## franeich (Feb 6, 2010)

I have noticed when mine is out grazing on the front lawn he just takes one or two bites of everything then moves on. I have wondered if that is so if something is toxic he wont eat too much.


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## kimber_lee_314 (Feb 6, 2010)

I have some "not so safe" plants in the yard, and no one ever bothers them - not even my rabbits. I think they know. Again, no scientific evidence, just my observation.


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## terryo (Feb 6, 2010)

So far Pio, my Cherry Head has never eaten anything in his indoor viv, except for pansies. Outside he will also eat them down to the ground, but so far nothing else.So I really have nothing else to go by as far as tortoises go.
My old boxie that I inherited from my father lived in our yard for over 60 years. My father was a Gardner and had everything and anything growing but the old boxie only ate fallen fruit and veggies that we left for him. Never touched the ivy or anything else. In those days there was no good or bad list and no Internet or much of anything else to do research with. Imagine over 60 years old...never sick...never had any lists and never went to a vet. 
I had an old neighbor who had boxies and red foots in her big yard all summer. It was weed infested, and had lots of ivy growing and who know's what, and neither the Red foots or the boxies ever touched anything other than what she put out and any bug, or worm they could find. 
For years, I kept boxies and always had them in planted enclosures, and I never had a list of good or bad plants, so just planted what I wanted, and never had a problem.
I also had a big pond with an enclosure for water turtles, and never worried what I put in there and they mostly ate all the water plants that they wanted. Some they never touched.
Tom, from TurtleTails has his boxies in a beautiful turtle garden, and never worries about what he plants. 
Maybe tortoises are different so, I would never deliberately put something in Pio's indoor enclosure that I thought he would eat if it wasn't good for him, but I truly believe that given a big enough enclosure any tortoise or boxie would know what not to eat. It's different if you have your tort in a small tortoise table, or viv, or even if they are outside in a small enclolure, then I think they might try something, but I don't think they would eat anything that was bad for them.


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## Maggie Cummings (Feb 6, 2010)

I think in the wild, *THEIR* wild, they know what to eat and what not to eat. Here in America outside is *OUR* outside, not theirs so they don't know what is toxic or not. I used to think they would automatically know what they should eat, but Sulcata for instance are not from Oregon, so how is Bob supposed to know whats toxic or not? But if you continue that thinking, Bob is from California not the Sudan, so he just might know what is toxic or not...


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## Stephanie Logan (Feb 6, 2010)

I have to agree with you.

Taco eats NOTHING but the Euphorbia maculata when she's out, but that's mostly because she's never been exposed to live weeds, clover and grasses till last summer.

However, you'd think that tortoise researchers would have noticed dead animals next to poisonous plants in significant numbers if that happened a lot, or that we'd get more frantic poisoning posts on the forum, but I've only seen that sad one about tortoises dying from chemical herbicide exposure...


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## Tom (Feb 6, 2010)

Plant toxicity is a funny thing. There is a rare species of giant roach from Australia that eats eucalyptus tree leaves in the wild. They are very rare and $100-$150 each. For years keepers would get them, feed them local eucalyptus leaves and after a year or two they would die with out reproducing. It took several years to figure out that they only eat a few types of eucalyptus and we don't have any of them here in the states. Even though the leaves are clearly toxic, it took a year or two to kill them.

Seems to me a relatively large herbivore like a tort might take a long time to ingest enough and actually show symptoms.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my previous post, but my sullies DO eat things they shouldn't, when it either blows into or sprouts up in their enclosure before I can catch it. They eat anything and everything in their enclosure. This also has to do with hunger, as I intentionally under fed them in a futile attempt to grow them slowly and avoid pyramiding. For the last few years, however, they have been free fed as much as they want, but they still eat everything.

I've never had this problem with any species of box turtle or forest tort, but my leopards did the same thing and my russians and greeks always fell somewhere in between. My buddy had pancakes and hingebacks and his mostly left the plants in the enclosures alone.


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## DoctorCosmonaut (Feb 6, 2010)

So then it does have a little to do with species? Maybe forest torts do better in a sense?


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## Maggie Cummings (Feb 6, 2010)

DoctorCosmonaut said:


> So then it does have a little to do with species? Maybe forest torts do better in a sense?



A forest tort smarter than Bob??? You gotta be joking!!!


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## DoctorCosmonaut (Feb 6, 2010)

Nothing to do with intelligence (Bob's a sneaky genius!), its more with intuition. Bobs a desert tort and has a much bigger appetite, so he is more likely to seek out and eat what he comes across theoretically... I mean I have nothing to go off, but my imagination lol


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## TortieGal (Feb 9, 2010)

I picked some Oxalis last summer and put it in with Herman in his house with some spring mix, I thought at the time it was clover, I know better now. But he wouldn't touch it. He ate everything around it but didn't eat any Oxalis. When given clover he happily munches on it. He knows the difference. Course I would never do it again.


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