# How do you make/convince a tort to eat hay/grass?



## geekinpink (Sep 26, 2010)

I know a lot of you will think tough love! But i tried tough love, my tort just refuses to eat hay or grass. How many days could i use tough love on them without hurting them?

I don't have a yard so I use a plastic tub as her outside enclosure (which i put on my terrace) I filled it up with cut and sun dried bermuda grass and I scatter her food around for her to be able to graze and eat at the same time eating some of the bermuda grass along with her food...Is this ok? Will she get the same nutrition as a fresh cut grass?

thanks in advance for the helps!


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## Yvonne G (Sep 26, 2010)

A tortoise doesn't need to eat hay. When people tell you your sulcata can eat hay, it should be because you have nothing else to feed him. Its a good idea to get a tortoise used to the fact that hay is edible, for maybe during the winter, when other food is scarce. But he doesn't HAVE to eat hay to be a healthy tortoise.

Also, very young tortoises just will NOT eat hay. So if your tortoise is a baby, you are wasting your time and money on hay.

I like the idea of mixing a little grass in with the food the tortoise is used to eating. This gets it used to the taste of the grass, then when he's big enough to go outside and graze, it will come to him naturally.


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## Tom (Sep 26, 2010)

Here's what I do:
Get your pile of yummy leafy greens ready first. Use one of his favorites. Spray the pile with some water mist. Go and get some scissors and some fresh tender young grass. Finely chop the grass with the scissors over your greens pile, almost like you are putting pepper on top. He'll get pieces of the grass as he eats the greens. Works with Bermuda hay too, but spray the greens, add the grass choppings and then spray AGAIN and wait a few minutes for the hay to rehydrate. In a few minutes it will look like fresh grass again. The water spraying is an important step as it makes the grass stick to the greens. Do this several days in a row and don't worry if he eats light for a bit. He'd survive an entire month with no food at all, so eating light for several days (by his own choice) won't hurt him a bit. When he gets hungry, he'll eat whatever you put down.


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## geekinpink (Sep 26, 2010)

so dry grass and fresh cut grass has the same content and will benefit torts?

@yvonne - it's just that every care sheet i read it always says 90% or more of torts diet should consist of hay,grass and weeds and then plants, that's why it bothers me my tort won't eat it because eventually i would like to wean her from veggies...I would just give that to her as a treat not as her main food.


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## Tom (Sep 26, 2010)

Don't know the answer to your question, but they are both very beneficial and add necessary "roughage" to the diet.


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