# Desert tortoise eating caliche?



## mike est (Apr 21, 2012)

Hello everyone

I was wondering if any of you have heard , or anyone have seen a desert tortoise eating caliche(CaCO3) ? I have a friend that has a couple of desert tortoise he told me that he gives them pieces of caliche , sometimes he will make caliche dust for the tortoise, i havent found any info about tortoise eating caliche, if they do it probably will be a great source of calcium for them i think but also caliche can be really hard to crack sometimes..

What do you guys think? Posible? or my friend its crazy ? (wich wil not suprise me at all )


----------



## Yvonne G (Apr 21, 2012)

CaCO3 is calcium carbonate. Its ok to feed this to your tortoise.

Calische is sedimentary rock consisting of CaCO3 *PLUS* gravel, sand, clay, and silt.

I wouldn't encourage my tortoise to eat calische.


----------



## mike est (Apr 22, 2012)

emysemys said:


> CaCO3 is calcium carbonate. Its ok to feed this to your tortoise.
> 
> Calische is sedimentary rock consisting of CaCO3 PLUS gravel, sand, clay, and silt.
> 
> I wouldn't encourage my tortoise to eat calische.



Now that makes sense! Thank you for the info , i wil tell my friend


----------

