# Horsfield diet



## Evie (Jun 19, 2012)

Please can someone tell what horsfield tortoises can and can't eat? 
When I got the tortoise I also received a booklet on what they eat and I have lost it 
Thanks


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## clare n (Jun 19, 2012)

Hunt down "joesmum" on here, she has some brilliant links in her signature at the bottom to diets and plant database. She sent it to me when I first joined, it's incredibly useful.


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## JoesMum (Jun 19, 2012)

Horsfields diet should be mostly broad green leaves.

They cannot digest sugar properly - it makes them sick - so fruit should be avoided, including tomato and bell pepper. Carrots are also high in sugar, so have to count as fruit for your tort.

The best leafy diet grows outside in your garden. Dandelions, plantain, sow thistle, clover are all common in Britain.

You can supplement this with stuff you can buy in the garden centre or supermarket. Trays of living lettuce, rocket, pak choy, romaine lettuce can all be used as part of the diet.

Avoid cucumber, iceberg and standard lettuce which have a high water content and no fibre... they can give your tort the runs!

Having said "don't feed fruit"... I can recommend strawberry hulls as an occasional treat. If you have them, you eat the red fruit and give the green tops to your tort. There'll be just enough sugary yum attached to them for your tort to gulp them down... they're good for fibre  Your tort would prefer the red fruit, but that's tough! 

When you go shopping, write down every leafy plant you see and look it up in The Tortoise Table Plant Database to see if it's suitable. As long as it doesn't say "Do not feed", you can use it. 

Change things around. Buy rocket and when it's used up by some romaine, when that's gone, use pak choy... you get the idea!

You can also look food plants up in this Plant Booklet

Few of us in Britain manage, particularly in winter, without using pellets a couple of times a week. You cannot easily get the USA's favourite Mazuri, but Komodo and Pre Alpin are readily available.


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## Merlin M (Jun 19, 2012)

they looking on these:

The Tortoise Table

Russian Tortoise


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## Evie (Jun 19, 2012)

Thank you, that is very very helpful!  
I will have a shopping trip this weekend for them lol

Are buttercups ok for them or not?


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## clare n (Jun 19, 2012)

I don't believe they are no, it will be in the plant database just to be sure. 
But I've learned that if the tortoise is kept outdoors with a large variety of good stuff they are more likely to avoid what is bad for them, so just keep an eye out, you probably won't have to go digging up half of the garden. If he is in a table, or outdoors only offered limited foods, they can make bad choices, be more careful. But have a good root through those links. You will be amazed at the variety they can have.


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## JoesMum (Jun 19, 2012)

Buttercups are officially Don't Feed.

BUT

If they were harmful, Joe would have died years ago. He won't touch the leaves, but adores the flowers. He marches round the garden from flower to flower, bites it off and moves on.

He'll do the same with clover flowers, though he likes the leaves too of clover.

While there are undoubtedly things considered as toxins in buttercups, I don't think a tort's digestion necessarily works in exactly the same way as other animals.


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