# Cuttlefish bone



## TiffytheTort (May 31, 2017)

Tiffy my Hermann tort will not eat cuttlefish bone. She has calcium dust fine. Any ideas?


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## ZEROPILOT (May 31, 2017)

You can scrape some powder off the cuttlebone and sprinkle that dust on food.
Sometimes tortoise will ignore them for months...Then one day decide to eat a whole one.
Keep one in the enclosure. Change it for a fresh one if it gets nasty.
Bird stores often sell broken ones for cheap.
Broken ones are still good.


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## Grandpa Turtle 144 (May 31, 2017)




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## Link (Jun 1, 2017)

Grandpa Turtle 144 said:


> View attachment 209092


I don't know I am sure I say a tortoise fishing once. It even had some cuddle fish on a stringer.  I think it smoked the fish though for winter. Good point and kudos for explaining it logically. Luckily my sulcata started eating the cuddle-bone the day I put it in the box with him. I still give powder once a week in his food for now. Still only just around month old.


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## Link (Jun 1, 2017)

Would adult tortoises eat the eggshell without grinding it up. I am truely curious it sounds right.


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## Grandpa Turtle 144 (Jun 1, 2017)

Link said:


> Would adult tortoises eat the eggshell without grinding it up. I am truely curious it sounds right.


I grind it in to a powder for all of my torts cause I don't want any sharp edges ! But a lot of people crush boiled eggs for the red foot torts !


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## TiffytheTort (Jun 1, 2017)

Link said:


> Would adult tortoises eat the eggshell without grinding it up. I am truely curious it sounds right.


It's not supposed to be good for torts. I don't recommend it.


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## Yvonne G (Jun 1, 2017)

TiffytheTort said:


> It's not supposed to be good for torts. I don't recommend it.



I feed hard boiled eggs, shells and all, to my Manouria, RF and YF tortoises. Have been doing it for many years.

I put it whole on the feeding tile, then I mash it with the heel of my hand.


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## Grandpa Turtle 144 (Jun 1, 2017)

TiffytheTort said:


> It's not supposed to be good for torts. I don't recommend it.


I've been raising torts for 17 years . I have leopard torts , Marginals, Russian , Greek , Egyptians, pancakes , Herrmans, AZ Desert torts , and 2 types of box turtles ! Please tell us your qualifications or is it that your just guessing.


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## Grandpa Turtle 144 (Jun 1, 2017)




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## Link (Jun 1, 2017)

Grandpa Turtle 144 said:


> I grind it in to a powder for all of my torts cause I don't want any sharp edges ! But a lot of people crush boiled eggs for the red foot torts !


Yeah and we harvest our eggs from our own chickens. So less chance of foreign chemicals or additives. We do however still use feed from store. So who knows if we are doing any better...


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## Liamo (Jun 1, 2017)

Dear Tortoise fans,

I am pretty new to tortoise keeping and I am concerned about Terry getting enough calcium. I have bough some cuttlebone and I am wondering if it is ok if I kind of shave pieces off the cuttlebone in like a powder form and into his food? Would this be an ok way to get some calcium into him?

Cheers


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## TiffytheTort (Jun 1, 2017)

A friend told me.i have no idea if she's right or not


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## TiffytheTort (Jun 1, 2017)

Said there's a risk of salmonella contamination. Please tell me if I'm wrong or not. Organic is fine. That's what she told me anyway @Grandpa Turtle 144


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## Russian Tortoise Lover! (Jun 1, 2017)

Hi! I have had this concern too, they should chew it but if you don't see that I don't see what's wrong with shaving it as long as your tortoise eats it. You could also let it dissolve in its bath. Then it would soak into him. Good luck!


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## TiffytheTort (Jun 1, 2017)

And my tort hated it. Kept headbutting it so I bought cuttle fish bones.


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## Yvonne G (Jun 1, 2017)

Liamo said:


> Dear Tortoise fans,
> 
> I am pretty new to tortoise keeping and I am concerned about Terry getting enough calcium. I have bough some cuttlebone and I am wondering if it is ok if I kind of shave pieces off the cuttlebone in like a powder form and into his food? Would this be an ok way to get some calcium into him?
> 
> Cheers



Yes,it's perfectly fine to shave crumbs off the cuttlebone for your tortoise.


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## Grandpa Turtle 144 (Jun 1, 2017)

TiffytheTort said:


> Said there's a risk of salmonella contamination. Please tell me if I'm wrong or not. Organic is fine. That's what she told me anyway @Grandpa Turtle 144


Do you get salmonella from handling eggs or feeding eggs to your family or torts ? Tell your friend thank you for her advice but she don't know torts . Have a great day ! And now you know where bad advice comes from !


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## TiffytheTort (Jun 2, 2017)

Grandpa Turtle 144 said:


> Do you get salmonella from handling eggs or feeding eggs to your family or torts ? Tell your friend thank you for her advice but she don't know torts . Have a great day ! And now you know where bad advice comes from !


Thx for advice


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## ZEROPILOT (Jun 2, 2017)

Would the hard boiling of the eggs stop any salmonella risk? I simply don't know.
But I do know that in my 52 years of eating eggs, I haven't gotten ill.


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## Markw84 (Jun 2, 2017)

Grandpa Turtle 144 said:


> Do you get salmonella from handling eggs or feeding eggs to your family or torts ? Tell your friend thank you for her advice but she don't know torts . Have a great day ! And now you know where bad advice comes from !


ON the news just last night was a piece on the epidemic being seen with over 4000 cases of salmonella from backyard chickens in the US!


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## Grandpa Turtle 144 (Jun 2, 2017)

Markw84 said:


> ON the news just last night was a piece on the epidemic being seen with over 4000 cases of salmonella from backyard chickens in the US!


And 4-5 years ago the news told about store bought pet food killing dogs and cats all over the world .It took 2 years to find that a man in China or Japan got a good deal on a chemical filler . But I'll bet there are a lot of people still giving store bought food to their cats and dogs today .


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## Kapidolo Farms (Jun 2, 2017)

ZEROPILOT said:


> Would the hard boiling of the eggs stop any salmonella risk? I simply don't know.
> But I do know that in my 52 years of eating eggs, I haven't gotten ill.


I think we need a longer trial period.


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## Link (Jun 2, 2017)

Grandpa Turtle 144 said:


> And 4-5 years ago the news told about store bought pet food killing dogs and cats all over the world .It took 2 years to find that a man in China or Japan got a good deal on a chemical filler . But I'll bet there are a lot of people still giving store bought food to their cats and dogs today .





Markw84 said:


> ON the news just last night was a piece on the epidemic being seen with over 4000 cases of salmonella from backyard chickens in the US!


I find this seriously dubious. How would hundreds of individual backyard suppliers end up with the salmonella issue at the same time? It shouldn't be possible.


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## leigti (Jun 2, 2017)

Link said:


> I find this seriously dubious. How would hundreds of individual backyard suppliers end up with the salmonella issue at the same time? It shouldn't be possible.


The people who are getting salmonella from their backyard chickens probably don't take good care of them. Salmonella is everywhere, sort of like E. coli. Some people are affected by it and get sick and some people are not.
I have had backyard chickens for four years. I Feed raw dog and cat food and have been for almost 10 years. Never had an issue with salmonella with either one and I am definitely not a Germaphob who goes around cleaning everything all the time. 
Not washing the protective bloom off your homegrown eggs and the act of hard boiling them are good ways to protect people and animals.


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## Link (Jun 2, 2017)

Link said:


> I find this seriously dubious. How would hundreds of individual backyard suppliers end up with the salmonella issue at the same time? It shouldn't be possible.


Here is the link to the CDC investigation. https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/live-poultry-05-16/index.html/

To say that backyard chicken egg harvesting was the reason is so out of line. I read the studies and investigations. They are claiming the link if the sick people reported being in contact with with any type of chicken, duck, or similar bird of any age even babies just touched at farm goods stores selling them in the past week. I would also assume this could be considered if you fed the ducks at the local pond. Or if you walked by a chicken in a yard or duck in a field. That would classify as a contact.

There was no direct proof of the source from any testing. This was a corporate response to the growing market of people starting to raise their own poultry products instead of just using the grocery/department stores. The report even made reference that this was the reason why the "record" number was achieved. By the way they don't include any numbers of total populations of those affected, or even comparative cases from the grocery store market cases. I wonder why? If only 5 people in a population of 800,000 is affected that is only a 0.001%. You might as well expect to win the lottery with those kinds of odds.
If you consider the actual wording of this topic it becomes clear. This is just a tiny , tiny percent of the cases verified for this issue from actual corporate distributors of the eggs. This is a scare tactic to stop people from being self reliant and not participating in the market. Same reason we are told not to use traditional medicine remedies and only rely on pharmaceutical concoctions we have to pay for and they control.

Apologies for rant, this is such a case of misrepresenting data its sad.


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## Markw84 (Jun 2, 2017)

Link said:


> I find this seriously dubious. How would hundreds of individual backyard suppliers end up with the salmonella issue at the same time? It shouldn't be possible.


This caught my attention because of the genesis of the under 4" law for turtles. Not at all that many cases of "turtle related" salmonella resulted in that ban. Salmonella is a ubiquitous bacteria.


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## Kapidolo Farms (Jun 2, 2017)

Markw84 said:


> This caught my attention because of the genesis of the under 4" law for turtles. Not at all that many cases of "turtle related" salmonella resulted in that ban. Salmonella is a ubiquitous bacteria.


I guess this has wandered pretty far from the OP. That said I'm responding here as it includes you two trailblazers. @Link 

At last years TTPG conference one of the speakers was a medical statistician (for lack of a better name) and he presented that the original interpretation regarding the salmonella turtle linkage was very wrong. He reconfigured the data and interpretation and included it in the official record regarding Richard Fife's multi decade effort to overturn the "4" rule". I wish they would at least publish abstracts of talks.


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## TiffytheTort (Jun 4, 2017)

Markw84 said:


> ON the news just last night was a piece on the epidemic being seen with over 4000 cases of salmonella from backyard chickens in the US!


I don't live in the US,i live in UK so I didn't even know about that. Wow :O


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## JoesMum (Jun 4, 2017)

TiffytheTort said:


> I don't live in the US,i live in UK so I didn't even know about that. Wow :O


Salmonella and chickens is a well known link even in the UK. 

Store bought chickens and eggs have to be reared and processed in strictly monitored conditions to minimise the risk. 

Those raised by individuals for private use are not subject to this and the risk is greater. 

Hygiene is everything. Don't rinse chicken under the tap as it splatters bacteria everywhere. Cook chicken thoroughly. Avoid raw eggs. 

And, if using egg shell with pets, wash and dry the shells thoroughly - boil them for a couple of minutes even - before use. 

In the wild it is entirely likely that tortoises will pick up discarded egg shells as a calcium supplement. They're programmed to chew white things - we see them going for white rocks, don't we. I suspect many fewer wander on beaches eating cuttlebone, but it's possible that some do. 

Yes there's a hygiene risk in the wild too, but I guess wild tortoises have a degree of immunity to locally common bacteria.


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## TiffytheTort (Jun 4, 2017)

Thx for the advice


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## ZEROPILOT (Jun 5, 2017)

Anyone...Does hard boiling the egg generally get rid of the risk?


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## Yvonne G (Jun 5, 2017)

Boiling kills everything!


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## Kapidolo Farms (Jun 5, 2017)

Yvonne G said:


> Boiling kills everything!



Well except deep sea thermal vent creatures. But I don't feed them out so no worries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent


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