# mushroom in RF tortoise diet



## raven44 (Apr 15, 2016)

Reishi mushrooms contain all essential amino acids. Ein cannot eat those tho lol

Mushrooms are composed of chitin. Same stuff as a lobsters shell. Humans digestive systems CANNOT digest raw mushroom they MUST be cooked. Period. Google it...

I wonder if turtles can digest raw Mushrooms 

Cremini, button mush, portabellos, baby crimins, are ALL the same species of mushrooms. It's simply marketing sry to say. This species of agaricus mushroom contains Sooo much selenium thay humans can develop selenium toxicity ingesting these regularly. We do not feed ein button mushrooms.

NON organic button mushroom farmers are the only agricultural crop still allowed to use a banned fungicide or was it pesticide... all other crops have been prohibited from using said chemicals on crops cause they proved it's toxic. 

NON organic button mush farmers said they'd go outta business if they couldn't continue to use it. Cop out.

There r still strictly organic button mushroom farms. Sooo sry u guys just can't grow button mushrooms and r willing to poison people for profits. I wouldn't eat non organic button mushrooms


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## ZEROPILOT (Apr 15, 2016)

I've been feeding my RF mushrooms for decades now. I also eat them raw. I've never before heard about an argument against them.
Interesting.
Thank you.
I have never noticed any unusual B.M.s after my tortoises have eaten mushrooms and they are swallowed in huge chunks. They don't seem to pass undigested.


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## JoesMum (Apr 15, 2016)

I too have been eating raw mushrooms for decades...


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## ZEROPILOT (Apr 15, 2016)

Maybe a moderator will want to move this conversation?


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## raven44 (Apr 15, 2016)

Many many folks eat raw mushroom

U simply have been wasting them sry to say

U do not gain the full nutritional benefits of the mushrooms raw. Many mushrooms growers dunno this cause they don't read enough..

Buffets serve them raw all the time.. I roll my eyes after I learned this. Makes me wanna tell em.. always thought they wouldn't be receptive to it tho maybe I should give it a try

Quit buying non organic mushrooms for u and ur turtle now.

Organic ones r same price basically

I'll dig up which banned chemical they still apply to the mushrooms...

I kinda assumed tortoise have bad *** dihestive systems cause they eat their food whole all of it lol no teeth to chew


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## Pearly (Apr 15, 2016)

ZEROPILOT said:


> I've been feeding my RF mushrooms for decades now. I also eat them raw. I've never before heard about an argument against them.
> Interesting.
> Thank you.
> I have never noticed any unusual B.M.s after my tortoises have eaten mushrooms and they are swallowed in huge chunks. They don't seem to pass undigested.


I had read somewhere (maybe Tortoise Library? not sure) that button and protabellas/creminis were no good for tort so I have only been buying others, like Chantarrels, Oysters and such for the babies' occasional shroom treat. I also occasionally get dried mushrooms from Polish forests. Next time I do I'll let the babies try them rehydrated.


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## Anyfoot (Apr 15, 2016)

Mushrooms absorb vitamin D from the sun the same way our skin does. Put your mushrooms in direct sunlight for 30mins before feeding it increases the vitamin D levels. I feed mushroom every other day to my torts but miss sundays, so 3 times a week. Of course not just mushrooms. My juveniles love them with dandilions and plantain weeds. They seem fine to me.


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## Anyfoot (Apr 15, 2016)

http://www.powerofmushrooms.com.au/health-nutrition/health-nutrition/vitamin-d/


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## raven44 (Apr 15, 2016)

Yes I'm aware mushrooms vitamin d content can be increased dry drying in the sun w the gills UP. Works beetrr for some species than others or some concentrate it more so

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/3050/2

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/703/2

So the chicken nutritional profile is for one cup of chicken diced.

How much meat protein do u feed ur tortoise and how often?? Knowing this u could find out how much mushrooms would need to be fed and how often to replace the amino in the meat w mushrooms 

The mushroom nutritional profile is for 128g or so

Me being entirely unaware of hiw much meat protein to feed a tort makes me unable to calculate this currently or I would

Tort don't eat chicken and dog food in the wild. Maybe bugs Thays what we'd feed if anything... so a meal worm nutritional profile might be more applicable. Assuming they eat meal worms


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## Anyfoot (Apr 16, 2016)

raven44 said:


> Yes I'm aware mushrooms vitamin d content can be increased dry drying in the sun w the gills UP. Works beetrr for some species than others or some concentrate it more so
> 
> http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/3050/2
> 
> ...


 Living in the UK my juveniles are in an indoor enclosure quite a lot. So uvb lighting is offered. My reason for feeding(what some may think) such high amounts of mushroom is to aid the vitamin D intake. 
I feed for redfoots. 
Day 1 weeds/greens and fruit 
Day 2 weeds/greens and mushrooms
Day 3 weeds/greens and fruit
Day 4 weeds/greens and mushrooms
Day 5 weeds/greens and fruit
Day 6 weeds/greens and mushrooms
Day 7 animal protein. 

As long as you don't put a massive amounts of mushroom and fruit in they will eat the weeds/greens up to. If they ever leave the weeds/greens the following day or 2 they only get weeds/greens. This very rarely happens, if ever now. Feed too much fruit and mushrooms in any one sitting and most of the weeds/greens will get left behind. 

I never use calcium/D3 powder. Cuttlebone and water is available 24/7. 
Weeds always have priority over greens. To much romaine or spring greens and I noticed poop gets lighter in colour. 
Unless I get caught off guard for protein I feed pinkies,worms and eggs(with shell) Very occasionally cat food or chicken.
Egg yolk also has vitamin D in it and there must to be other nutrients in eating such as pinkies. 
I often wonder if a Tortoise eats a bird for example then surely it gets all the vitamins,calcium and other nutrients that that bird had. Can anyone clarify that for me? 

There are many diet combos, I've found this guideline works for mine. They seem to be growing good and strong. 

That went off the mushroom topic but I felt you were looking at other areas of the diet too. 
I'll let you break my diet down into category's. It's a mine field if you try to balance everything. Variety is key.


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## Anyfoot (Apr 16, 2016)

Today's feed for 3 juveniles. 3 types of weeds, some dandy flowers and 1 medium sized mushroom. Probably cost about 3p for this meal


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## raven44 (Apr 16, 2016)

U might wanna look at the selenium content of button mushrooms 

Button mushroom are the same as cremini and portabello.

All the same mushroom no difference in them except size. They all have very high selenium amounts.

Enough to develop selenium toxicity in humans and I'd guess torts also


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## Anyfoot (Apr 16, 2016)

raven44 said:


> U might wanna look at the selenium content of button mushrooms
> 
> Button mushroom are the same as cremini and portabello.
> 
> ...



Nowt to worry about. They would be week and feeble torts without selenium. 

http://m.mushroominfo.com/benefits/


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## raven44 (Apr 16, 2016)

I'd still worry about it

What I'd ask myself is this...

Where do torts get that much selenium in nature??

I doubt they would, I'm unsure tho

Very few things are so high in selenium

Btw, that link doesn't show how much selenium is in the agaricus bisporus. Seems they suppress that info online quite honestly. The book w that info in it I have lent out so give me some time. I'll post pics of the captions w analysis of agaricus bisporus.

The link u provided states 84g agaricus bisporus mushroom contains 10 pervent dv FOR HUMANS . Kinda irrelevant sry to say :/

I'll also post the toxic pesticide info on the NON ORGANIC agaricus bisporus mushrooms I would NOT eat them


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## Anyfoot (Apr 16, 2016)

raven44 said:


> I'd still worry about it
> 
> What I'd ask myself is this...
> 
> ...


 So you don't think in moiste micro climates where juvies live, that fungus wouldn't grow. 
Where it's hot and humid. 

Your worrying about elements if diet that there is no need to worry about. If any one element was only consumed, all our torts would be doomed. 
Look at selenium in mushrooms. 10% ish. 
I give my juveniles a medium sized mushroom 3 times a week between 3 torts. That's 1 mushroom each per week. That 1 mushroom is (at a guess) 5% of there weekly diet. Which if nothing else has selenium in it they get 0.5% selenium per week. Thus comes back to what everyone says "veriety is key" Every living thing needs selenium.


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## Yvonne G (Apr 16, 2016)

Wild tortoises eat all sorts of foods that we would consider bad for them. As an example, one of the staples in a desert tortoise diet is spurge. We are all cautioned to not feed spurge, yet wild desert tortoises eat it whenever they find it. A staple in the Manouria tortoise diet is Colocasia/alocasia, which is another plant high in oxalates. I'm sure RF and YF tortoises find all kinds of fungi in their native lands.

If the only food a tortoise is offered is one that is bad for them, then, yes, he's going to get sick and die. But if that bad food is only a part of a nice variety of other foods, it's not going to be a problem for the tortoise.


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## raven44 (Apr 16, 2016)

10 percent ish of a humans diet man....

That's so irrelevant to a tort. It's not ten percent of anything as far as a tort is concerned and I think that ten percent figure may be bs. Not sure atm cause that books lent out

Sure mushrooms would grow. But how many would they find that r so high in selenium? ???

Hmmmm

U wanna find out how many micrograms or milligrams of selenium are in a given amount of button mushrooms.

Then find out how man milligrams selenium a tort needs

Just trying to help u out take it or leave it man

All I'm saying is I wouldn't feed agaricus bisporus always. Only occasionally. I would feed oysters or maybe even shiitake instead more commonly. Which are available at winco always fyi

Actually I've found tort talks online stating the same thing

Thing is, few fungi if any are so high in selenium as the commercial buttons are....

It's an isolated pheno. Not all phenos of agaricus bisporus are so high in selenium the wild I might guess. Might have something to do w the "isolate" or the substrate they grow them with not sure.

I'd play it safe and feed buttons once a week at most. Prob once a month personally. I'll have to form a tort feed schedule in time... this is my gf tort I'm very busy as it is so it will take a bit

Think on that


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## Anyfoot (Apr 16, 2016)

raven44 said:


> 10 percent ish of a humans diet man....
> 
> That's so irrelevant
> 
> ...


I know you are and dito, but if it was a problem I would already be seeing bad effects, I'm not. The figures were errelivent, was trying to explain the theory of veriety and how everything gets diluted with a good mixed diet. 

Same with fruit, we don't feed our torts only fruit for days on end. But I'm sure if a tort finds an abundance of fallen fruit in the wild it would gorge for a few days until its gone.


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## Anyfoot (Apr 16, 2016)

raven44 said:


> 10 percent ish of a humans diet man....
> 
> That's so irrelevant to a tort. It's not ten percent of anything as far as a tort is concerned and I think that ten percent figure may be bs. Not sure atm cause that books lent out
> 
> ...


@raven44 
I'm struggling to find what a torts selenium requirement are. (Searched high and low). 
Can you find this out? 

Humans varies depending on where you live in the world apparently. Huh. 
UK is 75mcg/day for a man. I've got an average size button mushroom (16g ish) at having anything between 1.6mcg to 4.4mcg of selenium. So one mushroom gives 1 UK male anything between 2.1% and 5.9% of the UK RDA. 

I look forward to you showing us how to calculate it all out correctly. Cause I'm just relying on searching the net for info.(which can be unreliable)


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## raven44 (Apr 16, 2016)

I was hoping someone here could help w torts selenium requirements

I know mushroom, and a lil genetics

I dunno biology well.. it might be better to ask urself what the selenium requirements are in most organisms possibly?

I will def be looking into this in time. My gf is an A student in college. A in chem

She'll figure out a lot in time also, she just moves kinda like a tort slow and steady lol  she knows biology more than I do and anatomy


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## SarahChelonoidis (Apr 16, 2016)

I doubt anyone can answer this question. There is very limited research out there on the physiological and dietary requirements of tortoises or on tortoise specific toxicity. There is limited funding available for these kinds of studies. I would suspect selenium needs are specific to individual species, so even if numbers had been determined for one tortoise species they wouldn't necessarily be relevant to another.

As keepers, it is our duty to provide the best diet that we can. Outside of those living near the native range of the species they keep, few have the ability to mimic natural diets so we make due with what we have. There is evidence from stool samples that several forest and forest adjacent species eat many kinds of mushrooms, so we offer mushrooms in captivity. Ideally, we should offer a wide variety, because we don't know how close the food we are offering is to the native alternative. We don't know why they eat mushrooms (what nutritional value they are seeking) so it's hard to say what species and varieties of mushrooms are better. Are they eating mushrooms for vitamin D? Minerals? Something else? We don't know. So we offer a variety and hope if they eat a little of everything they get what they need without getting too much of something harmful.

This is the same with offering animal protein. We know that there is observational and fecal evidence of red footed, yellowed footed, elongated, etc. eating animal carcasses that they come upon but we don't know what specifically they get from this. Is it just for the calories or range in amino acids or something else? Bacteria to aid in digestion? Some vitamin they don't synthesis themselves? Because we honestly can't answer most of these questions, keepers of tortoises that eat these complicated diets should just seek to offer diversity choices. 

Some of the things we offer may be unnecessary, some may even be harmful if they ate them in excess, but a little bit of everything is what they get in the wild, and we don't have a better system in captivity. As far as I know, there have been no harmful effects documented from captive tortoises eating commercial mushrooms.


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## mike taylor (Apr 16, 2016)

Why worry and feed a varied diet ?


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## raven44 (Apr 16, 2016)

Honestly, I agree too little is most likely known to answer these qs.

That's often the answer to the qs I ask

I'm not worrying, I like to get down to the bottom of things and learn. Not just do things half ***..

I imagined that torts didn't eat carcasses. Interesting..this is something I'd have had to figure out in my own research.. that's the only way a tort would eat a bird in the wild. It'd HAVE to be a carcass. Didn't know they were scavengers??

The point i made, was, selenium levels MAY be dangerously high in commercial agaricus. So ya, variety, exactly my point. Also NON ORGANIC button mushroom are trash imo. Toxic chemicals r sprayed on them

Also, the fact that there r no reports of tort selenium toxicity, does not mean it may be a concern. It means it may have been ignored and not noticed. I'm the type of guy who would notice


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## SarahChelonoidis (Apr 16, 2016)

The Vinkes and Vetters have written a well researched book on 'South American Tortoises' that contains a good summary of the literature on Chelonoidis spp. diet and habitat, in the wild and captivity. There are also a few memorable anecdotes about tortoises feasting on dead capybaras and downed human plane crash victims. They are opportunistic scavengers.


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## ZEROPILOT (Apr 16, 2016)

On a side note. My herd has once eaten a large rat that fell into their pen caught in a trap. And I remember at least one story of tortoises stalking and trapping birds and killing and eating them.
Redfoot are omnivores and opportunists and will eat and can eat a huge variety of things.


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## Madkins007 (Apr 17, 2016)

Many tortoises, especially the tropical species, are documented eating a wide variety of fungi, and some from Indochina seem to need mushrooms in their diet to thrive. Tortoise digestion can handle chitin to some extent and they seem able to extract nutrients from the plant.

I eat raw mushrooms all the time, but for flavor rather than nutritional value. I also do not depend on mushrooms for my tortoises vitamin D content- I'm not sure that is a good idea when using grocery store mushrooms.

FYI, the Merck veterinary manual online recommends 0.3ppm of selenium, but that is a dry matter basis and does not help us with what is too much and in what time period. It also does not help tell us what happens to excess selenium in reptiles- stored or excreted?


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## raven44 (Apr 17, 2016)

Eating raw Mushrooms is silly if u know mushrooms

Just saying

It's like following someone who jumps off a bridge. U gonna do it too just cause they did or do?? No.

When someone states something factual to enlighten people. It's very irritating when someone else comes and attempt to discredit the facts presented here. Also very rude. U can't cloud up the msg here for other readers.

Btw, mushrooms taste way, WAY better when sautéed in oil w salt and pepper and maybe garlic. Try it out

Eating raw Mushrooms is silly.

Eating mushrooms w out regards for the amazing nutritional value of them of them I'd naive. Sry to say

Mushrooms are the biggest under ratted nutrional food source there is.

70 percent of pharmaceuticals come from fungi. W out fungi the pharmaceutical companies wouldn't exist basically

I'm not sure the point ur making. Other than points thay have been made already. And providing inapplicable info

Sry to be a rude, but I take things serious


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## SarahChelonoidis (Apr 17, 2016)

@raven44 You are new here so you are likely not familiar with @Madkins007, but he is a very well respected red footed tortoise expert and the creator of the Tortoise Library (http://www.tortoiselibrary.com). There are not many out there with his scope of knowledge or familiarity with the red foot literature, so I would not dismiss his additions so readily. If you want people who take red footed tortoises (and science) seriously, Madkins is one of your people.

(and enjoying the flavour of raw mushrooms is entirely subjective - it doesn't mean someone doesn't appreciate the nutritional benefits of cooked mushrooms it just means that sometimes they enjoy the flavour of raw mushrooms, as it is distinct from cooked)


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## Yvonne G (Apr 17, 2016)

raven44 said:


> Eating raw Mushrooms is silly if u know mushrooms
> 
> Just saying
> 
> ...



No one was being rude. You are each expressing your own opinions, which is perfectly acceptable.


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## ZEROPILOT (Apr 17, 2016)

How much of what we eat do we eat for nutrition alone?


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## Yvonne G (Apr 17, 2016)

ZEROPILOT said:


> How much of what we eat do we eat for nutrition alone?



At 77 years of age, I eat for the pure enjoyment of eating. If it happens to be a healthy food, more power to me!!


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## ZEROPILOT (Apr 17, 2016)

Yvonne G said:


> At 77 years of age, I eat for the pure enjoyment of eating. If it happens to be a healthy food, more power to me!!


Spoken like an American.


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## Anyfoot (Apr 17, 2016)

ZEROPILOT said:


> How much of what we eat do we eat for mere nutrition?


I eat McDonalds bic mac and fries with chicken nuggets with tomato ketchup and large coke purely for the healthy gherkin that's in there somewhere.


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## raven44 (Apr 18, 2016)

Uggghhhhh

Ok.

How's this. Eating raw Mushrooms is like standing in a field of daisies. Blind to the visual beauty of the flowers and completely ignoring the overwhelming smell as if u had stuffed dripping sinuses.

Yeah, I noticed he was a well known member. Doesn't change anything for me. No body's knowledge is any greater than what u can obtain. And w simple things said u can read someone easily.

Sorry to say, I'm 26 and will prob learn more about torts than most here.

Prob won't be spending much time here lol

Have fun w ur bug macs btw lmao. Ignorance at it finest

We need to eat food for its nutritional benefits, and not for pleasure. We have all gone astray. Ur lost. Get back to ur roots people.

Peace.


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## raven44 (Apr 18, 2016)

Portabellos should be fed once monthly according to other keepers.

I'm rolling w them.

Makes too much sense to me and I can make sense out of most things I put my mind to


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## ZEROPILOT (Apr 18, 2016)

Raven, you seems to not get it. Here we all share and learn. And we try to have fun doing so.
Take nothing that has been said personally.


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## Pearly (Apr 18, 2016)

Great discussion! Lots of cool facts... but emotions beginning to fly little high for my taste. Raven, you are obviously very young and good for you for sticking by your guns with your mushroom theories. The only thing I'd throw in here, is we are all friends here. The general spirit is to help each other learn and be a better tort parent. We all enjoy healthy debate, but let's all try to voice our opinions with a spirit of kindness to our fellow tortkeepers. We all want this same thing: to keep happy and healthy torts


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## Yvonne G (Apr 18, 2016)

raven44 said:


> Uggghhhhh
> 
> Ok.
> 
> ...



To my way of thinking, this post was quite a bit more rude than Madkins' was.


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## Madkins007 (Apr 19, 2016)

1. Information on tortoise/chelonian nutrition and needs. Actually, there is a LOT of of good info out there, especially from the European keepers, zoos, animal nutritionists, field researchers, and so on. Granted, it takes digging. I've spent hours with Google Scholar, our local university's collection, reptile medicine books and sites, and lots more. The REAL problem is trying to figure out how to sort and synthesize it to work for the average home keeper. 

2. Raw vs. cooked mushrooms. I freely admit that properly cooked shrooms are tastier and healthier than raw, and thought I stated that earlier. Supper yesterday for me was a mushroom ragout and I love mushroom chili, etc. That was not what I was referring to. While cooked shrooms are wonderful, raw are great for texture and flavor in things like salads for me. Concerns about digestability, nutrition, and toxins would seem to be a bit overblown considering how widespread the practice of eating raw mushrooms is.

As a side note- when I Google 'eating raw mushrooms', all of the sites warning against it are, shall I say, sites I am unlikely to go to for serious food advice. That does not mean they are wrong, but it is curious to me that more nutrition-oriented mainstream sites do not seem to be concerned about this. The sample of sites I looked at also did not cite any clinical studies. The studies they do cite extrapolate the issues from older studies on rats, and those studies do not seem to indicate any risk to humans at normal doses.

If you have some good clinical info on the idea that mushrooms in normal amounts are harmful to humans, I would love to see it. Comments like '70 percent of pharmaceuticals come from fungi" would seem exaggerated. The site http://bugs.bio.usyd.edu.au/learnin..._Fungi/industrialProduction/fungalDrugs.shtml quotes " At the beginning of the 21st century, Fungi were involved in the industrial processing of more than 10 of the 20 most profitable products used in human medicine." No doubt fungi are important, but let's not overstate things.

3. Mushrooms for torts. Just because humans cannot digest chitin or handle a wide range of anti-nutrients does not mean tortoises and other animals have the same limitations. Considering the available foods in the tropics, it makes sense that tortoises among other animals would develop this ability. Besides, again, there are MANY field studies observing them eating fungi and finding fungi in their droppings. The Tortoise Library has a list of some of the books I've looked at. For this info, try Moscovitz and Vinke and Vetter for red-footed field notes. I have other studies in my library for African and Indochinese species as well.


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## Madkins007 (Apr 19, 2016)

Now, Raven, if you want to get personal...

"Yeah, I noticed he was a well known member. Doesn't change anything for me. No body's knowledge is any greater than what u can obtain. And w simple things said u can read someone easily."

I'm not really sure what you are saying here. You SEEM to be saying that all statements are equal, but I would appreciate clarification.

"Sorry to say, I'm 26 and will prob learn more about torts than most here."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, wait... you're serious? There are people here who have kept and bred tortoises for longer than you have been alive. Some for more than twice your age. We have people here who are true scientists, herpetologists, and so on. To claim that you are already smarter than them is a claim almost adult has heard from kids, and most adults remember saying with regret. 

Or, to put it another way, if you are so much smarter than the rest of is, why are you not contributing more useful stuff? You got a new 10 year-old tort a few days ago, and I don't see lots of evidence in your posts that indicate a broad depth of knowledge.

I'm not saying that to discourage you. It does not take long in this or other forums to see that there are a LOT of questions, and a LOT of different ways to do things. Places like this are great places to learn and grow. I know I learned a lot from these people.

"Prob won't be spending much time here lol" 

That would be sad. I think you'll find that this is a very fun and supportive place, albeit with a few a**holes. Even if you already know it all, why not visit and share?

"Have fun w ur bug macs btw lmao. Ignorance at it finest"

OK, this was over the top. Invertebrates make up most of the protein eating in the wild based on both observation and fecal studies. They are also full of nutrients, easy to catch, and live on the forest floor with the tortoises. Almost every nutritionist on Earth thinks people should eat more invertebrates. There is a lot of information that suggests that hatchling forest torts may eat a LOT more invertebrates than we ever thought- but these little guys are hard to study in the wild.

"We need to eat food for its nutritional benefits, and not for pleasure. We have all gone astray. Ur lost. Get back to ur roots people."

Ummm... that directly violates the comment you made just before it. If we selected food items for nutritional value, we would eat a LOT of bugs and give up most of the meats we eat now. We would select foods to cultivate based solely on nutrients and we do not. Commercial (and commercial organic) farms select foods based on market, ease of growing and processing, durability for shipping, and so on. There are millions of highly nutritious foods in the world and only a few dozen we use in our daily lives. 

I DO hope you hang around and engage with this community. As for me, I've pretty much retired from here so you won't see me too often.


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## MPRC (Apr 19, 2016)

I don't stress over my torts diet all that much. Left to their own devices they love poop, too much fruit and dead things *like the snake I had to take away yesterday* So I assume that if I provide them a varied tasty diet and try to keep the gross stuff out of it I'm doing alright. 

Also, for what it's worth, I love mushrooms and eat them cooked or raw. I feel that they offer me a variety of tastes and textures that way.


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## omarnegron (Apr 19, 2016)

Last week I was mixing mushrooms with lettuce, zucchini, weeds and Mazuri. For my surprise, my two redfoots prefer the mushrooms over everything else.


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## Pearly (Apr 19, 2016)

I love mushrooms and back in Poland used to eat a lot more of them at least every Fall, when they were plentiful in our beautiful primeval forests. Mushroom picking was a favorite family pastime when we all made sure to bring along at least one family elder who knew their mushrooms as some of them had a potential of making people very sick. We'd bring our wicker baskets full of gorgeous mushrooms and then the whole family and friends would sit around big kitchen table late into the night cleaning them and preparing for either drying or canning. Dry mushrooms are necessary element of some best Polish gourmet dishes and the canned ones (marinaded) would be served at all parties and gatherings as a tasty snack. I had never eaten raw mushroom till my first meal with salad bar in the US and to me this was quite a revolutionary discovery. In Texas I'd eat a lot more mushrooms but there are only so much white and cremini/portabella mushroom dishes that I know how to cook and my favorite (wild) mushrooms are frankly way too expensive. 65$ per pound... so I just buy one little expensive mushroom and feed it to my baby torts now and then. Great topic, @Madkins007, thank you for the great info. I always enjoy reading your posts. Tortoise Library was my "bible" during my first few months with our baby torts. And Raven, keep your mind open to other people's voices, you might learn some new stuff, you never know. And most of all, lets be kind to each other. We are all here to learn, exchange ideas, experiences and make friends. This is a great forum. I am just the "tort grandma", my 11 yr old daughter owns the babies, but I'm the one spending time on this forum daily because I love the learning experience and I love the people who contribute here. Enjoy your tortoise, learn, share, make friends and have fun. That's what this is all about


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## Yvonne G (Apr 19, 2016)

Mark: I think the OP was referring to "Big Macs" (McDonald's hamburger) and just misspelled it as "bug".


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## ZEROPILOT (Apr 20, 2016)

Yvonne G said:


> Mark: I think the OP was referring to "Big Macs" (McDonald's hamburger) and just misspelled it as "bug".


You mean there are no bugs in Big Macs?


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## MPRC (Apr 20, 2016)

ZEROPILOT said:


> You mean there are no bugs in Big Macs?



I found a fly in one once when I was young. They gave me a card for 10 free sandwiches because I didn't make a scene.


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## Madkins007 (Apr 25, 2016)

Yvonne G said:


> Mark: I think the OP was referring to "Big Macs" (McDonald's hamburger) and just misspelled it as "bug".


LOL I wrongly assumed I had missed a thread about feeding bugs. That's what I get when I only stop by once in a while lately.


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