I think i saved my tortoise's life yesterday. It almost suffocated.

I think I saved my tortoise's life yesterday.
It was her fasting day, and she stumbled upon a stray piece of hard droppings. She snapped at it and pulled her head back; because her jaws were still open, her head got wedged between her upper and lower shell. Driven by her biting reflex, she wouldn't let go; she wheezed and thrashed wildly, her eyes squeezed shut.
I kept my cool and tried to pry the piece out using a ballpoint pen, but her bite was too strong. Then I reached for the small pliers on my Swiss Army knife.
She urinated, then retracted her head—along with the piece of droppings—so that I could no longer get a grip on it.
I had read that snakes will let go if you blow firmly in their face, so I gave that a try. No luck. My last resort was the tap. It wasn't until I ran warm water over her face that I was able to break the reflex and get her to let go.
Afterward, I gave her a bath; by then, she had already forgiven me and was wandering around her terrarium quite normally again, even wanting to be petted.
She is 3 years old in July and grew to more than 400 grams (Hermann). I was surprised how hard she can bite if she wants to.
So, take note: check your terrarium regularly for old droppings or hard pellets—they are very easy to overlook.

Why are you giving fasting days? They should be able to eat every day like they would in the wild. The only time they wouldn't eat in the wild is if they couldn't find food, but every day they would be looking.
As you witnesses, he was hungry and looking for food. Glad he's okay, now offer food daily

A fasting day simulates the natural variability of their environment, where food might be abundant one day and scarce the next.
Also a fasting day allows the entire gastrointestinal tract to process existing food fully without the addition of new material. This helps prevent "backup" or impaction, ensuring that the gut remains healthy and moving efficiently.
I also don't think much of having several fasting days per week.
If you have a different opinion, that is perfectly fine.

I'm 70 years old, and I've had my tortoises for over 20years I have over 100 Tortoises I love each of my tortoises like they are my children but fasting isn't like in the wild cause in the wild they may eat 25 or 30 times a day. OH, by the way I don't make my children fast either!!!!!!!!!!!

Andre1981 said:

So, take note: check your terrarium regularly for old droppings or hard pellets—they are very easy to overlook.

Click to expand...

This is very true and important. Also not only can something like this be a chocking hazard but it could also form a blockage if swallowed or mold in the enclosure.

I agree with wellington on fasting tough.

Andre1981 said:

A fasting day simulates the natural variability of their environment, where food might be abundant one day and scarce the next.
Also a fasting day allows the entire gastrointestinal tract to process existing food fully without the addition of new material. This helps prevent "backup" or impaction, ensuring that the gut remains healthy and moving efficiently.
I also don't think much of having several fasting days per week.
If you have a different opinion, that is perfectly fine.

Click to expand...

This practice is an unfortunate relic of the past. It's not necessary or beneficial. We know better now. It won't kill your tortoise, but it's not "good" for your tortoise either. Look what it led to.

Tortoises are grazing animals. Like horses or deer, they do best with ample amounts of the correct foods daily. The best way to prevent back up is with regular amounts of the right high fiber foods and ample hydration. Soaks.

Andre1981 said:

A fasting day simulates the natural variability of their environment, where food might be abundant one day and scarce the next.
Also a fasting day allows the entire gastrointestinal tract to process existing food fully without the addition of new material. This helps prevent "backup" or impaction, ensuring that the gut remains healthy and moving efficiently.
I also don't think much of having several fasting days per week.
If you have a different opinion, that is perfectly fine.

Click to expand...

@Andre1981 , do you happen to see any studies on the matter? "Fastening" is a popular idea in UK/European tortoise keeping, however, I haven't seen any research proving its benefits, only "personal experience"... (I'm not discarding such sources, though).

References to their "wild habitat", I guess, don't really count - they surely can survive a few days without food or feed for weeks on dried out grasses, yet it would be a stretch to call such conditions optimal.

Andre1981 said:

A fasting day simulates the natural variability of their environment, where food might be abundant one day and scarce the next.
Also a fasting day allows the entire gastrointestinal tract to process existing food fully without the addition of new material. This helps prevent "backup" or impaction, ensuring that the gut remains healthy and moving efficiently.
I also don't think much of having several fasting days per week.
If you have a different opinion, that is perfectly fine.

Click to expand...

I have my perfectly fine different opinion here.
We should not base our care of captive animals totally upon what we believe they may experience in "the wild".
Would we starve them for a week or more because they might survive starvation for extended periods in the wild?
Should we then drop them in deep water and leave them for five minutes or more because they may get drowned in a flood in the wild?
How about dropping them onto concrete from three feet because they might fall off a cliff onto rocks on the wild? Etc., etc.
Of course not, because we have learned how to properly care for them to give them the best possible chance for a long and healthy life with us as their keepers!
Yes, and we are still learning, all the time.

With all due respect, but comparing a scientifically backed, species-appropriate fasting day to physical trauma like throwing an animal off a cliff or drowning it is a classic textbook example of a straw man argument. It is not only highly manipulative, but biologically completely inaccurate.

First of all, my original post was meant to be a warning about the hidden dangers of leaving old, decomposing pellets or spoiled food inside the enclosure—which can cause severe issues when an agile, opportunistic tortoise accidentally bites into them. It is a massive distortion of my intent to turn a helpful safety warning into a hostile debate about a single fasting day.

Furthermore, demanding a specific, isolated 'fasting-day study' to justify this practice completely misses how reptile physiology works. We do not need a hyper-specific laboratory study for every single weekday because we are working with the fundamental, universally accepted laws of veterinary science:

Digestive Transit Time: It is a well-documented scientific fact that a tortoise's digestive tract takes anywhere from 10 to over 21 days to process a single meal. A single day without fresh food is not 'starvation'—the stomach and intestines are still completely full and working at full capacity.

Ectothermic Metabolism: Unlike mammals, reptiles do not burn energy to maintain body temperature. Their basal metabolic rate is extremely low. Constant, 24/7 feeding forces their slow metabolism into an unnatural overdrive.

Captive Overfeeding: Every experienced reptile veterinarian will confirm that the number one cause of premature organ failure, fatty liver disease, and shell pyramiding in captivity is permanent overfeeding.

Eliminating natural metabolic breaks out of a humanized sense of 'pity' is counterproductive. We provide our animals with optimal conditions—like high-quality UVB lighting and a controlled environment—to eliminate the accidents of the wild (like predators or falls). But we must not coddle their digestive systems to death.

Comparing the metabolism of an ectothermic reptile to endothermic mammals like horses or deer is a fundamental biological error.
Horses and deer are warm-blooded. They burn around 80% of their energy just to maintain a constant body temperature of 37–38°C. Their digestive systems require constant, daily intake to prevent life-threatening colic because their internal 'motor' runs nonstop under high pressure.
A tortoise is a cold-blooded reptile. It does not burn food for body heat; it regulates its temperature via external sources (like high-quality UVB and heat lamps). Its basal metabolic rate is a mere fraction of a mammal's. Their digestive tracts are evolutionarily optimized to hold and ferment high-fiber food for 10 to over 21 days. Forcing an ectothermic organism into a 24/7 mammalian feeding rhythm under optimal captive conditions—where my tortoise already weighs a highly vital 400 grams at just 3 years old—is exactly what leads to metabolic pressure, fatty liver disease, and unnatural growth spurts.
Furthermore, saying 'look what it led to' is a highly unprofessional and manipulative distortion of what actually happened. Biting passionately into a newly discovered object or an old pellet in the enclosure is not a sign of 'starvation'—it is the natural, highly alert, and opportunistic curiosity of a healthy, vital tortoise.
My original post was a well-meaning safety warning to other keepers about the hidden dangers of old, overlooked items in an enclosure. Turning a constructive warning into a hostile, biologically flawed lecture about a single fasting day is unnecessary and missing the point entirely.

A healthy tortoise that is agile, possesses immense physical strength, and shows natural, alert feeding behavior is the exact opposite of starved. It is vital. We should base our care on evolutionary biology and veterinary medicine, not on human sentimentality.

Feel free to close this thread.

Hey, Andre 1981.
I didn't mean to be either manipulative or hostile, and I think it does no harm if a healthy tortoise is made to skip a feeding sometimes.
I know that reptiles can go much longer without food than mammals. I just don't see why we should force them to "fast" if they are getting the right food, conditions of care and space for exercise.
I totally agree with you about being careful to check the enclosure regularly for any choking hazards!
I'm not an expert on tortoises by any means and I am glad for the opportunity to keep learning here.

Thanks for clarifying. It's always good to exchange perspectives, and focus on the best care possible for the animals.

Andre1981 said:

First of all, my original post was meant to be a warning about the hidden dangers of leaving old, decomposing pellets or spoiled food inside the enclosure—which can cause severe issues when an agile, opportunistic tortoise accidentally bites into them. It is a massive distortion of my intent to turn a helpful safety warning into a hostile debate about a single fasting day.

Click to expand...

There is absolutely nothing hostile about this conversation. Its friendly tortoise talk intended to help you and anyone else reading.

Andre1981 said:

Furthermore, demanding a specific, isolated 'fasting-day study' to justify this practice completely misses how reptile physiology works. We do not need a hyper-specific laboratory study for every single weekday because we are working with the fundamental, universally accepted laws of veterinary science:

Click to expand...

I agree with the above paragraph. When someone disagrees with an assertion I am making based on decades of first had experience, they often default to asking for peer reviewed articles. These don't exist in most cases for most things involved captive tortoise husbandry.

Andre1981 said:

Digestive Transit Time: It is a well-documented scientific fact that a tortoise's digestive tract takes anywhere from 10 to over 21 days to process a single meal. A single day without fresh food is not 'starvation'—the stomach and intestines are still completely full and working at full capacity.

Click to expand...

I agree that is it not starvation, but I don't agree that the stomach remains full. Yes there is still material working through the intestinal tract, but the stomach will indeed be empty in most cases, certainly not completely full after 48 hours with no food.

Andre1981 said:

Ectothermic Metabolism: Unlike mammals, reptiles do not burn energy to maintain body temperature. Their basal metabolic rate is extremely low. Constant, 24/7 feeding forces their slow metabolism into an unnatural overdrive.

Click to expand...

The first part of this paragraph is true. The last sentence is not. There is also a distinct difference between a grazing herbivore that would in the wild eat daily unless the animal was brumating or aestivating, and a voracious predator like a monitor lizard with a bigger appetite and higher metabolic needs, and further different than a large python or boa that would only need to eat once or twice a month to maintain weight in some cases. The metabolism between my 15 foot 15 year old olive python is distinctly less than the metabolism of my 2 year old Texas Indigo snake that needs to eat about every 4 days.

This is where the debate about what a tortoise needs, can survive with, or what is optimal begins. Much of the old info explains what you have explained above. What WE are telling you is that our experience tells us otherwise. No one is debating whether a tortoise can survive skipping a feeding day now and then. That is not debatable. We know they can. What is being debated here is what is "best" or optimal. I've done it both ways extensively with multiple species, multiple animals, and over many years. Have you? I know what results will be had by using both methods. It is because of this that I make my assertions and recommendations. It is better for a grazing herbivorous reptile to eat daily.

Andre1981 said:

Captive Overfeeding: Every experienced reptile veterinarian will confirm that the number one cause of premature organ failure, fatty liver disease, and shell pyramiding in captivity is permanent overfeeding.

Click to expand...

Most vets have very little knowledge of tortoise husbandry. There is no semester on tortoise care in vet school. Vets learn about tortoise care from the same wrong sources that everybody else finds and learns from.

Having said that, I work closely with several reptile vets and I get to see the cases that come into their clinics. I also see my own reptiles. I have been free feeding all of my tortoise species of all sizes and ages for a decade and a half now. There is not one single case of organ failure, fatty liver disease, or any other such malady in any of mine, and I maintain 65 adults, and hatch hundreds of babies. Pyramiding is a whole other subject, and that is caused by growth in conditions that are too dry. It is not caused by food and any vet, or any person, saying otherwise is ignorant and wrong on this particular subject.

Andre1981 said:

Eliminating natural metabolic breaks out of a humanized sense of 'pity' is counterproductive. We provide our animals with optimal conditions—like high-quality UVB lighting and a controlled environment—to eliminate the accidents of the wild (like predators or falls). But we must not coddle their digestive systems to death.

Click to expand...

Natural breaks? Here is no wild tortoise that would willingly forego an opportunity to feed daily in the wild. There is nothing "natural" about skipping a day or multiple days. Feeding a tortoise daily is not coddling their digestive system, and certainly not coddling it to death. Daily nutrition is helpful, not harmful. Again, I've done it both ways since the 70s and I know what results each method will deliver. Daily feeding is better.

Andre1981 said:

Comparing the metabolism of an ectothermic reptile to endothermic mammals like horses or deer is a fundamental biological error.
Horses and deer are warm-blooded. They burn around 80% of their energy just to maintain a constant body temperature of 37–38°C. Their digestive systems require constant, daily intake to prevent life-threatening colic because their internal 'motor' runs nonstop under high pressure.
A tortoise is a cold-blooded reptile. It does not burn food for body heat; it regulates its temperature via external sources (like high-quality UVB and heat lamps). Its basal metabolic rate is a mere fraction of a mammal's. Their digestive tracts are evolutionarily optimized to hold and ferment high-fiber food for 10 to over 21 days. Forcing an ectothermic organism into a 24/7 mammalian feeding rhythm under optimal captive conditions—where my tortoise already weighs a highly vital 400 grams at just 3 years old—is exactly what leads to...

Click to expand...

No argument that mammals burn more calories maintaining heat. I agree, but there are still some similarities between mammalian herbivores and reptilian ones. For example: Our tortoise rely on locomotion to help keep things moving in the GI tract, much the same way a horse does. Are they exactly the same? Of course not. Are there comparable similarities? Absolutely. Daily feeding does NOT lead to metabolic pressure, fatty liver disease, and unnatural growth spurts. Quite the opposite in every case that I know of including my own animals.

Andre1981 said:

Furthermore, saying 'look what it led to' is a highly unprofessional and manipulative distortion of what actually happened. Biting passionately into a newly discovered object or an old pellet in the enclosure is not a sign of 'starvation'—it is the natural, highly alert, and opportunistic curiosity of a healthy, vital tortoise.

Click to expand...

I would say biting at old turds is hunger. Well fed tortoises don't usually do this.

Your safety warning was well received. I'm glad you made this post. I had hoped you'd learn something new about feeding your tortoises, but if your mind is made up on the subject and closed, that is okay. Your tortoise won't starve from you skipping a day. At this point, I hope other people reading will be able to learn from someone who did what you are advocating for almost two decades, and is now advocating for something different after a decade and a half of doing it a different way with 1000s of tortoises. As you pointed out, there aren't a lot of studies to draw from, so what to we have to draw from? The experience of long term keepers who have systematically tried things other ways and actually learned what works best and what doesn't.

most of the active time of testudo species is spent hiding, they are food themselves..i believe one of the papers below found the tortoises spent 70-80% of the active season hiding....... i doubt young tortoises are out in the open foraging even remotely close to an adult , and adults in the paper below were observed foraging less than 15 minutes a day, less than 65 days a year...... giant tortoises on remote islands with no predators may openly graze for hours, they don't even spend their entire day grazing...... their size and environment allow it, would require it, the caloric requirement between a .5-1 kg tortoise and a 150-200kg tortoise would be quite substantial...even they hide as evidenced by the "extinct tortoise" they just found....... small tortoise species need to hide more than they need to eat...... i doubt hatchling tortoise forage at all, they more than likely just stumble across food in the process of looking for hiding spots.....

Testudo graeca graeca feeding ecology in an arid and overgrazed zone in Morocco

E.H. El Moudena, T. Slimania, K. Ben Kaddoura, F. Lagardeb, ,A. Ouhammouc,

received in revised form 3 June 2005; accepted 11 June 2005Available online 20 July 2005

"This method is classically time-consuming and the observer can only sample a small number of individuals at a time (Gordon, 1995). This problem is particularly cumbersome to study Testudines species due to their sporadic activity and infrequent foraging behaviour (Lagarde et al., 2002, 2003)."

Foraging behaviour and diet of an ectothermic herbivore: Testudo horsfieldi

Fre´de´ric Lagarde, Xavier Bonnet, Johanna Corbin, Brian Henen, Ken Nagy, Baktjior Mardonov and Guy Naulleau
Accepted 8 July 2002Copyright © ECOGRAPHY 2003ISSN 0906-7590

"one may expect tortoisesto undertake important activities, notably foraging, every favourable day (no wind, no rain, 15°C and35°C, Ataev 1997, unpubl.). Surprisingly, steppe tortoises were active <2 h per favourable day, and foraged <0.25 h per active day. We roughly estimated that there is <65 favourable days per active season(Lagarde et al. 2002), and then that steppe tortoises spent <20 h foraging per year. "




Adult tortoises require exceptionally low metabolic energy, ranging from 10 to20 kJ ME (Metabolizable Energy) per kg
A cow's daily caloric maintenance requires roughly 450 to 630 kJ of Metabolizable Energy (ME) per kilogram

Thank you for sharing your extensive experience, Tom. I appreciate the insights, and I'm glad the safety warning itself was well received. Wishing everyone here all the best with their tortoises!

This is a great conversation. In the 90's, I was always told that too much food/to much protein led to pyramiding. All of my tortoises I had in the 90's were wild-caught. And the assumption was always that tortoises grew much much slower in the wild than in captivity (so no pyramiding) . I always assumed my wild caught 100 lb sulcata then was much older than my 140 lb 23 year old I have now.

I know the pyramiding thing was not true. But given what @mark1 mentions above about limited feeding in the wild, this would have to be true, no? Tortoises grow much slower in the wild, so a large specimen is probably quite old?

@Andre1981
Just to clarify:
I didn't *demand* research papers. I would just love to see a few, written in German. While I can read a text using an automated translation, I'm far less successful in searching articles in foreign language.

I mentioned, as well, that I do not disregard "personal experience" sources - like 'marginata.dk' or TFO.

So, I'm sorry if my post sounded offensive.

seanbaker1 said:

This is a great conversation. In the 90's, I was always told that too much food/to much protein led to pyramiding. All of my tortoises I had in the 90's were wild-caught. And the assumption was always that tortoises grew much much slower in the wild than in captivity (so no pyramiding) . I always assumed my wild caught 100 lb sulcata then was much older than my 140 lb 23 year old I have now.

I know the pyramiding thing was not true. But given what @mark1 mentions above about limited feeding in the wild, this would have to be true, no? Tortoises grow much slower in the wild, so a large specimen is probably quite old?

Click to expand...

The rate of growth in the wild, and in captivity too, is a direct result of the food available and the living conditions. In the wild, when times are good, they grow at a similar rate to their rate in captivity when properly cared for. BUT... times are not always good in the wild, and sometimes things are excessive in our captive environments as far as food and conditions, and these mitigating factors can throw things off and cause huge disparities in growth rates. My goal has always been to duplicate the good times in the wild, while limiting the bad things that would occur in the wild. To me this means things like: Huge enclosures for them to walk and exercise in with hills and plants, "natural" foods to consume, maintaining good hydration for them, and offering species appropriate optimal temperatures for them day and night year round.

mark1 said:

most of the active time of testudo species is spent hiding, they are food themselves..i believe one of the papers below found the tortoises spent 70-80% of the active season hiding....... i doubt young tortoises are out in the open foraging even remotely close to an adult , and adults in the paper below were observed foraging less than 15 minutes a day, less than 65 days a year...... giant tortoises on remote islands with no predators may openly graze for hours, they don't even spend their entire day grazing...... their size and environment allow it, would require it, the caloric requirement between a .5-1 kg tortoise and a 150-200kg tortoise would be quite substantial...even they hide as evidenced by the "extinct tortoise" they just found....... small tortoise species need to hide more than they need to eat...... i doubt hatchling tortoise forage at all, they more than likely just stumble across food in the process of looking for hiding spots.....

Testudo graeca graeca feeding ecology in an arid and overgrazed zone in Morocco

E.H. El Moudena, T. Slimania, K. Ben Kaddoura, F. Lagardeb, ,A. Ouhammouc,

received in revised form 3 June 2005; accepted 11 June 2005Available online 20 July 2005

"This method is classically time-consuming and the observer can only sample a small number of individuals at a time (Gordon, 1995). This problem is particularly cumbersome to study Testudines species due to their sporadic activity and infrequent foraging behaviour (Lagarde et al., 2002, 2003)."

Foraging behaviour and diet of an ectothermic herbivore: Testudo horsfieldi

Fre´de´ric Lagarde, Xavier Bonnet, Johanna Corbin, Brian Henen, Ken Nagy, Baktjior Mardonov and Guy Naulleau
Accepted 8 July 2002Copyright © ECOGRAPHY 2003ISSN 0906-7590

"one may expect tortoisesto undertake important activities, notably foraging, every favourable day (no wind, no rain, 15°C and35°C, Ataev 1997, unpubl.). Surprisingly, steppe tortoises were active <2 h per favourable day, and foraged <0.25 h per active day. We roughly estimated that there is <65 favourable days per active season(Lagarde et al. 2002), and then that steppe tortoises spent <20 h foraging per year. "




Adult tortoises require exceptionally low metabolic energy, ranging from 10 to20 kJ ME (Metabolizable Energy) per kg
A cow's daily caloric maintenance requires roughly 450 to 630 kJ of Metabolizable Energy (ME) per kilogram

Click to expand...

With Russian tortoises, when looking at the studies about their behavior in the wild, I often wonder whether the conditions really are optimal and thus something that we should replicate. I wonder if there are studies about Russian tortoise breeding in the wild in the light of species survival. Low activity like this can't be good for breeding. Maybe the conditions have been better in the past?

The_Four_Toed_Edward said:

I often wonder whether the conditions really are optimal

Click to expand...

my opinion

if it weren't optimal they wouldn't naturally be found there....... they'd be found near the equator.....

we were below freezing 2x this month, we were over 90F 2 x this month was 92F on the 19th, was 48F on the 20th...... if the climate here was not optimal for blanding's turtles they wouldn't be here, they'd be finding them in florida, where i live is probably the southern most part of their range... same with the wood turtles you won't find them where folks think it would be "optimal"