A few Questions

JuliaB

New Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2019
Messages
9
Location (City and/or State)
DeLand, Florida
I have a follow-up question about diet and humidity.

I have a pardalis pardalis coming soon and on other forums you've mentioned briefly that their feeding can be different from pardalis babcocki in that babcocki can have more leafy greens? The links you have posted have been so helpful in general, but I am wondering for pardalis pardalis what percentage of the diet should be grass/hay? At this point I've stocked up on some timothy and orchard hay to alternate with and have wheat grass seeds and cat grass growing, along with Mazuri as a weekly treat. But I'm unsure if ~25% leafy greens for diet composition is acceptable for my species? How should I adjust my future meal plans?

For its first enclosure, I already have an "almost" closed container system with a covered 90 gallon tank (5x2x2') (not near windows, lights inside tank, 4inch strip around bottom visually) for the first year or two of life for my kid before building an outdoor enclosure or upgrading her to a 4x8' indoor if needed sooner. I have purchased coco coir and cypress mulch to experiment with substrate preference. Is there a best way to layer substrates or can I use them in various amounts in different parts of the enclosure for variety? I chose these based on recommendations on the forum and your guides and because they apparently hold humidity well. I've read about adding warm water to substrate weekly to maintain humidity and also read about people misting or having humidifiers in their enclosures. I purchased a hygrometer but waiting on it to arrive soon. Should I order a humidifier before my tort comes? Any advice about your preferred ways to add humidity to an enclosure? Also, with 80% humidity are there steps I can take to prevent mold etc?

Thank you!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Tom

The Dog Trainer
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
63,264
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
I have a follow-up question about diet and humidity.

I have a pardalis pardalis coming soon and on other forums you've mentioned briefly that their feeding can be different from pardalis babcocki in that babcocki can have more leafy greens? The links you have posted have been so helpful in general, but I am wondering for pardalis pardalis what percentage of the diet should be grass/hay? At this point I've stocked up on some timothy and orchard hay to alternate with and have wheat grass seeds and cat grass growing, along with Mazuri as a weekly treat. But I'm unsure if ~25% leafy greens for diet composition is acceptable for my species? How should I adjust my future meal plans?

For its first enclosure, I already have an "almost" closed container system with a covered 90 gallon tank (5x2x2') (not near windows, lights inside tank, 4inch strip around bottom visually) for the first year or two of life for my kid before building an outdoor enclosure or upgrading her to a 4x8' indoor if needed sooner. I have purchased coco coir and cypress mulch to experiment with substrate preference. Is there a best way to layer substrates or can I use them in various amounts in different parts of the enclosure for variety? I chose these based on recommendations on the forum and your guides and because they apparently hold humidity well. I've read about adding warm water to substrate weekly to maintain humidity and also read about people misting or having humidifiers in their enclosures. I purchased a hygrometer but waiting on it to arrive soon. Should I order a humidifier before my tort comes? Any advice about your preferred ways to add humidity to an enclosure? Also, with 80% humidity are there steps I can take to prevent mold etc?

Thank you!
That is a whole lotta follow up questions! All good ones too!
  • About the diet.. First and foremost: Relax. There is a WIDE margin of error here, and this species can eat just about anything and do well. Don't worry about percentages. Just use lots of variety and try to stick to weeds, leaves, flowers and succulents of the right types. If you must use grocery store greens, favor endive and escarole heavily, and add in dandelion greens(Chicory), arugula, cilantro and many others for variety.
  • Gpp eat a lot more grass. They eat it like a sulcata does. I feed my sulcatas and Gpp identically. However, they are very adaptable. They'll survive just fine with no grass if you feed them well otherwise.
  • Hay is for adults. Don't bother with it for babies. Use freshly sprouted grass for babies. Sprout your own, or buy the little plots of wheat grass at the pet stores or supermarket. When they are babies, I feed a lot of leafy greens with a little grass mixed in. As they grow, I add in more grass, until I eventually start them on grass hay when they get to about 8 or 10". My adults hay grass hay available all day every day, and I supplement with opuntia pads and all sorts of other weeds and leaves. Skip the Timothy. Its too stemmy. Use orchard grass hay or Bermuda, or both. Hay makes feeding large adults very easy.
  • I like to do Mazuri twice a week. Once a week is fine though, and three times a week won't hurt anything. You really don't "need" it at all, but I like it because it ensures they are getting good balanced nutrition.
  • 5x2' tank sounds good, but I doubt it will last 2 years unless your baby was started incorrectly. More on that later.
  • I don't like mixing substrate and see no purpose for it, but mixing multiple safe substrates won't hurt anything. I just think its pointless.
  • Coco coir is too messy. Its safe, but very messy. Fine grade orchid bark works best. Cypress is fine too.
  • How much water to add to the substrate and how often varies tremendously. It doesn't matter if its warm or not.
  • Misting the substrate does nothing. Misting the tortoises carapace is good and helps reduce pyramiding, but use distilled or collected rainwater to avoid hard water stains on the shell.
  • I don't like to use humidifiers. If your ambient humidity is too low, it means you have too much ventilation. Close it off better.
  • Mold isn't an issue with the correct substrate.

Here is the big potential red flag that I see: There shouldn't be any of these available for sale right now. They are very seasonal. They hatch at the end of summer. Late September or into October sometimes. Adults are seldom offered for sale, so I assume you are talking about a baby. Most people do not start babies correctly. Being outside all day is bad for them, and they need to be soaked daily. If your baby is close to a year old (last summer's babies), then it should be somewhere around 4-6" long and in the neighborhood of 500-800 grams. If its a 70 gram 10 month old baby, something has been terribly wrong. Too dry and wrong conditions. I mention this because it is heartbreaking to see an enthusiastic new tortoise keeper all excited about a new baby, only to have tragedy strike within weeks of purchase. If someone has artificially hatched a baby out of season and started it correctly, or if you have found an older, larger one, then disregard this whole paragraph.
 

JuliaB

New Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2019
Messages
9
Location (City and/or State)
DeLand, Florida
That is a whole lotta follow up questions! All good ones too!
  • About the diet.. First and foremost: Relax. There is a WIDE margin of error here, and this species can eat just about anything and do well. Don't worry about percentages. Just use lots of variety and try to stick to weeds, leaves, flowers and succulents of the right types. If you must use grocery store greens, favor endive and escarole heavily, and add in dandelion greens(Chicory), arugula, cilantro and many others for variety.
  • Gpp eat a lot more grass. They eat it like a sulcata does. I feed my sulcatas and Gpp identically. However, they are very adaptable. They'll survive just fine with no grass if you feed them well otherwise.
  • Hay is for adults. Don't bother with it for babies. Use freshly sprouted grass for babies. Sprout your own, or buy the little plots of wheat grass at the pet stores or supermarket. When they are babies, I feed a lot of leafy greens with a little grass mixed in. As they grow, I add in more grass, until I eventually start them on grass hay when they get to about 8 or 10". My adults hay grass hay available all day every day, and I supplement with opuntia pads and all sorts of other weeds and leaves. Skip the Timothy. Its too stemmy. Use orchard grass hay or Bermuda, or both. Hay makes feeding large adults very easy.
  • I like to do Mazuri twice a week. Once a week is fine though, and three times a week won't hurt anything. You really don't "need" it at all, but I like it because it ensures they are getting good balanced nutrition.
  • 5x2' tank sounds good, but I doubt it will last 2 years unless your baby was started incorrectly. More on that later.
  • I don't like mixing substrate and see no purpose for it, but mixing multiple safe substrates won't hurt anything. I just think its pointless.
  • Coco coir is too messy. Its safe, but very messy. Fine grade orchid bark works best. Cypress is fine too.
  • How much water to add to the substrate and how often varies tremendously. It doesn't matter if its warm or not.
  • Misting the substrate does nothing. Misting the tortoises carapace is good and helps reduce pyramiding, but use distilled or collected rainwater to avoid hard water stains on the shell.
  • I don't like to use humidifiers. If your ambient humidity is too low, it means you have too much ventilation. Close it off better.
  • Mold isn't an issue with the correct substrate.

Here is the big potential red flag that I see: There shouldn't be any of these available for sale right now. They are very seasonal. They hatch at the end of summer. Late September or into October sometimes. Adults are seldom offered for sale, so I assume you are talking about a baby. Most people do not start babies correctly. Being outside all day is bad for them, and they need to be soaked daily. If your baby is close to a year old (last summer's babies), then it should be somewhere around 4-6" long and in the neighborhood of 500-800 grams. If its a 70 gram 10 month old baby, something has been terribly wrong. Too dry and wrong conditions. I mention this because it is heartbreaking to see an enthusiastic new tortoise keeper all excited about a new baby, only to have tragedy strike within weeks of purchase. If someone has artificially hatched a baby out of season and started it correctly, or if you have found an older, larger one, then disregard this whole paragraph.

Thank you so much for this information! I’m feeling much less stressed and a little more prepared lol. Also I feel good about where my tort is being acquired from but I will message you privately about that.
 
Top