COnfused On Sulcata Diet

[michelle52988]

I recently got 2 sulcata tortoises...I am quite confused on proper diet. Ive been feeding them greens, which now im being told is no good! Can someone please put me together a list of foods that are good and bad for my sulcatas, Id love advice from someone with experience, as i am getting different opinions from different websites, thanks so much.

 

[Livingstone]

This will help.

http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/nutrientanalysis.htm

the plants in bold are the ones you want to feed to your tortoise, you are looking for high fiber and low protein, a good amount of vitamin A. Dandelion is optimal as an example.

 

[Yvonne G]

I recently got 2 sulcata tortoises...I am quite confused on proper diet. Ive been feeding them greens, which now im being told is no good!

Maybe the "greens" you are feeding is why you were told that's not a good diet. Depending upon where you live, its pretty hard to feed a sulcata the correct diet of weeds and grasses during the winter time. So, dark, leafy greens is the next best thing.

You can buy a product called "Salad-Style Hay" from either carolinapetsupply.com or from oxbow.com. So you pile up a nice pile of your dark, leafy greens (like what is shown in bold on the link in the above post) slightly wet them, then sprinkle a pinch of the hay over the top. The Salad-Style Hay is dried orchard grass cut up into bite-sized pieces. I have found that the stuff from CPS is fresher and cleaner. You might even put a bit of the hay in a bowl of water for a minute or two before sprinkling it on the greens.

 

[Livingstone]

I remember when I first got livingstone, he came with a bag of mazuri. Im standing there with this tiny lil tort in one hand, and looking at this super hard dried pellet of mazuri and thinking. "WTF how is this lill animal gonna eat this?" It was summer and I would just pick dandelion and clover so I put the mazuri in the kitchen cupboard. When the temp dropped I tried putting the pellet in boiling water... It expanded and made a kind of mazuri porridge, Livingstone ate that mazuri porridge and hasn't looked back since. Its his favourite food! Porridge face for the win.

 

[terracolson]

try this site for some grow your own food

www.sulcatafood.com

 

[Laura]

Mazuri soaks up water VERY fast. Put it in.. take it out.. and its soft anough to eat.. some hardness is good...

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Hi Michelle...In my opinion what you feed them depends on how old they are. Hatchlings just can't eat hay. Their mouths are too small and hay is too tough. Yearlings and older are more likely to eat hay products. I go to my local feed store with a couple of the biggest plastic bags I can find and they let me scrape up whatever loose hay I can. So I do get a mixture but I try to get mostly the locally grown grass hay. Last year I got enough to feed my bigger Sulcata all year. So anyway...for a yearling or older I buy Spring Mix and the produce people save big bags of lettuces for me. So I add butter lettuce and endive, escarole, red and green leaf and whatever other lettuces they've given me, to the Spring Mix. The I cut it all up into bite sized or bigger pieces and I sprinkle hay over the top. That's pretty much how I feed. I don't cut it up for my 70 pound Sulcata. And he does eat more hay then greens and as soon as the weather changes and the grass starts growing all my tortoises will be out on grass and I won't feed any of them. If your new torts are bigger and you have a lawn put them out on that. HTH
Here's a link to about the best care sheet there is on Sulcata...

http://africantortoise.com/

 

[Tom]

Hi Michelle. How old/big are your torts and what part of the country do you live in? This will help us give you some practical suggestions. The best diet is grasses and weeds with a little spineless cactus occasionally. There are many ways to go about "grasses and weeds" depending on where you live and how old your torts are.

 

[michelle52988]

I am in michigan, And i was told they are 4 and 5 year old...however they seem alittle amall to be that age, one is alittle bigger than the other..both are around 6 inches.