Extra refrigerator

[ryan57]

With the government shutdown, Stump had to get some other gigs to pay for his new

33 in. 20 cu. ft. Garage Ready Freezerless Refrigerator​

Should be delivered next week. How many of you that have sulcata or aldabras have to have a separate fridge? It’s getting to the point that we need to buy food every day to augment the grass and Stump and Figgy eat it all within 2 days. We’ve run out of room in OUR refrigerator.

Can’t risk some EBT fool grocery cart jacking us and my guys not having raddichio on hand so we’re having it delivered now. Sulcata tortoises are a financial commitment!

 

[Tim Carlisle]

With the government shutdown, Stump had to get some other gigs to pay for his new

33 in. 20 cu. ft. Garage Ready Freezerless Refrigerator​

Should be delivered next week. How many of you that have sulcata or aldabras have to have a separate fridge? It’s getting to the point that we need to buy food every day to augment the grass and Stump and Figgy eat it all within 2 days. We’ve run out of room in OUR refrigerator.

Can’t risk some EBT fool grocery cart jacking us and my guys not having raddichio on hand so we’re having it delivered now. Sulcata tortoises are a financial commitment!

I have one for mine in the basement. Only things in it right now are dry leaf toppers, cactus pads, and a batch of Repashy "muffins". It'll be fully stocked within a couple of weeks though.

 

[wellington]

Mines in the basement too. I buy bags of mazuri and store in freezer with one maybe two in the frig. I get my mazuri up in Michigan cheaper than any place else I can find so I buy multiple bags when I do order it
A have a chest freezer also in the basement for vacuum sealed bags of leaves and maybe a few bags of mazuri. This year and last though I air dried the bags of leaves.

 

[Yvonne G]

A few years ago a lovely person who had to give up their tortoise also gave me $500! I used the money to buy another freezerless fridge, which now lives in my kitchen. Now that I don't have any tortoises I'm thinking of getting a small chest type freezer, keeping the tortoise fridge and getting rid of my 30 year old fridge/freezer.

Mines in the basement too. I buy bags of mazuri and store in freezer with one maybe two in the frig. I get my mazuri up in Michigan cheaper than any place else I can find so I buy multiple bags when I do order it
A have a chest freezer also in the basement for vacuum sealed bags of leaves and maybe a few bags of mazuri. This year and last though I air dried the bags of leaves.

 

[ryan57]

Mines in the basement too. I buy bags of mazuri and store in freezer with one maybe two in the frig. I get my mazuri up in Michigan cheaper than any place else I can find so I buy multiple bags when I do order it
A have a chest freezer also in the basement for vacuum sealed bags of leaves and maybe a few bags of mazuri. This year and last though I air dried the bags of leaves.

I’ve never seen a thread here mentioning to new leapard. Sulcata or Aldabra owners that they’ll probably need an extra refrigerator at some point. Would be a good add.

 

[Len B]

I solved my refrigerator space problem by changing how and what I feed the sulcatas on a seasonal time line. And what I can grow for them. Starting in late September I can still feed leaves on the trees, fresh weeds and grasses from the yard, cactus pads and the cactus fruits are getting ripe. No need to refrigerate any of these items unless bad weather is predicted and then I will harvest a few days worth of grasses and weeds to get through the rain. I can cut the pads and fruit in advance but refrigerating isn't necessary. This process usually lasts well into November after the growing season has stopped, which usually happens around the end of October. When this happens with no fresh leaves and the cactus fruits have all been eaten that just leaves the cactus pads and honeysuckle leaves. I harvest them as I need them. After all other fresh food items are gone for the winter I switch to the dry rehydrated grass and weeds that I harvested last spring summer and mazuri. Which will be the main course along with cactus until spring arrives next year.Note,,I found on Amazon and I've used it for sometime now. Two 25 twenty five pound bags delivered in one box for less than $100. And every bag I've gotten is very fresh according to manufactured dates. I love the convenience.

 

[ryan57]

I solved my refrigerator space problem by changing how and what I feed the sulcatas on a seasonal time line. And what I can grow for them. Starting in late September I can still feed leaves on the trees, fresh weeds and grasses from the yard, cactus pads and the cactus fruits are getting ripe. No need to refrigerate any of these items unless bad weather is predicted and then I will harvest a few days worth of grasses and weeds to get through the rain. I can cut the pads and fruit in advance but refrigerating isn't necessary. This process usually lasts well into November after the growing season has stopped, which usually happens around the end of October. When this happens with no fresh leaves and the cactus fruits have all been eaten that just leaves the cactus pads and honeysuckle leaves. I harvest them as I need them. After all other fresh food items are gone for the winter I switch to the dry rehydrated grass and weeds that I harvested last spring summer and mazuri. Which will be the main course along with cactus until spring arrives next year.Note,,I found on Amazon and I've used it for sometime now. Two 25 twenty five pound bags delivered in one box for less than $100. And every bag I've gotten is very fresh according to manufactured dates. I love the convenience.

Len, that’s great advice especially about the cactus and going back to the mazuri. Do you vacuum the grass? How do you do that?

 

[Tom]

With the government shutdown, Stump had to get some other gigs to pay for his new

33 in. 20 cu. ft. Garage Ready Freezerless Refrigerator​

Should be delivered next week. How many of you that have sulcata or aldabras have to have a separate fridge? It’s getting to the point that we need to buy food every day to augment the grass and Stump and Figgy eat it all within 2 days. We’ve run out of room in OUR refrigerator.

Can’t risk some EBT fool grocery cart jacking us and my guys not having raddichio on hand so we’re having it delivered now. Sulcata tortoises are a financial commitment!

Time to get away from the grocery store and start scrounging or growing your own foods. Also time to be introducing grass hays, and mixing in soaked horse hay pellets.

I rotate through the following for my big ones: 1. I go collect a truck load of mulberry branches and drop them into the enclosures. After they eat the leaves, I mulch or chuck the branches. 2. I started dozens of cactus stands years ago, so I go around and collect several 5 gallon buckets of cactus pads. Older larger tortoises get older larger tougher pads, and younger smaller tortoises get the smaller more tender pads. 3. This option gets me through the rough times when summer items like mulberry and cactus pads are gone, but winter rains haven't come yet to bring the weeds. I get cases of endive, romaine, or escarole. I chop up a few heads, mix in soaked horse hay pellets, a little calcium powder, chopped and soaked grass hay, and a dried leaf option from Kapidolofarms.com. Into this mixture I will also add in whatever else I have laying around like grated pumpkin in the fall, squash or cucumbers, peppers, lavatera or hibiscus flowers, and anything else I can find. 4. Plain dry grass hay for all tortoises large enough to eat it. Soaked chopped grass hay for smaller tortoises. 5. I always have several planters growing with grasses, weeds, and tortoise seed mixtures like the Testudo mix from tortoise supply.com. I hand chop these home grown items into buckets and feed them out. 6. Mazuri day. I make a mix of Mazuri LS, add in a bunch of horse hay pellets, a handful of original 5M21 Mazuri for taste, and soak the whole mixture in a bucket. They eat it all up. 7. Grape leaves. Lots of them. Enough said. 8. In the winter months we get our rains and the wild weeds and grasses pop up. I cut buckets of this stuff from wherever I can find it. Lots of this stuff also grows in my pens, and the tortoises graze on it. When we have a decent rainy season, I don't have to "feed" my tortoises at all for a few months, as they prefer to graze on their own. I find a large assortment of mallow, plantain, fillaree, wild mustard, bristly ox tongue, prickly lettuce, several types in the dandelion family, sow thistle, regular thistle, milk thistle, clover, alfalfa, and several species of wild grasses. I take large plastic totes and buckets out to a neighbors fallow field, and I cut buckets ad buckets of this stuff. I cut it all in such a way that I have a big mixture of stuff to feed them each time, trying to make it around half grasses.

Most of these things are available, at least seasonally, in most of the country. This all works for me with a herd of dozens of large tortoises. With just one tortoise or just a few, this should be easy peasy for most people. Only a small percentage of what my tortoises eat comes from the grocery store, and only for seasonal times of the year, like fall, when other items are not available.

Stay away from the grocery when possible. Stop spending money on lettuce, and instead spend time collecting or growing free stuff. It's MUCH better for our tortoises that way.

 

[Tim Carlisle]

Time to get away from the grocery store and start scrounging or growing your own foods. Also time to be introducing grass hays, and mixing in soaked horse hay pellets.

I rotate through the following for my big ones: 1. I go collect a truck load of mulberry branches and drop them into the enclosures. After they eat the leaves, I mulch or chuck the branches. 2. I started dozens of cactus stands years ago, so I go around and collect several 5 gallon buckets of cactus pads. Older larger tortoises get older larger tougher pads, and younger smaller tortoises get the smaller more tender pads. 3. This option gets me through the rough times when summer items like mulberry and cactus pads are gone, but winter rains haven't come yet to bring the weeds. I get cases of endive, romaine, or escarole. I chop up a few heads, mix in soaked horse hay pellets, a little calcium powder, chopped and soaked grass hay, and a dried leaf option from Kapidolofarms.com. Into this mixture I will also add in whatever else I have laying around like grated pumpkin in the fall, squash or cucumbers, peppers, lavatera or hibiscus flowers, and anything else I can find. 4. Plain dry grass hay for all tortoises large enough to eat it. Soaked chopped grass hay for smaller tortoises. 5. I always have several planters growing with grasses, weeds, and tortoise seed mixtures like the Testudo mix from tortoise supply.com. I hand chop these home grown items into buckets and feed them out. 6. Mazuri day. I make a mix of Mazuri LS, add in a bunch of horse hay pellets, a handful of original 5M21 Mazuri for taste, and soak the whole mixture in a bucket. They eat it all up. 7. Grape leaves. Lots of them. Enough said. 8. In the winter months we get our rains and the wild weeds and grasses pop up. I cut buckets of this stuff from wherever I can find it. Lots of this stuff also grows in my pens, and the tortoises graze on it. When we have a decent rainy season, I don't have to "feed" my tortoises at all for a few months, as they prefer to graze on their own. I find a large assortment of mallow, plantain, fillaree, wild mustard, bristly ox tongue, prickly lettuce, several types in the dandelion family, sow thistle, regular thistle, milk thistle, clover, alfalfa, and several species of wild grasses. I take large plastic totes and buckets out to a neighbors fallow field, and I cut buckets ad buckets of this stuff. I cut it all in such a way that I have a big mixture of stuff to feed them each time, trying to make it around half grasses.

Most of these things are available, at least seasonally, in most of the country. This all works for me with a herd of dozens of large tortoises. With just one tortoise or just a few, this should be easy peasy for most people. Only a small percentage of what my tortoises eat comes from the grocery store, and only for seasonal times of the year, like fall, when other items are not available.

Stay away from the grocery when possible. Stop spending money on lettuce, and instead spend time collecting or growing free stuff. It's MUCH better for our tortoises that way.

Im working on a hydroponics system in my basement

 

[Len B]

Len, that’s great advice especially about the cactus and going back to the mazuri. Do you vacuum the grass? How do you do that?

No, All I do with the grass and weeds is cut it, dry it and after it's dry I store it in those large paper lawn debris bags in a dry area.

 

[Tom]

Im working on a hydroponics system in my basement

That sounds cool. I've thought about that, but the daily volume I need would require a hydroponics warehouse!

 

[OkAdiza]

A few years ago a lovely person who had to give up their tortoise also gave me $500! I used the money to buy another freezerless fridge, which now lives in my kitchen. Now that I don't have any tortoises I'm thinking of getting a small chest type freezer, keeping the tortoise fridge and getting rid of my 30 year old fridge/freezer.

Yvonne, you don’t have tortoises anymore? Is it just box turtles? I’m not on as much and I think I must have missed you no longer having tortoises.

 

[Pák]

Since mine stay outside full time ( 2,5 year old 15 lbs), early this June, he just got so used to the grasses in the garden, that he wont even tuch anything besides than that.
I collected a lot of grass during the summer, and i dried them out as hay, it shoud be more than enough until spring.
I'm just really hoping he will eat it, once the wheater will turn bad, and i will bring him inside to his winter home.

 

[jaizei]

Im working on a hydroponics system in my basement

What type?

 

[RandyTortoise]

I also have a separate fridge in my basement for the leopards. I feed them mostly mazuri and Arcadia Optimised 52 mixed and then supplement with a large variety of greens. So the fridge is a necessity.

 

[ryan57]

Time to get away from the grocery store and start scrounging or growing your own foods. Also time to be introducing grass hays, and mixing in soaked horse hay pellets.

I rotate through the following for my big ones: 1. I go collect a truck load of mulberry branches and drop them into the enclosures. After they eat the leaves, I mulch or chuck the branches. 2. I started dozens of cactus stands years ago, so I go around and collect several 5 gallon buckets of cactus pads. Older larger tortoises get older larger tougher pads, and younger smaller tortoises get the smaller more tender pads. 3. This option gets me through the rough times when summer items like mulberry and cactus pads are gone, but winter rains haven't come yet to bring the weeds. I get cases of endive, romaine, or escarole. I chop up a few heads, mix in soaked horse hay pellets, a little calcium powder, chopped and soaked grass hay, and a dried leaf option from Kapidolofarms.com. Into this mixture I will also add in whatever else I have laying around like grated pumpkin in the fall, squash or cucumbers, peppers, lavatera or hibiscus flowers, and anything else I can find. 4. Plain dry grass hay for all tortoises large enough to eat it. Soaked chopped grass hay for smaller tortoises. 5. I always have several planters growing with grasses, weeds, and tortoise seed mixtures like the Testudo mix from tortoise supply.com. I hand chop these home grown items into buckets and feed them out. 6. Mazuri day. I make a mix of Mazuri LS, add in a bunch of horse hay pellets, a handful of original 5M21 Mazuri for taste, and soak the whole mixture in a bucket. They eat it all up. 7. Grape leaves. Lots of them. Enough said. 8. In the winter months we get our rains and the wild weeds and grasses pop up. I cut buckets of this stuff from wherever I can find it. Lots of this stuff also grows in my pens, and the tortoises graze on it. When we have a decent rainy season, I don't have to "feed" my tortoises at all for a few months, as they prefer to graze on their own. I find a large assortment of mallow, plantain, fillaree, wild mustard, bristly ox tongue, prickly lettuce, several types in the dandelion family, sow thistle, regular thistle, milk thistle, clover, alfalfa, and several species of wild grasses. I take large plastic totes and buckets out to a neighbors fallow field, and I cut buckets ad buckets of this stuff. I cut it all in such a way that I have a big mixture of stuff to feed them each time, trying to make it around half grasses.

Most of these things are available, at least seasonally, in most of the country. This all works for me with a herd of dozens of large tortoises. With just one tortoise or just a few, this should be easy peasy for most people. Only a small percentage of what my tortoises eat comes from the grocery store, and only for seasonal times of the year, like fall, when other items are not available.

Stay away from the grocery when possible. Stop spending money on lettuce, and instead spend time collecting or growing free stuff. It's MUCH better for our tortoises that way.

Totally agree. The greens for both that augment their grass that I cut for them is about $300mo. I have a neighbor with cactus that lets stump eat some and I'm growing the same in my basement for planting outside next year. I'm doing the grass clipping thing but they dry out and turn brown pretty quick so I'd like to refrigerate the grass, weeds, etc. in addition to the greens. That's the reason for the fridge room. They both are 'meh' on the Mazuri and they absolutely detest when I add dried grass pellets that I hydrate and mix in, but I still usually soak some Mazuri and offer it on top of their food a few times a week. The 2 year old wants to eat fresh grass, dandelions, dandelion greens and dried leaves of pretty much any type. Totally different that the country club one. Probably much more 'normal behavior' to folks on this forum.

Stump is in no way normal by any metric. He's got his own agenda and it is 1) seeing his people including his dog buddies at the park and 2) exploring then 3) going home, taking 2 hot baths consecutively, having some food and off to his indoor bed. It's probably going to be what he does and he's settled into this routine that he created. Wake up to the TV on, munch his mouth, get breakfast in bed, warm up at the wood stove or go outside and then we go for a walk, then back into the soak, meal and bed. I've got to take a video of this guy staring at me when his food is not stacked up for him to eat. Recently if his food is not stacked right (because he ate it) he will pause until I 'fluff' it up. Then he'll eat.
It's ridiculous. In our yard and at the parks (which have no chemicals) he will graze while supervised but at home this dude wants his food stacked.