Feeding my leopard tortoises

[Mayawaterman]

Hi! I have 2 leopard tortoises both about 3 years old. I’ve been giving them Romain lettuce and sometime pellets. They like lettuce better so I usually stick with that. I just started giving them a whole head of lettuce I was wondering if that’s to much or to little. Or should I just change to pellets. Just want what’s best for them!

 

[wellington]

It's a totally bad diet. They need to not be housed together if they are. They need to be in a closed chamber high humidity enclosure.
The diet needs to be greatly improved. Lettuce is mostly just water. They are not getting and real nutrition.
Cactus, mazuri, mulberry leaf, hibiscus leaf and flower, dandelion, just to name a few. If you have to do grocery greens, do riddichio, escarole, arugula, endive.
Basking temp 95+100 with a incandescent FLOOD bulb
All over and night temp 80
Humidity 80%.
Get changes made ASAP.

 

[wellington]

Read and follow

Thread 'The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise' https://www.tortoiseforum.org/threa...se-a-sulcata-leopard-or-star-tortoise.181503/

 

[Mayawaterman]

It's a totally bad diet. They need to not be housed together if they are. They need to be in a closed chamber high humidity enclosure.
The diet needs to be greatly improved. Lettuce is mostly just water. They are not getting and real nutrition.
Cactus, mazuri, mulberry leaf, hibiscus leaf and flower, dandelion, just to name a few. If you have to do grocery greens, do riddichio, escarole, arugula, endive.
Basking temp 95+100 with a incandescent FLOOD bulb
All over and night temp 80
Humidity 80%.
Get changes made ASAP.

I have mazuri. Should I just feed them that?

 

[wellington]

I have mazuri. Should I just feed them that?

No, they need a variety of foods. Not just any one item.

 

[Megatron's Mom]

They need a large variety. Tortoises don't like change so new foods will take awhile for them to readily eat them.

I would start with radicchio add it to the romaine. They tend to like the colour red so that might help. Once they are eating the radicchio, add in dandelion leaves or any of the other better food options listed by Wellington. Very slowly taking away the romaine lettuce.

As for the mazuri, if they don't like it just soak one pellet and then sprinkle the mush over the romaine.

 

[Mayawaterman]

They need a large variety. Tortoises don't like change so new foods will take awhile for them to readily eat them.

I would start with radicchio add it to the romaine. They tend to like the colour red so that might help. Once they are eating the radicchio, add in dandelion leaves or any of the other better food options listed by Wellington. Very slowly taking away the romaine lettuce.

As for the mazuri, if they don't like it just soak one pellet and then sprinkle the mush over the romaine.

Thank you!

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Hello and welcome!

As mentioned above, these two will need housing separately if they aren’t already, tortoise of any species should NEVER be housed in pairs under any circumstances, they’re incredibly territorial, behaviours that look cute to us really aren’t, following one another and sleeping huddled up is all bullying the the tortoise world, you’ll eventually see more extreme signs of aggression. Anyone who tells you pairs are fine, have no idea what they’re talking about.

Small groups are ok when there’s lots of land and the correct male to female ratio.

They definitely need lots of variety in their diet to thrive too, I think you’ll hopefully find this thread below useful to look over, I cover correct equipment, levels, appropriately maintaining humidity, closed chamber examples, there’s lots of visual examples for everything and a good link to check out for the diet side of things at the bottom

Leopard/sulcata starter

Hello there! In this thread I’m going to include some information below on how I’d personally tackle an indoor starter set up for a leopard/sulcata until they’re bigger. Hopefully it helps give people some ideas!” I know it looks like a lot to go over, I like to make sure all bases are covered...

tortoiseforum.org

This one is also a good read to avoid problematic housing and wrong equipment types

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Hope this helps!

 

[Renee_H]

Hi! I have 2 leopard tortoises both about 3 years old. I’ve been giving them Romain lettuce and sometime pellets. They like lettuce better so I usually stick with that. I just started giving them a whole head of lettuce I was wondering if that’s to much or to little. Or should I just change to pellets. Just want what’s best for them!

Mine loves romaine too! I buy one large head of romaine per week and give her 1/7th of it a day! Or one sixth? I buy and start a new head each week! I consider that her treat I also buy a bag of Santa Barbara mix. The bulk of her diet is opuntia cactus, grape leaves, rose leaves, dried moringa, hibiscus leaves, grass, hit or miss on aloe (she doesn’t seem to like that) plus a variety of who knows what grown from tortoise seeds (although this only makes up a tablespoon per day as apparently I have a black thumb!) I have also recently added in Mazuri to add a few to three days a week. I’m still learning myself but I understand the idea is to create a big variety! Some things I’ve found helpful are food fixer from https://www.tortoisesupply.com/TortoiseFood and
https://www.kapidolofarms.com amendments!

You’ll get so much great info here! Welcome!