Feeding?

[Cooksey Reptiles]

what types of food do you feed your Hermann tortoises and what size portion and how many times a day

thanks
Cooksey Reptiles

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome.

Tortoises should be free fed on the right foods. Here is a starter list of some of the "right" foods:
Mulberry leaves
Grape vine leaves
Hibiscus leaves
African hibiscus leaves
Blue hibiscus leaves
Rose of Sharon leaves
Rose leaves
Geraniums
Gazanias
Lavatera
Pansies
Petunias
Hostas
Honeysuckle
Cape honeysuckle
Leaves and blooms from any squash plant, like pumpkin, cucumber, summer squash, etc...
Young spineless opuntia cactus pads

Weeds:
There are soooooooo many...
Dandelion
Mallow
Filaree
Smooth Sow thistle
Prickly Sow thistle
Milk thistle
Goat head weed
Cats ear
Nettles
Trefoil
Wild onion
Wild mustard
Wild Garlic
Clovers
Broadleaf plantain
Narrow leaf plantain
Chick weed
Hawksbit
Hensbit
Hawksbeard

Other good stuff:
"Testudo Seed Mix" from http://www.tortoisesupply.com/SeedMixes
Pasture mixes or other seeds from http://www.groworganic.com/seeds.html
Homegrown alfalfa
Mazuri Tortoise Chow
ZooMed Grassland Tortoise Food

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi, and welcome to the Forum!

Please don't make the mistake of looking at this list and saying to yourself, "Oh, it says I can feed such and such." and then just feed that one or two items to your tortoise. You need to give him a wide variety of different things. So this week choose three or four items then next week choose several different items.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

@Tom....why do you put Rose of Sharon leaves but not blooms, rose leaves, but not blooms? Why not?

 

[Tom]

@Tom....why do you put Rose of Sharon leaves but not blooms, rose leaves, but not blooms? Why not?

Flowers are a good tortoise food, but they should be a smaller percentage of the diet than the leaves. I just didn't want to put too much emphasis on feeding the flowers and have people feeding too many flowers too much of the time.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Wow, I have 29 Rose of Sharon bushes/trees from Redfootnerd (?)....and I always gave leaves and blooms, but more blooms. huh! Thx