Food choices

[kelarned]

I've got 3 leos that have enjoying the outdoors all summer in a pen. The have all sorts of grasses and leafy vegetables that they have been eating from all summer. The problem is that they have wiped most of it out and although I have planted new stuff...it is taking awhile to get established in the heat. BTW...I live in SoCal.

I have a large planter in which I have a California wildflower mix growing. I would like to give them a go in that planter (no fertilizers used), but I don't have the names of all the flowers in there. There is a ton of alyssum growing, but other flowers as well.

Any suggestions??? At one have experience with letting their Leo's eat this kind of greenery???

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Kelly

 

[wellington]

Try looking them up on thetortoisetable.org. If the majority are tort safe, I wouldn't worry about the few that might not be unless it is easy enough to pull them out. Good luck. You can always given them some store bought greens until the others grow in.

 

[Tom]

I like to block off sections of the pen and let new stuff get growing well. Then remove the barrier and watch them go to town. If you start feeding them some other stuff, it will take the pressure off of your landscaping for a while too. You might need to set up some planter boxes or big pots or something and start growing some stuff where they can't get to it.

Tyler from tortoisesupply.com sent me some Russian tortoise seed mix that I am VERY happy with. It grows extremely well in our dry heat and there is a lot of variety in it. Good for all tortoises.

 

[Greg T]

Not sure how big your Leo's are but they can sure clear out some landscaping and vegetation quickly! Mine eat the grass down to the roots, then eat the new growth so quickly that it eventually dies. They already went through my bushes and ate what they liked. I give them free roam of the entire backyard, but the 3 adults are eating machines. The drought last summer didn't help much either - lost a bunch of plants there. This fall I'm re-planting again. I feed them store-bought lettuce and/or mazuri each day to supplement for the lack of good food in the yard now. I have learned that they ignore the plants they don't like, so I wouldn't be too worried about the extra flowers and stuff in your yard if you aren't totally sure what they are.

 

[Neal]

Don't know anything about the flowers, but I think the blocking off sections of your pen idea is the way to go. It seems that tortoises are programmed to eat and eat until the food is all gone.

 

[algoroth1]

Don't know anything about the flowers, but I think the blocking off sections of your pen idea is the way to go. It seems that tortoises are programmed to eat and eat until the food is all gone.

Neal - Your last sentence really says it all. In the wild, animals that live in areas subject to drought or freeze usually are "eating machines". This goes for mammals as well as reptiles (consider the size of some the mammals that live in Alaska and have barely three to four months a year to fatten up before the food is buried in snow and ice!). Tortoises are probably no different. Interestingly (to me at least), our young mt. tortoise that is native to the rain forest eats twice a day, period. I don't know if that is because he is so small (not a lot of room in that stomach), or because food is usually available in the wild and genetically the need to store up the fat isn't programmed in.