There is a fantastic new product available to help with feeding our tortoises better. I think most people will agree that a wide variety of weeds, leaves, succulents, and flowers is the best diet for our tortoises, but the reality is that no one can provide the "perfect" natural diet year round. I certainly can't. There is a time every year in fall when the mulberry and grape leaves have died and dropped off and my cactus stands go dormant for the winter, but the rains haven't come yet to bring our winter weeds. During this time I am more reliant on the dreaded "grocery store greens". I buy endive, escarole, and several types of lettuce by the case to feed my ever-growing herd. I add all sorts of good stuff to these leafy greens to make it better for tortoises. There is nothing wrong with feeding grocery store lettuce, AS LONG AS, you are adding the right amendments to it.
Enter tortoisesupply.com and their new powdered "Food Fixer". You can read all about it directly from them here: https://www.tortoisesupply.com/TortoiseFoodFixer
Tyler and Sarah are friends of mine and they are terrific humans. @TylerStewart mentioned this new and upcoming product to me because he knows the lengths I go to to add all sorts of amendments to grocery store greens to make them a more suitable food item for my own tortoises. As soon as he told me about it I asked him to send me some. Well that day came about a month ago when I received a small package in the mail with this in it:
The label says it all. I've been using it a couple of times per week now, so I feel I can give it an honest review. Here is the short version: My tortoises ate it all up from day one with no problem and you can see from the ingredients list that it is made of a combination of great stuff. Done.
Here is the longer review: My summer feeding routine consists of a day of cactus pads, a day of mulberry leaves, a day of Mazuri pellets, a day of grape leaves mixed with whatever other weeds and leaves I can scrounge up, and a day of grocery store greens mixed with all sorts of "amendments" like dried leaf options from Will, soaked horse hay pellets, horse hay that is chopped, re-hydrated and mixed in, flower petals from my garden, calcium powder, "Herbal Hay" (also from Tortoisesupply.com), chicken lay crumbles, Purina "Equine Senior", and a handful of other stuff periodically. I rotate through these items every five days. In fall, I lose the grape leaves, mulberry leaves and cactus pads and have to get creative with the feedings until the rains come and the winter weeds kick in. I buy the grocery store greens by the case, and make up 4 five gallon buckets of food to feed out on "lettuce" days. It takes a lot of time to chop all that up, soak the pellets, and retrieve and mix in all that stuff. I also have to continually keep track of and buy all that different stuff from an array of different sources. This "Food Fixer" powder does all of that for me with a few shakes of the can. I just shake a little on top, and then shake the bucket to mix it in as I walk over to each pen to put the food on their trays. It is SOOOOO easy and saves me SOOOOOO much time. On day one trying this new product, I just mixed in a little bit to see if the "new" food additive would deter them from eating, as new things so often do with our tortoises. It didn't. Not even a little. They ate it with the same vigor that they eat all their favorite foods. After seeing that, I added in what I would consider a normal healthy amount to their next feeding of lettuce, and got the same result. Experience has taught me over the years that it takes some time to introduce a new food items and get a tortoise to eat it well. Not the case with this stuff. They act like its been their favorite food for years, and gobble it right up.
In my care sheets, I explain that grocery store greens are not a "great" diet unless you spend the time and effort to add in the correct amendments. I then list all those amendments, as I did in the above paragraph. That is a lot of info to absorb, a lot of products to figure out where to find, and a lot of time and effort to add in to the food every day. I think it is off-putting and a little overwhelming to some tortoise keepers, especially a new keeper that was erroneously told by the pet store to just buy some kale or lettuce and drop that in the enclosure every day. They didn't sign up for all this work. This product solves that problem. "Fixing" the grocery store lettuce and making it much better as a diet item for a tortoise, and any other herbivorous reptile, just got SUPER easy. I can now advise those new keepers to just buy this one product, drop a link, and that new tortoise keeper will have a much easier time absorbing all the new info that they have to learn, while their tortoise is getting a great diet. More experienced keepers now have an easy way to make grocery store greens better and add some great variety and nutrition to their tortoise's meals.
Speaking of other herbivorous reptiles, I also use this product on the greens for my bearded dragons, prehensile tailed skinks, blue and pink tongue skinks, and get the same positive results. I don't currently have any usromastix or iguanas, but I'm sure they would take to it the same.
I highly recommend this new "Food Fixer", and will be using it myself going forward. Thanks to Tyler and Sarah for putting out another great tortoise product.
Enter tortoisesupply.com and their new powdered "Food Fixer". You can read all about it directly from them here: https://www.tortoisesupply.com/TortoiseFoodFixer
Tyler and Sarah are friends of mine and they are terrific humans. @TylerStewart mentioned this new and upcoming product to me because he knows the lengths I go to to add all sorts of amendments to grocery store greens to make them a more suitable food item for my own tortoises. As soon as he told me about it I asked him to send me some. Well that day came about a month ago when I received a small package in the mail with this in it:
The label says it all. I've been using it a couple of times per week now, so I feel I can give it an honest review. Here is the short version: My tortoises ate it all up from day one with no problem and you can see from the ingredients list that it is made of a combination of great stuff. Done.
Here is the longer review: My summer feeding routine consists of a day of cactus pads, a day of mulberry leaves, a day of Mazuri pellets, a day of grape leaves mixed with whatever other weeds and leaves I can scrounge up, and a day of grocery store greens mixed with all sorts of "amendments" like dried leaf options from Will, soaked horse hay pellets, horse hay that is chopped, re-hydrated and mixed in, flower petals from my garden, calcium powder, "Herbal Hay" (also from Tortoisesupply.com), chicken lay crumbles, Purina "Equine Senior", and a handful of other stuff periodically. I rotate through these items every five days. In fall, I lose the grape leaves, mulberry leaves and cactus pads and have to get creative with the feedings until the rains come and the winter weeds kick in. I buy the grocery store greens by the case, and make up 4 five gallon buckets of food to feed out on "lettuce" days. It takes a lot of time to chop all that up, soak the pellets, and retrieve and mix in all that stuff. I also have to continually keep track of and buy all that different stuff from an array of different sources. This "Food Fixer" powder does all of that for me with a few shakes of the can. I just shake a little on top, and then shake the bucket to mix it in as I walk over to each pen to put the food on their trays. It is SOOOOO easy and saves me SOOOOOO much time. On day one trying this new product, I just mixed in a little bit to see if the "new" food additive would deter them from eating, as new things so often do with our tortoises. It didn't. Not even a little. They ate it with the same vigor that they eat all their favorite foods. After seeing that, I added in what I would consider a normal healthy amount to their next feeding of lettuce, and got the same result. Experience has taught me over the years that it takes some time to introduce a new food items and get a tortoise to eat it well. Not the case with this stuff. They act like its been their favorite food for years, and gobble it right up.
In my care sheets, I explain that grocery store greens are not a "great" diet unless you spend the time and effort to add in the correct amendments. I then list all those amendments, as I did in the above paragraph. That is a lot of info to absorb, a lot of products to figure out where to find, and a lot of time and effort to add in to the food every day. I think it is off-putting and a little overwhelming to some tortoise keepers, especially a new keeper that was erroneously told by the pet store to just buy some kale or lettuce and drop that in the enclosure every day. They didn't sign up for all this work. This product solves that problem. "Fixing" the grocery store lettuce and making it much better as a diet item for a tortoise, and any other herbivorous reptile, just got SUPER easy. I can now advise those new keepers to just buy this one product, drop a link, and that new tortoise keeper will have a much easier time absorbing all the new info that they have to learn, while their tortoise is getting a great diet. More experienced keepers now have an easy way to make grocery store greens better and add some great variety and nutrition to their tortoise's meals.
Speaking of other herbivorous reptiles, I also use this product on the greens for my bearded dragons, prehensile tailed skinks, blue and pink tongue skinks, and get the same positive results. I don't currently have any usromastix or iguanas, but I'm sure they would take to it the same.
I highly recommend this new "Food Fixer", and will be using it myself going forward. Thanks to Tyler and Sarah for putting out another great tortoise product.
