? for feeding a Greek Tort.

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~April~

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Hello, My name is April, and I have been planning on getting a Greek Tortoise for awhile now. I wanted to do my research and think about the commiment before jumping into it. My biggest issue would probably be the conflicting information I find on th internet about what is the best diet for a Greek Tortoise. I find one article saying romaine letuce is good, then another that its bad..one sayig brocolli is good the next bad. The only consistant good food I have found is dandelion. I live in Northeastern Pa, and winter is long, I will not have dendelion for several months on end. Can someone PLEASE give me a list of good foods that I can find and give my (hopefully soon) Tort? during the winter months he/she will be getting food from a supermarket. ( read that tortiose food in pellet form is NOT a great source of food either, because that was a route I had originally thought about going) Please help, I want my drea if owning a pet Tort to come true but ONLY if I can properly care for one.
 

Terry Allan Hall

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~April~ said:
Hello, My name is April, and I have been planning on getting a Greek Tortoise for awhile now. I wanted to do my research and think about the commiment before jumping into it. My biggest issue would probably be the conflicting information I find on th internet about what is the best diet for a Greek Tortoise. I find one article saying romaine letuce is good, then another that its bad..one sayig brocolli is good the next bad. The only consistant good food I have found is dandelion. I live in Northeastern Pa, and winter is long, I will not have dendelion for several months on end. Can someone PLEASE give me a list of good foods that I can find and give my (hopefully soon) Tort? during the winter months he/she will be getting food from a supermarket. ( read that tortiose food in pellet form is NOT a great source of food either, because that was a route I had originally thought about going) Please help, I want my drea if owning a pet Tort to come true but ONLY if I can properly care for one.

One option is to grow weeds inside, under a plant light.

Another is to gather a lot of weeds and various dark green veggies, and freeze some, while drying the rest (this is what I do for my four)...come winter, they get thawed weeds some days, dried weeds mixed 50/50 w/ soaked Marion Red Sticks tortoise kibble (chow) on other days, chopped up cactus pads (you may have to go to a market in the Hispanic part of town to buy these, but they're easy to grow out in your yard, as well), and Spring Mix along w/ dark green vegetables from the grocery on other days.

Monday and Thursday is dried weeds mixed w/ Red Sticks, Tuesday and Friday is chopped cactus pads (2 small or 1 large), Wednesday and Sunday is Spring mix, Saturday is thawed weeds/darkgreen veggies.

A "snack" sized ziplock is perfect for 1 adult European tortoise per daily feeding.
 

Moozillion

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Also check out tortoiselibrary.com
That person is a member of this forum and has accumulated an amazing amount of information about turtles/tortoises. That site includes lists of good plants for feeding.
 

Jacqui

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Most often, when you read that this or that is bad for your tortoise, it's more of a warning not to just feed that one item or to not feed it all the time. Even the dandelion is not safe to feed all the time. :D (as a side note, if you do feed a lot of it, do not panic if your tortoise's urine turns pinkish). What you need to do, is to feed a wide variety of weeds and greens. This does not mean you must feed 10 different items at each meal. What it simply means is like this week you might be feeding dandelions and perhaps you also found some clover to feed. In a few days when that is gone you might go to the store and buy a package of Spring mix and feed that til it is gone. Then perhaps you found some chemical free grape leaves and hibiscus at your neighbor's house, so you feed that. Next time maybe you buy a bunch of turnip greens at the store. Normally most folks feed more weeds and fresh from the yard plants for their tortoises during the warm month and then in the winter store bought greens. However even in the winter, you can grow plants inside for your tortoise.
 

CactusVinnie

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"~April~" said:
I live in Northeastern Pa, and winter is long, I will not have dendelion for several months on end.

Another great way to solve that problem is document and learn how to hibernate your future tortoise.
If you can, get an Ibera, from the Greek group (try not to mess with sensible North-African or Middle East Greeks, Ibera rulzzz!) or a Hermanni- preferable boettgeri, but Westerns will do well too (but more expensive in the US, I guess). These are the hardiest for your area.
 

ShervyBaby

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~April~ said:
Hello, My name is April, and I have been planning on getting a Greek Tortoise for awhile now. I wanted to do my research and think about the commiment before jumping into it. My biggest issue would probably be the conflicting information I find on th internet about what is the best diet for a Greek Tortoise. I find one article saying romaine letuce is good, then another that its bad..one sayig brocolli is good the next bad. The only consistant good food I have found is dandelion. I live in Northeastern Pa, and winter is long, I will not have dendelion for several months on end. Can someone PLEASE give me a list of good foods that I can find and give my (hopefully soon) Tort? during the winter months he/she will be getting food from a supermarket. ( read that tortiose food in pellet form is NOT a great source of food either, because that was a route I had originally thought about going) Please help, I want my drea if owning a pet Tort to come true but ONLY if I can properly care for one.


I use spring mx i buy from the grocery store and i also buy a random(safe) green it may also eat. for example this week in gets spring mix w kale and next week it will get spring mix w collard greens. it works for my greek
 

Raymo2477

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dandeloin greens and other suitable greens are available at some grocery stores. I live outside Philadelphia, pa and the wegmann's grocery store usually carries a good selection of green (turnip, mustard, dandelion) year round and they sometimes had opuntia (cactus) fruit which is good.
 
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