Grape leaves

[mattramsfan76]

Hi everyone. Haven't posted on here in a long time because my little leopard is doing so well. My question is..... I have a grape plant in my backyard that has been there for 15 years or more. Couldn't tell ya what kind of grape but it produces massive amounts of leaves every year. Are these leaves ok to give to a leopard tortoise??

 

[Laura]

if not sprayed.. and you are sure its a grape... Yes.

 

[mattramsfan76]

Well since it produces grapes.... I'm pretty sure it's a grape plant. And it's on top of a hill in our backyard that no one ever goes to so it can be sprayed

 

[Jacqui]

Sounds like you have a new food supply.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

A quick image would allow a better response. Do you eat the grapes, are they American or European? Most use of grape leaves for fodder is based on European vines (Vitus vinefera) not any of the American species. If the grapes taste like Welche's or a muscadine wine, best to try a little bit of those leaves at a time and see how it goes, if they are table grapes or wine grapes then yeah they are a well established good food. Not so simple as it might seem. Your avatar does not include a location, where is the vine, what state or country?

 

[diamondbp]

So does that mean I should be cautious feeding muscadine vine? I have some growing in my yard but haven't feed my young ones for fear it wouldn't go well.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Muscadine leaves are edible. My red foots (feet?) Won't eat them, though. Our canaries and finches shred them to bits! I've got a huge muscadine vine running along the west fence of my back yard. Also, hundreds of marble sized grapes.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Muscadine is a different species of grape, freeze tolerant, and so has different properties. I CAN'T say it is NOT an approparite food item, and others have already suggested it works okay. The grape type, Vitus vinefera, is what most people use as a food item, it is eaten by people and all manner of animals. So I'm saying Vitus vinefera is well known and regarded as a food, while American species are less well known.

Why I asked if you have eaten the 'grapes' is because there is a grape looking plant callee virginia creeper, that puts out small clusters of small berry like seed organs, and it is undetermined if it is edible.

That image would help.

 

[diamondbp]

The muscadine vine that grows in my yard barely hangs where the larger sulcatas can eat some leaves and they try to do so daily. I also have virginia creeper growing along the back portion of my fence and have never seen a sulcata eat its leaves. I suspect that the leaves are just fine . I may start to feed the fresh young leaves to my more well established leopards to see how they take to them.