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Tortymama

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I just recently got a Greek tortoise after much research. I need help. I have a disabled teen .He got in the refrigerator and ate all the vegatables I had bought and cut up for Alice my Tortoise. I need to know what else I can feed her til I can get to a store in next few days. I have corn but it's not the leafy greens I had for her. Please help me.
 

Chubbs the tegu

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No worries lol.. i promise he wont die without food for 2 days lol do u have a pesticide free backyard? Go out and grab some safe weeds.
 
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Tortoises can go for a very long time without eating. My tort is very picky, so when I started feeding him new foods, he wasn't happy about it and stopped eating for like a week. Do you have dandelions in your backyard? If you do, you can pick the leaves and flowers and rinse them thoroughly before giving them to Alice. Hope this helps!

-Gracey and Louie
 

Tortymama

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Thank you I myself am allergic to alot of weeds how would you recommend moving forward if it were you been giving cut veggies and some fruit
 

KarenSoCal

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Thank you I myself am allergic to alot of weeds how would you recommend moving forward if it were you been giving cut veggies and some fruit

Here's a list of foods for tortoises. Maybe you can find some of these growing. When you get to the store, there's a bunch of different foods.
Tortoise Foods, written by Tom Grocery store greens by themselves are not a good diet for your tortoise. You need to add stuff to them to make them more suitable, if can't can't find or grow weeds and leaves. Here is a list of good stuff: 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 More info on feeding: So much contradictory info on this subject. Its simple. What do they eat in the wild. Weeds, leaves, flowers, and succulents. Feed them a huge variety of these things, and you'll have a healthy tortoise. All of these species are very adaptable when it comes to diet and there is a very large margin of error, and many ways to do it right. What if you don't have this sort of "natural" tortoise food available for part of each year because you are in the snow? You will have no choice but to buy grocery store food. What's wrong with grocery store food? It tends to lack fiber, some items are low in calcium or have a poor calcium to phosphorous ratio, and some items have deleterious compounds in them. All of these short comings can be improved with some simple supplementation and amendments. A pinch of calcium two times per week will help fix that problem. You can also leave cuttle bone in the enclosure, so your tortoise can self-regulate its own calcium intake. What about fiber? Soaked horse hay pellets, soaked ZooMed Grassland pellets, Mazuri tortoise chow, "Salad style", "Herbal Hay" both from @TylerStewart and his lovely wife Sarah at Tortoisesupply.com, or many of the dried plants and leaves available from Will @Kapidolo Farms. If you must use grocery store foods, favor endive and escarole as your main staples. Add in arugula, cilantro, kale, collard, mustard and turnip greens, squash leaves, spring mix, romaine, green or red leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, water cress, carrot tops, celery tops, bok choy, and whatever other greens you can find. If you mix in some of the aforementioned amendments, these grocery store foods will offer plants of variety and fiber and be able to meet your tortoises nutritional needs just fine. I find it preferable to grab a few grapevine or mulberry leaves, or a handful of mallow and clover, or some broadleaf plantain leaves and some grass, but with the right additions, grocery store stuff is fine too. Grow your own stuff, or find it around you when possible. Tyler and Sarah also sell a fantastic Testudo seed mix that is great for ALL tortoise species and also super easy to grow in pots, trays, raised garden beds, or in outdoor tortoise enclosures. When that isn't possible, add a wide variety of good stuff to your grocery store greens to make them better. Supplements: I recommend you keep cuttle bone available all the time. Some never use it and some munch on it regularly. Some of mine will go months without touching it, and then suddenly eat the whole thing in a day or two. Sulcatas and leopards grow a lot. This requires a tremendous amount of calcium assimilation over time. A great diet is paramount, but it is still a good idea to give them some extra calcium regularly. I use a tiny pinch of RepCal or ZooMed plain old calcium carbonate twice a week. Much discussion has been given to whether or not they need D3 in their calcium supplement. Personally, I don't think it matters. Every tortoise should be getting adequate UV exposure one way or another, so they should be able to make their own D3. I also like to use a mineral supplement. "MinerAll" is my current brand of choice. It seems to help those tortoises that like to swallow pebbles and rocks. It is speculated that some tortoise eat rocks or substrate due to a mineral deficiency or imbalance. Whatever the reason, "MinerAll" seems to stop it or prevent it. Finally, I like to use a reptile vitamin supplement once a week, to round out any hidden deficiencies that may be in my diet over the course of a year.
 

Yvonne G

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I just recently got a Greek tortoise after much research. I need help. I have a disabled teen .He got in the refrigerator and ate all the vegatables I had bought and cut up for Alice my Tortoise. I need to know what else I can feed her til I can get to a store in next few days. I have corn but it's not the leafy greens I had for her. Please help me.
Ah. . . I remember those days. . . having two teenagers in the house, food never went bad in the fridge! I was really surprised after they both moved out, that food actually got moldy if left too long in the fridge. Who knew? Ya gotta wonder where they put it!!

Your tortoise will be fine. A little corn is ok once in a great while, but I wouldn't feed it too often. As has been said already, greens, weeds, broad leaf plants - all things a Greek tortoise would be interested in eating.
 
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