Help needed on how to feed leapord tortoise

[lilyM]

Hi, I'm a brand new owner, I got my 4 year old leapord tortoise about 2 months ago now and am struggling to find a diet that works. In his previous home he was on komodo pellets, he absoloutley loves these and will always eat them however I realise these are not correct at all for his species. I have tried him on mazuri pellets and zoo-med grassland food, but soaked or unsoaked he shows no interest in these. He also has little interest in vegetables besides romaine lettuce (which i do try and give sparingly), dandelion leaves and penny wart. But I assume this is not a very sustainable diet ? He also has prickly pear cactus pads occasionally, which he does love but I wonder how often he is supposed to eat them ? I have also brought him a couple of plants from the tortoise hut, which I'll attach a picture of, he does eat these but only sparingly.
Any advice on this would be very appreciated, thankyou

 

[wellington]

Feed a lot of cactus over the grocery greens and tortoise pellets
I believe the komodo is fine but never as a staple. If he loves cactus, chop it up fine and mix it in with finely chopped other foods you want him to eat. As he gets used to eating everything, start adding less and less cactus to it. You can keep feeding the cactus, just don't need to mix it in once he eats the other stuff too. Or you can keep mixing it in, either way. You have to do this until he excepts eating more items. It's not a fast process, but you need to do it.
As for any of the pellets, soak them and smear it in the foods he likes, like the cactus and green mixture. Other better grocery greens are arugula, endive, ridicchio, water cress, escarole, bok choy, dandelion.

 

[lilyM]

Feed a lot of cactus over the grocery greens and tortoise pellets
I believe the komodo is fine but never as a staple. If he loves cactus, chop it up fine and mix it in with finely chopped other foods you want him to eat. As he gets used to eating everything, start adding less and less cactus to it. You can keep feeding the cactus, just don't need to mix it in once he eats the other stuff too. Or you can keep mixing it in, either way. You have to do this until he excepts eating more items. It's not a fast process, but you need to do it.
As for any of the pellets, soak them and smear it in the foods he likes, like the cactus and green mixture. Other better grocery greens are arugula, endive, ridicchio, water cress, escarole, bok choy, dandelion.

Thankyou for the help! I'll definitely try this out and start adding the suggested greens to his diet

 

[Tom]

Hi, I'm a brand new owner, I got my 4 year old leapord tortoise about 2 months ago now and am struggling to find a diet that works. In his previous home he was on komodo pellets, he absoloutley loves these and will always eat them however I realise these are not correct at all for his species. I have tried him on mazuri pellets and zoo-med grassland food, but soaked or unsoaked he shows no interest in these. He also has little interest in vegetables besides romaine lettuce (which i do try and give sparingly), dandelion leaves and penny wart. But I assume this is not a very sustainable diet ? He also has prickly pear cactus pads occasionally, which he does love but I wonder how often he is supposed to eat them ? I have also brought him a couple of plants from the tortoise hut, which I'll attach a picture of, he does eat these but only sparingly.View attachment 365217
Any advice on this would be very appreciated, thankyou

Opuntia pads are a great tortoise food. Leopards eat a lot of succulents in the wild, so this is a good substitute for them. You can offer opuntia two or three times a week.

Tortoises eat what they have eaten before. New foods are not recognized as food. Use the old favorites to sneak in tiny amounts of the new foods. No tortoise is going to just walk up and eat a pile of ZooMed Tortoise Food or Mazuri the first few times it sees it. Those are great foods, but it take weeks or months to fully introduce it. Start by chopping up a whole pile of romaine and spraying it with some water. Soak one tiny broken off piece of a single ZooMed pellet, and when it turns to mush, mix it in thoroughly with the pile of greens. There should only be a few tiny flecks of the new food stuck to the lettuce. Almost like you dropped the lettuce leaf not he ground and a tiny bit of dust stuck to it when you picked it up. Don't use half a pellet. Don't use a quarter of a pellet. That is way too much. Too much of the new food too soon and the whole pile will be rejected. Start slow with tiny amounts of any new food. Gradually add more. Same thing with new greens. Start with just a tiny amount, finely minced, and thoroughly mixed in with a big pile of the old favorites.

You can also blend up some of the opuntia and mix in that slimy mush all over the pile of food with the new stuff mixed into it. Sometimes blended up cucumber mush will work for this purpose too. Over time you can add more and more of the new stuff. Its okay if your tortoise skips or just picks at its food at first. A few days of light eating will build appetite and make the tortoise more willing to eat the right stuff. A hungry tortoise is not a picky tortoise.

Introducing new foods to any tortoise is a process, not an event. It can takes weeks or months. Your tortoise is already eating pretty good foods, so there is no rush. A few months from now, in summer time, I'll bet your tortoise will be eating all sorts of good foods.

 

[Lyn W]

Hi and welcome
I have a leopard in the UK too and when weeds aren't available I use shop bought dark green leafy veg. Mainly Aldi Crispy Leaf Salad bags as a base - these have a mix of 4 leaves (I pick out all the white and stalky bits) Morrisons also have a good mix of leaves in their crispy salad bags too. Florette classic crispy is great but expensive, so Aldi are a cheaper substitute. Sometimes the leaves are on the skimpy side so I buy a good dark green leaf Romaine and add that to bulk it out. For variety I also add things lambs lettuce leaves (from Tesco or Sainsbury), kale (with chunky bits of stalk removed) and pak choi leaves. I usually soak all these before feeding to clean and re hydrate. Not all salad mixes are good for torts so best to get to know what ingredients in them are OK or not. (see link below)
To add fibre I buy bags of Readigrass which I order from Pets at Home and grind it quite finely in a blender (only used for grass) so that I can add a couple of big pinches to his wet leaves and mix it in so it sticks.
My tort loves opuntia and I use a veg peeler to cut thin slices - mainly because I worry about him choking on big chunks. They can have a laxative effect though so use sparingly.
www.thetortoisetable.org.uk is a good guide to tort safe foods and if you read the caresheet in the Species section for Sulcata and Leopards etc that will give you more food suggestions.
Please also read the Info for New Members which will give you all the do's and don'ts and explain about heating and lighting, substrates and diets etc. but ask as many questions as you like there's always someone here to help and it really helped me when my tort adopted me.

 

[lilyM]

Opuntia pads are a great tortoise food. Leopards eat a lot of succulents in the wild, so this is a good substitute for them. You can offer opuntia two or three times a week.

Tortoises eat what they have eaten before. New foods are not recognized as food. Use the old favorites to sneak in tiny amounts of the new foods. No tortoise is going to just walk up and eat a pile of ZooMed Tortoise Food or Mazuri the first few times it sees it. Those are great foods, but it take weeks or months to fully introduce it. Start by chopping up a whole pile of romaine and spraying it with some water. Soak one tiny broken off piece of a single ZooMed pellet, and when it turns to mush, mix it in thoroughly with the pile of greens. There should only be a few tiny flecks of the new food stuck to the lettuce. Almost like you dropped the lettuce leaf not he ground and a tiny bit of dust stuck to it when you picked it up. Don't use half a pellet. Don't use a quarter of a pellet. That is way too much. Too much of the new food too soon and the whole pile will be rejected. Start slow with tiny amounts of any new food. Gradually add more. Same thing with new greens. Start with just a tiny amount, finely minced, and thoroughly mixed in with a big pile of the old favorites.

You can also blend up some of the opuntia and mix in that slimy mush all over the pile of food with the new stuff mixed into it. Sometimes blended up cucumber mush will work for this purpose too. Over time you can add more and more of the new stuff. Its okay if your tortoise skips or just picks at its food at first. A few days of light eating will build appetite and make the tortoise more willing to eat the right stuff. A hungry tortoise is not a picky tortoise.

Introducing new foods to any tortoise is a process, not an event. It can takes weeks or months. Your tortoise is already eating pretty good foods, so there is no rush. A few months from now, in summer time, I'll bet your tortoise will be eating all sorts of good foods.

Thankyou, this makes a lot of a sense, I had been mixing 2 or 3 pellets with food he liked so no wonder he wouldn't go near it! I will definitely be using this method now

 

[lilyM]

Hi and welcome
I have a leopard in the UK too and when weeds aren't available I use shop bought dark green leafy veg. Mainly Aldi Crispy Leaf Salad bags as a base - these have a mix of 4 leaves (I pick out all the white and stalky bits) Morrisons also have a good mix of leaves in their crispy salad bags too. Florette classic crispy is great but expensive, so Aldi are a cheaper substitute. Sometimes the leaves are on the skimpy side so I buy a good dark green leaf Romaine and add that to bulk it out. For variety I also add things lambs lettuce leaves (from Tesco or Sainsbury), kale (with chunky bits of stalk removed) and pak choi leaves. I usually soak all these before feeding to clean and re hydrate. Not all salad mixes are good for torts so best to get to know what ingredients in them are OK or not. (see link below)
To add fibre I buy bags of Readigrass which I order from Pets at Home and grind it quite finely in a blender (only used for grass) so that I can add a couple of big pinches to his wet leaves and mix it in so it sticks.
My tort loves opuntia and I use a veg peeler to cut thin slices - mainly because I worry about him choking on big chunks. They can have a laxative effect though so use sparingly.
www.thetortoisetable.org.uk is a good guide to tort safe foods and if you read the caresheet in the Species section for Sulcata and Leopards etc that will give you more food suggestions.
Please also read the Info for New Members which will give you all the do's and don'ts and explain about heating and lighting, substrates and diets etc. but ask as many questions as you like there's always someone here to help and it really helped me when my tort adopted me.

Hi thankyou for the advice and the links! I'm so glad I found this forum, I was finding it very hard to find advice online that wasn't largely generic or contradictory, or feeling like it was just trying to sell me something

 

[Tom]

Hi thankyou for the advice and the links! I'm so glad I found this forum, I was finding it very hard to find advice online that wasn't largely generic or contradictory, or feeling like it was just trying to sell me something

Hello and welcome to the best tortoise care site in the world.