How much do I feed my Tort?

[Markw84]

When these hays are pelleted they are ground up to small pieces. Your small sulcata should be able to eat any of these pellets when they have been re-hydrated. Personally, I would go with orchard hay pellets or bermuda hay pellets for such a young tortoise. Alfalfa and timothy are too stalky, in my opinion, for babies.
Here is a link to a thread on Salad Dressing by @Markw84 that shows a great mix of greens, hay , and pelleted food for his young, and not so young, tortoises. https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/totoise-salad-dressing.149685/#post-1427858

I actually got tired of cutting so much grass hay with scissors, and now use orchard grass hay CUBES. I like them better than the pellets as the fibers are much longer, but still eaten by my smaller tortoises once soaked. A 50 lb bag is about $15 and I throw the cubes out for my large sulcatas too and sprinkle them down with the hose. The cubes a extremely compressed and its amazing how much chopped hay you get with them. I put a few cubes in a tray of water and in about 10 minutes they swell up about 3 times their size and rehydrate & soften nicely.

 

[Tort dude]

THIS HELPS A LOT THNKS

 

[DamJoe08]

Thank you so much. I’m definitely going to try the dressing mixture tomorrow.

 

[DamJoe08]

I actually got tired of cutting so much grass hay with scissors, and now use orchard grass hay CUBES. I like them better than the pellets as the fibers are much longer, but still eaten by my smaller tortoises once soaked. A 50 lb bag is about $15 and I throw the cubes out for my large sulcatas too and sprinkle them down with the hose. The cubes a extremely compressed and its amazing how much chopped hay you get with them. I put a few cubes in a tray of water and in about 10 minutes they swell up about 3 times their size and rehydrate & soften nicely.

Very helpful. Where do you get the hay?

 

[Dizisdalife]

Very helpful. Where do you get the hay?

Most feed stores will help you get what you want. Or, you can find them on line. Like @Markw84 , I like cubed hay better than pellets because of the longer fiber. I used the pelleted hay when my sulcata was still small. As he got bigger I switched to the cubes.

 

[DamJoe08]

I have a 2 month old Sulcata. Would the cubes or pellets be better?

 

[Tort dude]

PELLETS

 

[DamJoe08]

PELLETS

Thanks Tort Dude. Sorry a couple more questions...any specific type? Alfalfa, Timothy, orchard? How about brand? Want to be sure my little dude is eating good.

 

[Markw84]

Very helpful. Where do you get the hay?

Yes, I do get the cubes from my local feed store. The same place I buy my Mazuri and baled hay in summer.

I have a 2 month old Sulcata. Would the cubes or pellets be better?

For very young sulcatas, I prefer to just cut new grass with scissors. The tender fresh grass seems best to start them on. Once they are eating well, I use the cubes - but I use a lot with all the tortoises I have so its easy to have on hand, especially for winter months. When you soak a cube, there is plenty of really small grass fibers for really small tortoises to easily eat. I often mix it with Soaked Mazuri.

I like Orchard grass cubes the best. Sometimes I cannot get the orchard grass, and I then get a blend that is ochard grass/alfalfa. I personally just don't go with straight alfalfa cubes as it is pretty high in protein. Not a huge problem, but I try to blend the diets towards high fiber, lower protein with the cubes.

 

[Tort dude]

Thanks Tort Dude. Sorry a couple more questions...any specific type? Alfalfa, Timothy, orchard? How about brand? Want to be sure my little dude is eating good.

pellets are easier to eat for them