How much protein is too much?

[jockma]

The ones I find are pretty big too, the one I watched Bean eat was bigger than his head, now I've never owned a baby tort so I'm not sure what their little jaws are capable of, but bigger torts can bite through eggshells with no problem...I'm implying something that I'm too grossed out to elaborate on...

 

[Pearly]

The ones I find are pretty big too, the one I watched Bean eat was bigger than his head, now I've never owned a baby tort so I'm not sure what their little jaws are capable of, but bigger torts can bite through eggshells with no problem...I'm implying something that I'm too grossed out to elaborate on...

Hahah! You sound just like me! We are both big wooses

 

[Fish929]

Hi Pearly, this is not simply neutral, I'd say it is good. Snails are high in calcium. I have indoor tortoises who will "plow" through their substrate to get isopods (rolly pollys). I offer snails to all my indoor hingebacks.

In term of tortoises in the technical phylogeny sense, hingebacks, redfoots, and a few other are more like giant box turtles than say the mindset of traditional tortoises like a Testudo or sulcata.

I know this is an old thread but is it possible to buy feeder snails? I can catch wild ones occasionally but can’t seem to buy any. Thanks!

 

[ZEROPILOT]

I know this is an old thread but is it possible to buy feeder snails? I can catch wild ones occasionally but can’t seem to buy any. Thanks!

I found these in a quick search.
The canned ones have hopefully been sterilized and are free of pathogens.
Most of the others seem to be aquatic snails

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Aquatic snails carry larger potential parasite loads than terrestrial snails. You can find frozen (no shell) terrestrial snails at some ethnic (Asian) food stores. But that removes much of the value.

That value is the behavioral enrichment for the tortoises to catch and eat a snail, as well as the calcium content of the shell itself.

Many years ago when I worked at the Philly zoo out vets had a crazy criteria for us to feed snails to zoo animals, we were looking at apple snails for Caiman lizards. We had to cleanse an adult population with some anti parasite drugs, which killed most of the snails. Those that survived were bred through multiple populations too 'make sure'.

All for not, there was no parasites of concern in the first place.

Terrestrial snails in some locations have some sort of fluke that can infect dogs, yes dogs eat snails. However your local vets will know if that's a problem in your area. Many people breed (illegally and not me) African land snails to feed to their tortoises. I just collect snails from my yard, common European garden snails well distributed around the world. For me the problem is keeping them going in my yard - rats like and eat them too.