Is coco fibre edible

[thetortoiseguy]

I give him food in his bowl and recently he has been pulling his food out of the bowl and into the coconut coir ,getting some on his food and eating it is this safe

 

[TortsNTurtles]

I am not a fan of coconut coir myself even though I use it. Tortuga Does not drag her food out of the bowl but drags some in and it drives me crazy.

So I am brainstorming and think I am going to try to lay down newspaper then cover the feeding area in ceramic tile on top of the news paper. I was going to place the tile upside down so the terra cotta side is up with no coating. I just may hate the idea but I plan on giving it a try this weekend. The rest of her enclosure where she sleeps and hangs out will have the coconut coir mix for her.

 

[WillTort2]

Ingesting some coco coir will not hurt them it should pass through. I keep a 1 foot square of slate in each enclosure as their feeding area. Before feeding I brush it off with a small brush then give one piece of whatever green I'm feeding for the day or several if weeds or small leafed varieties. After about 15 minutes, I put another leaf on the slate. If I put all of it on the slate at once they just push all of it into the substrate.

On interesting thing I've noticed is that when I go into their room in the mornings they will move to the edge of the slate to let me brush off the surface. They then do a quick about face to see what todays entree presents.

 

[kezilulu]

Sheldon's the same, he knows that if mummy moves the blue feeding bowl that magic is about to happen so over he wanders lol
They're amazing and know so much more of what's going on than we give them credit for lol
xXx

 

[biochemnerd808]

I wouldn't worry too much. I feed their food on a large flat rock, but a bit of coir usually gets tracked onto it. If you think about it, in the wild they surely get the occasional mouthful of dirt, too. As long as the tortoise isn't going out of his way to exclusively and purposefully eat the coco coir, he'll be fine, it will just pass through.

 

[Eltemp]

I had a similar problem but with my water bowl. I put some inch and a half river rock around my water bowl. this catches any coir stuck to them as they walk over it, thus keeping the water clean. It would work for you feeding area too. If the rock fills up just pick them out brush back the coir and then put the rocks back.