Mazuri Confusion

[TaraDodrill]

I was doing a bit more reading on Sulcatas, trying to get the exact right mix of food. All of the info. on the forum has been excellent. I was reading on the Sulcata Station, and it said to NEVER give Mazuri beause it contains too much protein. Safe, not safe?

http://www.sulcata-station.org/diet.html

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Tara:

Your sulcatas eat protein every day. All plant material contain protein. In the olden days, people used to feed ANIMAL protein to grass-eating tortoises. So when you hear people say don't give your sulcata protein, that's what they're referring to...animal protein. Take a look at these pictures. The keeper feeds his tortoises - all his tortoises - Mazuri exclusively:

http://www.shelledwarriors.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=10222&highlight=manufactured+diets

If you click on the picture it makes it bigger.

 

[wellington]

I don't know how accurate the site you mentioned is. However I do know that the info you will get here is as accurate as you will find. I learned the hard way when I got my leopard, and know I have a pyramided tort, that fortunately is getting the proper care now because of Tom and the others on TFO.
Mazuri is safe, but not meant to be a big or main part of their diet. I have it for my leopard, he just won't eat it yet. Variety is always best.

 

[TaraDodrill]

Hi Tara:

Your sulcatas eat protein every day. All plant material contain protein. In the olden days, people used to feed ANIMAL protein to grass-eating tortoises. So when you hear people say don't give your sulcata protein, that's what they're referring to...animal protein. Take a look at these pictures. The keeper feeds his tortoises - all his tortoises - Mazuri exclusively:

http://www.shelledwarriors.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=10222&highlight=manufactured+diets

If you click on the picture it makes it bigger.

Thank you both very much. I trust this forum above all else. I just want to make sure that we are doing everthing correctly for our girls, which could turn out to be boys, lol. For now they are keepingtheir female names, but that may change once they grow enough to tell for sure. I study them closely and compare with pics of the various parts of their bodies which are supposed to alert you to their sex, but they are just still too young to tell for sure.

 

[Arizona Sulcata]

Hey Tara,
It is safe as long as you don't use it as a primary food source. I met a guy this week who had 9 sulcatas and all he fed them was Mazuri and they all had severe pyramiding. I only feed it to mine once a week at most, usually once every two weeks. As long as you use it in moderation its a good mixup to their normal diet.
-Austin

 

[TaraDodrill]

Hey Tara,
It is safe as long as you don't use it as a primary food source. I met a guy this week who had 9 sulcatas and all he fed them was Mazuri and they all had severe pyramiding. I only feed it to mine once a week at most, usually once every two weeks. As long as you use it in moderation its a good mixup to their normal diet.
-Austin

Thanks again Austin for sharing your insight. Hope your latest clutch of Sulcatas are progressing well!

 

[N2TORTS]

I don't know how accurate the site you mentioned is. However I do know that the info you will get here is as accurate as you will find. I learned the hard way when I got my leopard, and know I have a pyramided tort, that fortunately is getting the proper care now because of Tom and the others on TFO.
Mazuri is safe, but not meant to be a big or main part of their diet. I have it for my leopard, he just won't eat it yet. Variety is always best.

That site is very reliable , with all sites and keepers around the world you will get different opinions. Plus the fact , I would trust Y'vonne has more years experience with torts than you have been on this planet. This isn’t the first time I have seen you rifle out negative vibes....and input. Everyone is entitled to their opinion , no doubt . Just with maturity you do it with more class.
As far as Mazuri is concerned... YES it's safe, just dont make it a staple diet , like mentioned " variety is the key. I own Leo's , sullie's , Radi' , Redfoots, DT's .... THEY ALL EAT IT! .......and I would tend to say I have some dam good looking torts , raised years without and now with Mazuri with no ill effects . But thats not their entire diet, and there are other several factors involved in raising a healthy tortoise in captivity.

JD

 

[Jacob]

There Is Always Mixed Reports.
Many TFO Members Use Muzuri With Great Results, Few Suffer From Getting Too Much, Just Feed It in Moderation
and you will be safe.

 

[wellington]

Hey Tara,
It is safe as long as you don't use it as a primary food source. I met a guy this week who had 9 sulcatas and all he fed them was Mazuri and they all had severe pyramiding. I only feed it to mine once a week at most, usually once every two weeks. As long as you use it in moderation its a good mixup to their normal diet.
-Austin

I would love to know how humid they were raised. Mazuri didn't do the pyramiding, most likely. My opinion anyway.

 

[Kristina]

Hey Tara,
It is safe as long as you don't use it as a primary food source. I met a guy this week who had 9 sulcatas and all he fed them was Mazuri and they all had severe pyramiding. I only feed it to mine once a week at most, usually once every two weeks. As long as you use it in moderation its a good mixup to their normal diet.
-Austin

I would love to know how humid they were raised. Mazuri didn't do the pyramiding, most likely. My opinion anyway.

I agree. Take a look here -

See any pyramiding? Nope That baby has eaten Mazuri every day for the last several months. It wasn't the Mazuri that did the pyramiding.

What Yvonne (emyemys) explained about protein was perfectly accurate. There is a big difference between PLANT protein and ANIMAL protein. Now, years ago a myth developed somehow that protein was responsible for pyramiding. That led a lot of people to cut out a lot of food items from their tortoise's diets, including plant items with high level of protein like alfalfa and spinach. But tortoises STILL pyramided. How that myth grew and perpetuated for so long is completely beyond me.

Tortoises and box turtles that are fed an ANIMAL protein rich food, like canned cat or dog food or monkey chow, grow to be hideously deformed. I personally believe this has less to do with the fact that they have been feed excess amounts of protein and more to do with the lack of any other nutrients in the diet, but I digress. With grassland tortoises like Sulcatas, though, excessive animal protein could possibly be extremely hard on the liver and kidneys, causing health issues later on.

(Just a side note - I have inclosures with what is called a "bioactive substrate." That means there are living bacteria and other organisms in the soil, along with plants, to create a miniature ecosystem. There are an abundance of worms, isopods, snails, slugs, etc. living in my enclosures, and quite often they hang out under the water dishes. Just a couple of days ago, when I removed the dish for a scrub, one of my baby Sulcatas, Devon, found and ate a worm. I have doubts as to the total exclusion of animal protein in the diet of wild tortoises, as I have also seen an adult Russian tortoise eating a slug in my yard, but again I digress.)

In recent years and months, we have made quite a few advances in the causes of pyramiding. As I demonstrated above with the picture of my baby Dee, protein obviously has little to nothing to do with it. Now, Sulcata Station is one of the best Sulcata care sites there are. It is just that a lot of the the things we discover and discuss here on TFO have not yet been widely accepted or discovered by the tortoise community as a whole.

 

[Neal]

We feed ours mazuri often and have never had any issues with pyramiding or other health related issues. Kristina has given a good explanation with pictures, there is a leopard owner on here who says that he feeds his everyday, and all of his leopards are large and smooth and otherwise apparently healthy. From the people who actually use it, I have never heard any complaints. I was part of an email tortoise group some years ago and mentioned I fed mine mazuri and was immediately attacked for subjecting my tortoises to such a horrible diet. Then I asked for first hand experience, and all I heard were crickets...of all who were saying it was such a bad product, none of them had even tried it.

My 2 cents.

 

[Madkins007]

To make sense of this contradiction, you need to understand that several years ago proteins were thought to be a major cause of pyramiding. In fact, a pretty nice study was undertaken to prove this once and for all- but to their surprise, protein had almost no effect on causing or preventing pyramiding. In fact, while several factors were involved, one of the main ones was determined to be humidity. This was a shocker as humidity was considered a non-issue for many species of tortoises for a long time.

Pyramiding is a bone development issue. EVERYTHING that affects bone growth contributes to causing or preventing pyramiding. Diet, hydration, exercise, calcium, iron, vitamin D, sleep, etc. One of the problems is that we tend to struggle to balance everything correctly, especially in the face of conflicting data.

 

[Kristina]

One thing I want to make clear about my "feeding Mazuri every day..." This is absolutely not the norm for me. I typically use it as a "supplemental" food. The reason that I have been giving it daily to the tortoise pictured above (and his two siblings) had to do with a growth issue. I truly believe that Mazuri is responsible for the accelerated growth I have seen in these hatchlings. I do not normally advocate accelerated growth, but these particular three are undersized for their age and I am trying to correct that.

 

[TaraDodrill]

Thanks Kristina. If the sullies I just adopted are truly the age the man said, they are undersized as well.

 

[EKLC]

I like how mazuri seems to get torts out of their vulnerable hatchling phase quickly.

 

[Livingstone]

Feed it daily. Soak it in hot water to make it soft then mix it with zoomed grassland. 1 cup mazuri, .25 cup grassland.