Meal Time with Oscar

[mrlax]

I havent posted any pics of our 6 month old Oscar in a while.
He seems to be doing great- having gone from 24g in July 2012 to 75g as of this morning. No idea if this is a normal rate of growth or not, especially for a nearly exclusively indoor tortoise.

Here are some pics of his feast today- consisting of dandelion greens, cactus, arugula, some edible flowers, mixed with grassland pellets and some calcium/D3 powder.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

mrlax, based on the photo evidence your mostly indoor husbandry seems to be excellent. Will

 

[KingInCulver]

so cute!! what made you choose a pancake?

 

[african cake queen]

hi, oscar is a lilltle heart breaker. so cute. where do you get cactus for oscar? i dont know where to get my cakes some.

 

[TortoiseBoy1999]

He's so cute!

 

[cemmons12]

Nice looking tort! They are so cool!
Momo: I get cactus from coastalsilkworms.com as well as my Mazuri, for a good deal for a 50 lb bag of it I believe it is.

 

[TortoiseWorld]

Nice pics, thank you for sharing.

 

[mainey34]

Cute little guy..thank you for sharing...

 

[MrJorgensen]

Very cute little guy!

 

[Creedence]

Adorable! Your enclosure looks REALLY nice/unique, too.

 

[african cake queen]

Nice looking tort! They are so cool!
Momo: I get cactus from coastalsilkworms.com as well as my Mazuri, for a good deal for a 50 lb bag of it I believe it is.

thank you. would love to give some to my cakes. i only have 2 cakes, 50 lbs. too much. i will check it out . thanks again.

 

[mrlax]

Thanks for your comments and questions. We chose the pancake because it is a relatively small species, and of course very unique. We live in SF (currently in an apartment) where outdoor time is extremely limited due to the temps. We have some opportunities in the summer/fall to get him some sun, but this is limited for sure. As I said, our growth has been encouraging and his shell seems ok so far, but I have no other experience with this species or basis for comparison.

As for cactus- we are lucky to have a few options. Some stores sell it by the paddle around here (about .90-$1/lb). I also bought a cut/chopped bag of cactus recently and frozen most of it. This was about a 1lb bag. These were local stores (best bet in the Bay Area is Berkeley Bowl...), none of the 'major/national' markets (Wholefoods, Safeway, etc) seem to carry it. Some ethnic grocery stores/Mexican specialty grocery stores may have it also. We also purchased these edible flowers from Jacob farms for about $2. Im sure I could get other flowers in other ways but I have no idea which are/aren't edible. I figured if they are safe/edible for humans that a tortoise will be fine with it too. The flowers have rapidly become his favorite food- he almost always picks it out among the other goodies. Anyways, hope this is helpful....