New Russian Tortoise owner

[Gizmo]

Hi everyone, I stumbled across this site as I was googling info about the new addition to my family, Gizmo the Russian Tortoise. I'm a tortoise newbie and would welcome any advice or tips anyone has to offer.


I did do quite a bit of research before I got Gizmo, but one thing that I'm not quite clear on is pellets. I'd prefer to keep Gizmo healthy by only feeding him natural food (greens, flowers, weeds etc), as long as I stick to that is it really necessary to feed him pellets? If store bought turtle food is anything like store bought dog food, I'm thinking pellets arent necessary as long as he has a well balanced diet of a variety of greens.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Gizmo:

Welcome to the Tortoise Forum!!

May we know your name?

Its nice if your tortoise learns to eat a good quality pelleted diet so that if you decide not to allow him to hibernate, you have some sort of food to fall back on when greens are scarce. But most of the time, you're right. Pellets aren't a necessity.

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome.

I'm not a fan of most pellets, but I do like Mazuri. I use it to make sure there are no nutritional "gaps" in my feeding regime.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Welcome from us!

 

[ascott]

Ahhh dang....coming in to say welcome and am behind that AWESOME aldabraman welcome shot (I really feel inadequate ....LOL)

I don't use pellets or the other stuff....just have not had experience with it...I try to cram my guys all tortoise season and then they sleep the winter months....

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oh yeah, WELCOME

 

[Gizmo]

Thanks for the welcomes! My name is Judy.

And oh my goodness are those real tortoises? I think I'm having tortoise envy, they're HUGE!

 

[dmarcus]

Hello Judy and welcome to the forum...