New to Tortoises
- Thread starter Dartanien
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If you have a larger tortoise, you can buy a bale of grass hay at a feed store (or ask the feed dealer if you can bag up some loose hay droppings from around the pile). If you have a smaller tortoise, you can purchase some really nice and fresh grass hay from www.carolinapetsupply.com The have one product called "Salad-style Hay" that is all cut up nice and small. It smells fresh and its clean.
Yvonne
Yvonne
Dartanien said:
The smaller tortoises really aren't interested in eating hay. But you can clip some clean grass with the scissors and sprinkle it over the wet greens, giving them a taste for it.
Yvonne
It's about one year old and looks like it might have had hay in his diet. They used it as bedding while offering Romaine lettuce/spinach every other day. Oh, and it's 1 year old. Thanks for all the help and quick responses!
Hi Dartanien, Romaine and Spinach should not be used as a base for any tort. There are such better choices out there. Are you now the owner of this sully?
Since its just a baby, I'd go with the dark leafy greens, moistened, and sprinkle the Salad-style hay over the greens. You should vary the greens more than just the two kinds you mentioned. If you look in the produce section of the grocery store in the packaged lettuces, you'll find a product called Spring Mix, or sometimes Baby Greens. Its a mixture of the very young leaves of different lettuces consisting of organic red/green leaf lettuce, romaine, oak leaf lettuce, lolo rosa, chard, mizuna, arugula, mache, frisee, radicchio, endive and escarole. This is a nice variety and the babies can eat it with no trouble.
Yvonne
Yvonne
Yea, I've had it for about 2 days now. I've been taking it outside (not on grass because it is sprayed). I built it a table that is in it's finishing stages. I spent about 2 minutes online and found that the romaine lettuce and spinach is a bad diet. Some sites even say to stay away from spinach entirely. His bedding is hay and I've offered him little romaine lettuce.
You can save yourself a good deal of grief if you look into Mazuri Tortoise diet. With that diet you don't have to worry about any of your tortoises nutritional needs or worries.
I recommend it be fed with dark leafy greens but it is a complete diet. Check out some of the threads on the diet throughout this forum.
You can then focus all your attention on other areas such as environmental conditions and such.
I recommend it be fed with dark leafy greens but it is a complete diet. Check out some of the threads on the diet throughout this forum.
You can then focus all your attention on other areas such as environmental conditions and such.
Dartanien said:
That's the beauty of the stuff... it is complete... no uvb needed. The greens are just to add variety... I suggest stuff like plantain, dandelion and any broad leafy weed you can find.
I suggest feeding twice a week.. moistened... as much as the tortoise will eat in one sitting... then remove the food. Over time you will get an idea of how much it eats and that will save you waste.
T-Rex is coming out with an identical diet but that doesn't help you now. If you do a web search you can find many outlets that sell small portions.
Ed
I suggest feeding twice a week.. moistened... as much as the tortoise will eat in one sitting... then remove the food. Over time you will get an idea of how much it eats and that will save you waste.
T-Rex is coming out with an identical diet but that doesn't help you now. If you do a web search you can find many outlets that sell small portions.
Ed
Dartanien said:
Dartanien said:
ive never fed my sulcata any kind of hay. should it be 75% of their diet??
should i start feeding him something like that?
oh CRAP ... I just gave my Hermann spinach ... he/she wolfed it down
I've not had this lil juvie even a week yet. Just found this forum today .... guess I have more reading to do! Soooo how bad was the spinach??
I've not had this lil juvie even a week yet. Just found this forum today .... guess I have more reading to do! Soooo how bad was the spinach??
pebbles mom said:oh CRAP ... I just gave my Hermann spinach ... he/she wolfed it down
Spinach isn't bad as an occasional addition to his diet. But spinach all the time isn't good. The spinach binds calcium to it as it processes through the body, and the calcium is excreted along with the other wastes. So you don't want to feed spinach all the time.
Yvonne
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