New tortoise owner confused about food!

[Lynnard]

Hello everyone!
I just got myself a new tortoise friend, he's a Russian tortoise, he's roughly 3-4 inches in length and I'm so confused about feeding! Everywhere you look online says something different and I could really use some help.

-How much should I be feeding him at this size?

-What should I be feeding him? Some places say just leafy greens, the pet store said I could feed him anything I would eat, which is so wrong.

-Should I feed him hay? If so how much? Do I need to rehydrate it?

-Should I be providing him pellet food as well as veggies?

If you guys could help me out that would be amazing!

 

[SinLA]

welcome to the forum and congrats on your new addition! I recommend starting here:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

It’s a LOT of information to digest, but it’s worth the read.

In addition to your questions about food, can you provide photos of your enclosure and lighting set up people will be able to give you really good personalized advice that way.

As far as food, you pretty much can’t overfeed them so long as they have enough room to walk around and get appropriate exercise. So just give them enough that they leave some over when they are done each day.

No hay for Russians, no fruit you can try soaking pellets and water and mixing it in, but if they aren’t used to it, they will not eat it at first most likely.

There are a lot of sources on here with lists of food and there’s also a really good website called The Tortoise Table which has an app, though it is a little conservative on what it says it’s appropriate and not.

The key is you want a nice variety not just one thing over and over again. If you are going to supplement food, you yourself have grown or picked from area you know are pesticide safe, I find Endive, dandelion greens, radicchio and Escarole are easy to locate.

The link provided will give you another link for Russians as well which talks about food, but start with the first one:

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

Don’t hesitate to ask questions!

 

[jsheffield]

Welcome!

If you read the guides linked to above, you'll be ahead of most people in the world in terms of taking good care of your tortoise.

Jamie

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Hello everyone!
I just got myself a new tortoise friend, he's a Russian tortoise, he's roughly 3-4 inches in length and I'm so confused about feeding! Everywhere you look online says something different and I could really use some help.

Congrats on the new shelled buddy

-How much should I be feeding him at this size?

I hear the general rule is to feed a pile the size of the tortoise. If they eat it all, give them more. However, I have never restricted food for my tortoises. My dog's food is measured but not my tortoise's food. He grazes all day long. I've always set him up to do that. It's the best way to do it in my opinion.

-What should I be feeding him? Some places say just leafy greens, the pet store said I could feed him anything I would eat, which is so wrong.

If you build a nice, large, outdoor enclosure and plant it full of grasses, broadleaf weeds & other garden edibles, he can regulate his own diet. Tortoise Supply sells seed mixes for just this purpose. Buy the seed mix, plant it, water it and watch the good food grow!

-Should I feed him hay? If so how much? Do I need to rehydrate it?

For a Russian? No. For a large sulcata, yes...but you don't have one.

-Should I be providing him pellet food as well as veggies?

This will get mixed answers. Some say yes, some say no. Some keepers swear by Mazuri, while others hate it. When my tortoises were growing, I used Mazuri fairly regularly. Now that Levi is 11, he occasionally (or more likely rarely) gets it. I have a bag on hand...but just don't use it that often.

If you guys could help me out that would be amazing!

Whenever you search the internet for advice, you will always find answers for both sides of any question. You will find one who says "this" is good and another who says "that" is better.

My advice is this:
Look for the people producing the results YOU like. Then follow the steps that person took to get there.

For example, I wanted to raise a smooth leopard tortoise. The internet is FULL of conflicting info regarding raising leopards. There are many heated debates on the topic even! All of my local turtle club keepers all had very bumpy, oddly shaped leopard tortoises. However, some guy named @Tom on the internet had smooth ones. My club members gave me lots of advice....but I didn't want my guy to look like theirs. So, I followed the advice of a guy online that I didn't even know because I liked his results. He was producing smooth shelled leopard tortoises. The others following his advice were producing smooth shelled leopards too. Despite all of the controversy and conflicting information, I followed his advice and sure enough, I achieved those same results.

When I kept Russian tortoises in CA, I saw people who kept them indoors and dealt with flipping, pacing, scratching walls and dormant behavior. I saw other people who kept them outdoors, in well planted enclosures who enjoyed sitting by the gardens, watching the turtles cruise the space, eating and basking in the sun. THOSE were the results I wanted, so that's what I did.

Looking at results makes it much easier to weigh the decision of "whose advice do I follow?" in many different areas of life.

Hope this helps!

 

[RosemaryDW]

Dang, Levi getting in here with ALL the right words!

Welcome Lynnard and what sounds to be an adult or nearly adult Russian tortoise. Take a good long look at the threads referenced above. Then read them a couple more times.

While it is a very human way to think on it, food is not the most immediate need your tortoise has; it's housing and setup that matter the most. Soak your tortoise in the morning tomorrow before he wakes up (it should be described in one of these threads) and get the setup right. You can get back to improving the diet after that's settled.