Opened full yard to sulcata, checking the plants for safety

[xirxes]

Decided to start offering Tortilla at 2 years old, 12" plastron our whole yard during the day, wanted to make sure I am safe with plants.

She will have access to: 5-7 different varieties of succulents, including sticks on fire, elephant food and a few other common ones I can get pics of later.

Mexicola avocado, grape vines, calandrinia, Purple Heart trandescantia and that's it.

I want her to get used to grazing and not daily feeding. I have bricked off any tight fits/one way in situations, and will keep an eye out to brick her away from stucco, and yes, she is just starting to be a wrecking ball. She wasn't out for 3 hours before she knocked over a fully planted 2.5gallon pot!

Please let me know if anything stands out thanks!

 

[xirxes]

These are the others

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

That last one (the only one I can I.D. for you) looks like the succulent, "Hens and Chicks" to me. If so you will need to protect them from your tortoise not your tortoise from them. They love them. It's a prolific grower and reproducer.
You made reference to a plant called, "elephant food" in your first post here. By elephant food do you mean what some call "miniature jade plant"? If so it edible but not likely your tortoise will want to eat on it. The leaves are very sour.

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

Grape leaves are great as well.
Do us all a favor here. On you profile, please update it to include where you live. Not your address, but like your city, state, this helps us narrow our help for you. Also if you can include pictures of the other plants the you gave English names for will help us out lots. Many times we'll have someone ask if the cactus in their backyard is good for their tortoise but without a picture or Latin name for the cactus it's hard to know, ya know?

 

[xirxes]

I apologize, the others are not succulents. They are common known drought tolerant plants around here.

Wandering Jew

Calandrina

I won't defend any plants as I have boatloads of all if these in front and rear of property.

I'm opening up the yard because she really gets around now and there are 3000 sq ft of grass, 60 ft of grapes and all these succulents just outside her current enclosure.

 

[Markw84]

You mentioned avocado. I am not conservative when it comes to plants that many list as "do not feed". However, Avocado is quite poisonous. I have a tree as I love avocados and guacamole, but I am extremely diligent about letting leaves not get anywhere my tortoises may have access.

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

I love avocados and guacamole

Mark, you and I share the same blood here for our greediness of avocados and guacamole' paste. We need to have a get together somehow with bar-b-qued slabs of dead cow and loads of guacamole' paste! And Coors Original of course.

 

[xirxes]

You mentioned avocado. I am not conservative when it comes to plants that many list as "do not feed". However, Avocado is quite poisonous. I have a tree as I love avocados and guacamole, but I am extremely diligent about letting leaves not get anywhere my tortoises may have access.

Ok this is new to me. I will keep her bricked away from fallen avocado leaf area. Thanks!

 

[xirxes]

Glad to note that she has easily mapped our additional ~3000 square feet of space and finds her way back into her hot house each night... within 2 days!

I was able to watch her new routine today, she walks across yard and finds her way to under our grapes, and proceeds to eat low hanging grapes, both green and red.

I know grapes aren't a good food for sulcatas, but are they disastrous? This issue is not one I can keep her penned away from, and I will have grapes 6 months of the year roughly.

So should I leave her access to 3000 sq ft of grass, succulents and grape leaves/fruit or pen her back up in 200 sq ft dirt, hay, agave and incident grass?

 

[Tom]

First and foremost, your tortoise should NOT have access to any of these plants until AFTER you verify they are all safe to eat. I can't help you with that verification as I don't know any of your plants, but don't let the tortoise near that stuff until you know.

Second, no your tortoise should not be eating grapes. They are toxic to dogs and cats, and the sugars are very bad for your tortoises GI flora and fauna in large amounts like that.

 

[xirxes]

I did verify safety of all plants. I have closed off the avocado and the rest are aces.

As far as grapes go, looks like tortilla will only get unsupervised access after all low grapes are harvested.

As far as the dogs, they are chihuahua mixes and as such get into everything... whole bags of chocolates, avocados, tomatoes from greenhouse, lizards you name it they eat it..... except grapes. They just won't touch them. Lucky for me I guess.

Thanks.

 

[Tom]

As far as grapes go, looks like tortilla will only get unsupervised access after all low grapes are harvested.

I just clip off all the lower growing ones. Heck, I clip off most of the grape clusters, as I've been told this will encourage more vine and leaf growth, which is what I'm after.

 

[xirxes]

I just clip off all the lower growing ones. Heck, I clip off most of the grape clusters, as I've been told this will encourage more vine and leaf growth, which is what I'm after.

We have 60ft of vines and two little girls who eat grapes like it's going out of style, so we are utilizing the whole plant.

I think I have about 100 large bunches and maybe 30 small ones at this time. Feels good to be able to grab a heaping bowl of grapes off the vine at dinner time!