Oxalis stricta

[Tom]

Thanks to you guys, I just discovered that I've been feeding Oxalis stricta to my sulcatas for years. I thought it was "clover" and totally fine. The site that I looked at said its good for flavor in salads, but not in large quantities due to the high oxalic acid content. They've only had a few handfuls over the years, with days or weeks in between, and it doesn't seem to have bothered them. They live outside in the sunshine, get CA supplementation occasionally, and have a very varied diet, so I think we'll be okay.

 

[chadk]

There is oxalis in my tort yard too. My Sullies seem to do fine avoiding it. But I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of it just to be safe. Any ideas? Clearly I can't use any chemicals as this is their daily pen. May just have to dig it up and try to replant... Just a few sections, so may not be too hard.

 

[Tom]

There is oxalis in my tort yard too. My Sullies seem to do fine avoiding it. But I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of it just to be safe. Any ideas? Clearly I can't use any chemicals as this is their daily pen. May just have to dig it up and try to replant... Just a few sections, so may not be too hard.

When I was intentionally feeding it out, it was very easy to pull the roots out if the soil was at all damp. I was trying to harvest it and not kill the plants with the hope that it would re-grow so I could feed some more. I got pretty good at this quick sideways snatch technique, but if you just gather and grab the whole plant and then pull straight up the roots will come right out. I had to do this with a bunch of fiddleneck(Amsinckia douglasiana) in my big pen. One tap-rooted plant at a time... for 6000 square feet... not fun.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Kelly and Danny talk about it causing stones in their Greeks. My tortoises have been eating it for a few years without any evidence of problems. I also let them eat spinach. I think the stones is a species thing. Sulcata drink more and pee more and I think that may be something to look at. I have a couple of Mediterranean tortoises (not Greeks) and I had noticed they don't drink or pee as much as my Sulcata.(does anything?) So I personally think it's a species thing. Without Kelly here to contradict me I've decided to always show both sides of the argument...
But seriously, I do think it's a species thing and I think it has something to do with water intake and outgo...Bob's pen is thickly planted with several different types of oxalis and he's always eaten it without any evidence of problems. I also pick it and feed it to my small inside tortoises without any evidence of problems. But because of what they (Kelly and Danny)have said about stones I have stopped feeding oxalis to my Mediterranean tortoises. When I say I feed spinach to my tortoises I mean I add it to the tort salad about once a month. Spinach does also have healthy properties to it as well as bad.
Remember...when I talk about feeding anything I also talk variety. I feed a lot of different stuff to my animals, I walk my neighborhood collecting different weeds, leafs, grasses and blossoms. It's harder now that winter is here and my feet were broken, but we've only had snow once so most of the collectible stuff has drowned with the monsoon rains.
The key is to feed as much of a variety as possible and to keep your animals hydrated.
So I feed oxalis and if I get stones I sure will let the group know first hand...

 

[Yvonne G]

In my horse pastures there are clumps of oxalis and spurge. The horses don't eat it, and the grass grows very tall in these clumps.

I have three sections to rotate the horses through. When they are on one section, I use a broad-leaf weed killer in the third section to kill the spurge and oxalis. I spray one day, then water every day after that for about two and a half weeks. By the end of that time, its time for the horses to come back to this pasture and the weed killer has been sufficiently absorbed by the plant and washed off by the watering. I've always done this for as long as I've had horses. I realize that horses and tortoises aren't the same animal, but I don't see why it wouldn't work the same way. Fence off the section to be sprayed to keep the tortoise off it for three weeks or a month. The weed killer that I use states on the label that it is safe to enter the area after one hour. So it should be safe to eat that grass after a month of watering. But one could always call the Mfg. and ask to be sure.