Preferred Protein Source?

[Madkins007]

Preferred bugs- they seem to LOVE slugs!

Bugs to avoid- none I know of.

 

[Nixxy]

I've heard that, albeit a bit gross...

I'll have to put one in his enclosure and see how he likes it. Personally, it seems like the last insect I would eat..but hey, some people do eat snails?

 

[jmaneyapanda]

I understand the distaste in feeding pinkies.... But, these animal eat carrion in the wild. Including and and all aspects of it- organs, bones, cartilage, sinew- all the gross parts. It bears credence that they do this functionally. And perhaps not something we should overlook in captivity?

 

[Madkins007]

I understand the distaste in feeding pinkies.... But, these animal eat carrion in the wild. Including and and all aspects of it- organs, bones, cartilage, sinew- all the gross parts. It bears credence that they do this functionally. And perhaps not something we should overlook in captivity?

While they eat carrion freely, the problem with pinkies is that they are basically little balls of fatty meat protein without enough development to have a lot of bones, cartilage, organs, etc.

There is an interesting site with the nutritional values of things like this on it-
- Invertebrates- http://www.house-of-reptiles.com/feederinvertebrates.pdf
- Vertebrates- http://www.house-of-reptiles.com/feedervertebrates.pdf

 

[jmaneyapanda]

While they eat carrion freely, the problem with pinkies is that they are basically little balls of fatty meat protein without enough development to have a lot of bones, cartilage, organs, etc.

There is an interesting site with the nutritional values of things like this on it-
- Invertebrates- http://www.house-of-reptiles.com/feederinvertebrates.pdf
- Vertebrates- http://www.house-of-reptiles.com/feedervertebrates.pdf

Agreed 100%. I did not mean to imply that pinkies are the ideal protein source. I simply meant to denote that perhaps a distaste in food source should not outweigh the potential benefits to the animals in our charge.

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While they eat carrion freely, the problem with pinkies is that they are basically little balls of fatty meat protein without enough development to have a lot of bones, cartilage, organs, etc.

There is an interesting site with the nutritional values of things like this on it-
- Invertebrates- http://www.house-of-reptiles.com/feederinvertebrates.pdf
- Vertebrates- http://www.house-of-reptiles.com/feedervertebrates.pdf

Also- I think that chart is a great idea, but the execution seems a bit lackluster. However, It does offer a good trending overview of what can be expected.

On the flipside, it is complicated for us to know, predict, and offer alternate diets basedon such charts, when we don't necessarily know what specific components are lacking in the animals consumption in real time.

 

[Madkins007]

I've remade charts like that in the past with an eye towards what a tortoise needs (you can see a couple corrupted versions in the Library), but it is really time consuming and really, really hard to offer that much data in a way that is easy to comprehend and use effectively.

 

[Len B]

Chicken Hearts, texture wise, they are between the liver (to soft and messy) and gizzard (to tough), I have been feeding them to my aquatic turtles for years but never thought about giving them to any of the tortoises, This morning I gave boiled hearts (quartered) to the eastern box turtles, yellow footed, and all the manouria, the only ones that showed no interest were the yellow foots, the impressed even ate it which surprised me, learn something new every day.