How do YOU chop them up? Simply with a knife like dicing veggies? Or in a blender? Ernie isn't a baby or hatchling..is it even necessary that I chop them for him?
chadk said:Vitamix is brand of blender. You want to chop up the seeds to get the possible benefits of fighting parasite loads.
emysemys said:If you want to feed your left over pumpkin to your tortoise, that's perfectly fine. Its a good food source for them. If you have a smaller tortoise, you might have to nuke it a bit in the micro-wave to soften it so he can bite it, but if its a larger tortoise, they are able to bite the pumpkin as is.
Far as the seeds go, if your tortoise's throat is bigger than the pumpkin seeds, he can swallow them whole, however, if you want to reap the benefits of the seeds as a de-wormer, then you'll have to grind them up. Otherwise they just pass right on through.
Mao Senpai said:If you have a bigger tortoise I guess chopping it will be fine as long as there aren't sharp pieces... I would get worried if it would get stuck or cut something on the way in and out.
Mine are still little babies so that's why I blended it, but if yours are huge then let them eat it whole or chop it up finely whichever works.
emysemys said:No, if you want to use the seeds as a de-wormer, you have to grind them up. The chopped seeds still just pass right through in the chopped up state.
If you're just worried about the tortoise choking on the seeds, don't include the seeds. Its easy enough to scrape them out and toss them. Its an awful lot of work to chop them up just to have the tortoise get no benefit from eating them.
emysemys said:I'm still not sure if you're wanting to de-worm your tortoises or just give them a pumpkin treat...so...
Both, really
I only feed pumpkin in the fall when they're plentiful. Its just like anything else, a nice varied diet is good for them. So a little pumpkin occasionally isn't going to harm anything.
Gotcha!
I would only use the seeds as a de-wormer (and we're using the word "worm" here instead of parasite, both meaning the same thing) twice a year. If you want to feed the seeds in the fall, then I would buy some Panacur and de-worm the tortoises with that in the Spring.
(and a quick note for next time: if you clean off the seeds and put them on a cookie sheet in the oven on a very low heat, it will dry them out and they grind up much easier in the blender...not gooey at all)