Question about Clover

[tcjones]

Hi everyone. I'm a new tort owner. This morning, I took my new tort, Darwin, to the vet for a checkup. The vet told me to not let him eat new spring clover. She said the first clover growth of spring is toxic to torts and went on a long rant about nitrogen. But clover grown later in the year is fine. Has anyone ever heard of this? I've scoured these forums and I can't find this anywhere else.

 

[Bambam1989]

I have never heard of avoiding new growth before.

 

[Taylor T.]

Nope, never heard of that.

 

[TammyJ]

Hi everyone. I'm a new tort owner. This morning, I took my new tort, Darwin, to the vet for a checkup. The vet told me to not let him eat new spring clover. She said the first clover growth of spring is toxic to torts and went on a long rant about nitrogen. But clover grown later in the year is fine. Has anyone ever heard of this? I've scoured these forums and I can't find this anywhere else.

My redfoots must be on the verge of death from all the deadly poisonous clover they have been eating in my yard for the two years I have had them
RIP, my little darlings. I am so very sorry.
Just joking.
This sounds like nonsense to me. Anyone else hear anything like this? Or is it time for the poster to get a second opinion/new vet???

 

[Tom]

I've been feeding all life stages of clover for decades to 1000's of tortoises of many species and all ages from day old hatchlings to 100+ pound adult sulcatas.

Maybe I'm ignorant, but this is new info for me, and I don't see how it could be a problem since so many tortoises have been eating so much of it for so long. I work with and am friends with several vets who share all their tortoise stories with me, and not one of them has ever mentioned a case of early season clover toxicity.

I think there must be some misunderstanding or confusion somewhere.

@Will is very knowledgable in this arena. Will, may we have your input on this subject?

 

[TangyBubbles]

Hi everyone. I'm a new tort owner. This morning, I took my new tort, Darwin, to the vet for a checkup. The vet told me to not let him eat new spring clover. She said the first clover growth of spring is toxic to torts and went on a long rant about nitrogen. But clover grown later in the year is fine. Has anyone ever heard of this? I've scoured these forums and I can't find this anywhere else.

Can't quite say, my tort may only eat a minimum of grass. She likes dirt, tomatoes alot, and fruit but doesn't eat grapes as much, she seems to be picky. It took her a while to eat and get use to her dry grasshoppers or crickets(i forgot which one) and tortoise pellet food, but that did come in handy brining her back home when she ran away the last time, I made a trail and just simply threw them on our street, there I found her. My friend who babysat her, fed her these tiny little black inch worms that she was also feeding her baby torts.... Needless to say, I still haven't taken Tangy to a Vetenarian yet. The Vet is right some grasses have toxics. Spraying for mosquitos n stuff, u just gotta watch....

 

[Tom]

@TangyBubbles
What species have you got?
Is your tortoise not in a secure enclosure? How did it "run away"?

 

[TangyBubbles]

@TangyBubbles
What species have you got?
Is your tortoise not in a secure enclosure? How did it "run away"?

Idek, I her her in a cage out side and she got out somehow

 

[TammyJ]

Can't quite say, my tort may only eat a minimum of grass. She likes dirt, tomatoes alot, and fruit but doesn't eat grapes as much, she seems to be picky. It took her a while to eat and get use to her dry grasshoppers or crickets(i forgot which one) and tortoise pellet food, but that did come in handy brining her back home when she ran away the last time, I made a trail and just simply threw them on our street, there I found her. My friend who babysat her, fed her these tiny little black inch worms that she was also feeding her baby torts.... Needless to say, I still haven't taken Tangy to a Vetenarian yet. The Vet is right some grasses have toxics. Spraying for mosquitos n stuff, u just gotta watch....

The vet said that the first spring clover was toxic is what I read.
We all know to not let them go near any possibly chemically sprayed grass or plants, that is another matter entirely.

 

[RosemaryDW]

Clover adds nitrogen to the soil; that’s why it’s used as a cover crop in fields: to add nitrogen back to depleted soils. @Will can surely tell us more about it, in terms of its harmful and healthful properties.

That said, I personally wouldn’t worry about a tortoise eating it in the spring, so long as they are getting a varied diet in the long term. Clover is also a legume—a relatively high vegetable protein food—and no one seems to fuss about that, either.

If you take a good look at entries in the Tortoise Table, some of them do reference plants taking up certain toxins at different points of growth or when stored a certain way. Again, I don’t worry too much about those references because my tortoise has access to different foods. YMMV.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

So, you do all know that some huge majority (like 90-something %, not 51% which is also a 'majority) of animal feed studies are done with cows, chickens, pigs and goats, sometime rabbits too.

Sweet Clover
https://beef.unl.edu/clovergood cows are a good substitute for tortoises in the sense that they ruminate and in a sense so do tortoises with that against the mouth to a$$ flow of food bolus thing they can do. Again, this is when the tortoise pass food from the small intestine to the large, "normal direction" and the opposite when the can move a bolus of food from large intestine back to the small intestines "abnormal", but nutrient thrifty. Note: this particular example is regarding sweet clover.
More on sweet clover (this article is about moldy stored sweet clover) https://www.merckvetmanual.com/toxicology/sweet-clover-poisoning/overview-of-sweet-clover-poisoning.
And what it looks like in this wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melilotus_officinalis

Red Clover
the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifolium_pratense
Feedipedia https://www.feedipedia.org/node/246

White clover
General comments related to cows http://www.fao.org/docrep/v2350e/v2350e02.htm
Feedipedia https://www.feedipedia.org/node/245
Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifolium_repens

To me it looks like most problems with clover, any of them, is how dried clover is stored (based on the drying in the first place). People will say it's too high in protein, but have you looked at the universally accepted protein content in plantain (??) https://www.feedipedia.org/node/114 even a bit higher.

It goes to that idea of variety and well fed. Any well fed animal will be more choosy about the next bite. If there is a choice of wholesome quality feeds this is when the animal will maintain it's own balance to a great extent. The Veterinarian from the OP's experience on the first post may well have been an older person who recall something in a lecture from an even older instructor, when more simple pass/fail ideologies were applied. Or they just were a vet 'cuase they failed out of MD school? There is a preponderance of literature from the early cattle management sources with an almost alarmist look at clovers. Poor processing and storage seem to be the culprit, and the microbes that invade the improperly stored clover. With free range tortoises if 90% of their graze is clover that, too, can be 'not good. If clover is some proportion of the mix of forbs growing (sorry I did not find some exact %, as the study has not been done for tortoises) then it is more good than not.

And we can't forget the effort of the TTT http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/...ctwords&searchtxt=clover&x=0&y=0#.Ws9-8S7wZaQ

Make sure to click on the "more info" button.