Red foots and animal protein?

[Sublimeserpents]

For those of you that feed mice to your red foots; how often do you feed them mice? I've read once a week to once a month. I plan to feed young adult mice to my little guy( he's about 6-7 inchs) as opposed to pinkies for the organ and bone content instead of the high fat low calcium pinkies. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[mike taylor]

I dont feed mice . I feed worms, fish, liver and mushrooms for protein .

 

[kathyth]

I feed my 7, rehydrated Proplan low fat cat food weekly.

 

[tortdad]

Yeah I don't do mice either. I use chicken, fish, shrimp, mushrooms or weight management cat food. I feed protein twice a month.


0.0.1 Redfoot (Spike)
0.0.1 Cherryhead Redfoot (Bruce Wayne)
1.0 Sulcata (Hal Jordan)

 

[AmRoKo]

I'm basically the same as the previous three replies. I feed meat protein once a week to my reds.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Once a week or so I'll throw some of my dogs Nutro dry food into some Mazuri, wet it and serve.

 

[Sublimeserpents]

Oh wow, no one feeds mice. Is this any reason why you guys don't feed mice( messy, price, convienece)?

I keep and breed snakes so I always have a freezer full of mice, rats, chickens, guinea pigs, and rabbits. I can't speak for torts but the general thinking for snakes and lizards is whole prey items are better then cuts of meat with no bones. So I figured this would apply.

So most of you are feeding animal protein once a week to 2 weeks. how much are you giving them? Would around 10% of their food for the day be about right or more?


Thanks everyone for chiming in. I really appreciate how helpful you guys have been in getting my tortoise care down.

 

[Michael in MO]

it would seem to me that in the wild torts wouldn't happen upon mice or any carrion along the lines of how often you'd be feeding mice... they are no predators like snakes and lizards. They are opportunists and hence why (IMHO) no one replying feeds whole animals that often. I prefer shrimp as there's usually no left overs.. however given the composition of pinkies I guess if you have pinkies you might use thoes instead of shrimp.. I cook the shrimp (and cool them before serving) pinkies might have a higher chance of passing on a parasite...

 

[Sublimeserpents]

I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree with you on this.

If I'm not feeding a larger amount of mouse compared to what others are feeding for their animal protein( no one has chimed in yet on the exact quantity of animal protein given in these intervals; I'm not at all opposed to chopping up a mouse) what's the difference? Except that the whole prey item has more nutrients and calcium to offer then chunks of meat( also why more developed mice would be better then pinks). I can understand switching up mammal protein with worms and other invertebrates. But not chunks of meat over whole prey.

As for the "in the wild" statement; I doubt anyone is giving them cooked shrimp tails, chicken or dog food in the wild and id have to say(in my opinion) whole prey does seem more natural.

I'm not too worried about him getting parasites from a trusted source of captive bred and raised rodents that have been frozen for a couple weeks.

 

[tortdad]

I just don't feed pinkies because my wife would have a **** attack seeing those "poor mice". On the day that I do feed protein I give them lots. I let them fill up on it and offer veggies later on in the day.

I don't care about the what's natural vs store bought stuff. I save the grubs and worms from the garden and they love the crap out of them. Grubs and pill bugs seem to be their favorites, shrimp after that.


0.0.1 Redfoot (Spike)
0.0.1 Cherryhead Redfoot (Bruce Wayne)
1.0 Sulcata (Hal Jordan)

 

[George red foot]

I fed my tort a pinky today for the first time! He loved it! Im considering giving him something a bit larger next time as he nearly swallowed this one whole!

 

[christinaland128]

I give my reds hard boiled egg (shell and all), worms, slugs, canned tuna in spring water, or boiled chicken. They love live bugs though. That's their favorite!

 

[christinaland128]

@tortdad I love their names!

 

[Michael in MO]

I fed my tort a pinky today for the first time! He loved it! Im considering giving him something a bit larger next time as he nearly swallowed this one whole!

Not sure if you already do this or if it seems to be something you'd entertain, but I always try to give a fresh cuttlebone within a day of a huge protein bump I've noticed my biggest/smoothest growths after this one/two dietary punch

 

[George red foot]

Cool, I'll try that, thank you I always have a calcium block in his enclosure but he tends to ignore it!