Russ. tort not eating. vitamins?

[wosman]

Hi everyone

So my russian tortoise has not been eating. The only way i can get her to eat anything anymore is to have my mom feed her. Furthermore she only eats romaine lettuce, so we have to make a kind of wrap where we stuff a leaf of romaine with other stuff.

Problem is she has caught on to this, and now if she sees the romaine rolled up she knows other stuff is in it and bails. Since she is now mostly eating romaine I need a way to get her to: 1) start eating 2) do the next best thing, which is start adding vitamins to whatever little she eats.

So does anyone know of any vitamins i can give her in terms of brand name? Also what volume should I give her and how often?

I went to the petstore and they only seemed to have vitamins for turtles. I read somewhere on this forum that I could take a flintstones multivitamin and crush it up.

Anyhelp would be super. thank you everyone

---

annnyone?

 

[Yvonne G]

You can put romaine into the food processor and get it mushy and liquidy. Then cut up some turnip greens, endive, escarole, dandelion greens - whatever you have handy, not all of them at once. Cut them really small. Place a little pile of the greens at the feeding station then spoon some of the romaine mush over the greens. You may have to mix it all up so the greens are covered with romaine mush. If she eats this, then over the next few weeks, you can start to cut back on the romaine mush until its not there at all.

 

[JoesMum]

Make sure the habitat temps are correct. For my greek, I was advised 30C by day and 24C by night, hotter under the basking lamp by a reptile vet.

Make sure your tort isn't carrying worms which will affect appetite

Bathe daily while eating is not happening properly - 20 minutes wading.

Tough love. Torts know what they like and will hold out for the best bits. If they are hungry, they will eat properly. Think fussy children here. If your child wouldn't eat dinner and is holding out for sweets, you would withdraw sweets until they ate their meal properly. The same goes for your tortoise. In the wild, they'll have days when they eat and days when they don't. It won't do any harm to go for a few days without eating.

Offer what your tort should be eating, finely chopped if necessary and NO ROMAINE! It's a battle of wills and you can win it.

Joe may be 50, but he has fads regularly. He started out this spring only eating dandelions, moved on to a lamb's lettuce favourite and during the cherry season became red circle obsessed as it was impossible to pick up all the windfalls from my neighbour's tree. (He was pooping cherry pips for weeks!) Currently lamb's lettuce is the only thing he won't eat. It will change again!

 

[wosman]

Thanks everyone.

In terms of temperature it is around 42 celsius under the lamp and 34 ish on the warm side. the cold side is about 20.
She sleeps all day too, sometimes under the heat lamp itself.
Also when I last took her to the vet (about two months ago), they said she didn't have any worms or parasites. I took pictures of her mouth and it doesn't SEEM like there is any mouth rot.

Her substrate is coco coir and playsand. although i noticed her behaviour changed when i added the coir. So i pushed it all to one side but her attitude didn't change back.

When I don't give her romaine she will go the entire day without eating. I don't know how long a tortoise can live without food, but i found out that she went to sleep for the night without eating ANYTHING I put on her dish. It seems as if she is willing to starve to death if she doesn't get what she likes.

So I guess I'll try making that mush you suggested emysemys. Hopefully I can cut out romaine and just give it as a treat.
Thanks guys

 

[JoesMum]

They can go for days without eating and no harm will come. Keep weighing to check, but there shouldn't a be a problem. Tortoises don't do things particularly a quickly. A day is no time at all in their terms.

Like us, they can't go without water for long which is why it's important to bathe daily during this battle of wills! Joe can hold out for 3 or 4 days before giving in!

 

[wosman]

They can go for days without eating and no harm will come. Keep weighing to check, but there shouldn't a be a problem. Tortoises don't do things particularly a quickly. A day is no time at all in their terms.

Like us, they can't go without water for long which is why it's important to bathe daily during this battle of wills! Joe can hold out for 3 or 4 days before giving in!

ah this makes me feel worlds better. I thought if they went 2 days without food then a russian tortoise would surely die.

edit: also she has been like this for weeks now (about 3?). It's a battle to get her to eat anything and as mentioned before she will just eat the romaine BY HAND. she will never eat form her dish. If she goes 3 days without food should I just give in? I'd hate to think she died because she was willing to starve herself to death

 

[JoesMum]

Keep weighing. Keep hydrated. She's been spoiled rotten and needs to learn that she's got to feed herself... Little madam!

She will sort it out. As long as she's being soaked and she's not losing weight, she can probably go for over a week. I think she'll give in before that!

 

[wosman]

Hopefully that fixes it. However, I am not sure how this will fix her 'sleeping all day' issue. She just sleeps ALL day. I leave the lights on for 14 hours but she just naps through them. She will just sit under the heating lamp and doze off.

 

[JoesMum]

Joe goes through phases of sleeping a lot. Having a regular routine may help you. In his winter table, we have lights and heat on full for about an hour before I bathe him. He is then very active, eating and roaming for the next couple of hours before quietening down. Often he will stir and go in search of more food before bedding down for the night. Today he snoozed from about 11am - 5pm before a light feed and going back to bed.

 

[wosman]

Joe goes through phases of sleeping a lot. Having a regular routine may help you. In his winter table, we have lights and heat on full for about an hour before I bathe him. He is then very active, eating and roaming for the next couple of hours before quietening down. Often he will stir and go in search of more food before bedding down for the night. Today he snoozed from about 11am - 5pm before a light feed and going back to bed.

well this post right here just made me feel infinitely better about things. Thank you and everyone else so much for all the help.