Russian food?

[TaraTort]

Ok so my tortoise is just on different types of lettuces because im really confused on what to feed her. The pet shop said we had to just feed her rocket salad but i dont think thats right because they need variety dont they? I bought a mix of plants for russians but i dont know where its gone so has anyone got any advice? also anywhere online i can buy some seeds and/or mixs? because i find it really hard to find specific plants in our shop
Any help will be appreciated.

 

[chadk]

Ok so my tortoise is just on different types of lettuces because im really confused on what to feed her. The pet shop said we had to just feed her rocket salad but i dont think thats right because they need variety dont they? I bought a mix of plants for russians but i dont know where its gone so has anyone got any advice? also anywhere online i can buy some seeds and/or mixs? because i find it really hard to find specific plants in our shop
Any help will be appreciated.

First off, if you are getting advice from a pet shop, I'm pretty concerned about your tort - not just the diet. Pet shops are natorious for giving out bad and often fatal advice.

Not sure what 'rocket salad' is. Russians need a variety of leavy greens. Kale, mustard and collard greens, dandilions, and so on. There should be lists of good vs bad plants for torts in this site. My torts eat mostly grass and weeds from my yard. Also spring mix salad, greens from my garden, greens from the produce store, and cuttlebone for extra calcium when needed.

Look up carolinapetsupply. They have seed mixes and other stuff for torts - specializing in Russians. You can also get a supplement they sell call TNT. It is dried flowers and plants that are all great for russians. You can even get it with probiotics. Great stuff to sprinkle on your greens to ensure a good high fiber + balanced vitamin and mineral diet.

 

[TaraTort]

Yes, the pet shop isnt great. they have there tortoises in aquarium things m(sorry i suddenly forgot the name of them) and they even got us to buy one which actually cost wuite alot. They also told us the wrong gender of our tortoise so i thought about looking into the diets and relised what we had her on couldnt be right. i will take a look at the website, thanks you have been a big help

---

i've also found a website called herbiseed.com and it had a mediteranian tortoise mix, i think this will be quite good sinse im in the UK, is carolinapetsuply in the US as the amount it costs is in $? thanks for your help btw

 

[tortoisenerd]

Rocket salad is mache lettuce as far as I know. Fine as one part in a very varied diet. My tort likes it. Weeds and greens are the best, but lettuces are ok if you don't have access to organic weeds. Spring mix is a great start (no spinach) which you can then add in other greens like turnip, collard, mustard, dandelion, etc. I buy spring mix and use it for about 60% of the diet, 1 head of other greens a week for 30%, and then 10% Mazuri Tortoise Diet, butternut squash, pumpkin, and cactus. If you can grow your own food that is best, but this is a great in the meantime diet that is really cheap (we eat the spring mix too and rotating through the greens and only buying one a week cuts down on costs). I only buy organic for my tort. If you buy plants (not seeds) you either should get organic or let them sit for 6 months without the tort eating them to leech out the pesticides. Use organic potting soil. I recommend a pure calcium supplement powder sprinkled on the food a few days a week for an adult tort, daily for a hatchling. Best wishes.

 

[sammi]

http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/site/tortoise_home_1.asp

Good site with pictures, what is safe and not safe to feed, and how often =] Also IDs some weeds for you! Variety is the key!

 

[kimber_lee_314]

Another great site for good foods is russiantortoise.org. Good luck!

 

[Jessica]

We don't have any access to natural food for our russian tortoise now in the winter. Last summer I dried some plants, which I now during the winter give to my tortoise with fresh food I buy from the shop.
I don't know the english names of these fresh salads (I'm finnish), but I can put some googled links you can look from:
This is Ninjas favorite: http://www.jarvikyla.fi/img/dyn/Cocktail_salaatti_2009_netti.JPG
And this too: http://www.jarvikyla.fi/img/dyn/tuotekuvat/lollo_rosso.jpg
And this: http://www.lehtosenpuutarha.fi/roomansalaatti2.JPG

Ninja gets also some fresh herbs from the store. Ninja eats rucola (is it maybe the same as rocket salad?!), lemon balm, basil, parsley (don't give this too often)...and so on...
Because it's hard to keep the diet comprehensive here in Finland, I give Ninja these "pellets": http://www.agrobs.de/en/products/Tortoises.htm (Pre Alpin Testudo).
The pellets are extrusions of different grasses, hay and different herbs. These are not filled with animal proteins or such. Before feeding the pellets to the tortoise, you need to put them in water to swell. Ninja likes them so much!

 

[Yvonne G]

Every time I read the title of this thread I want to say, "Borsht"


Thank goodness I now have that out of my system!!

 

[bikerchicspain]

First off, if you are getting advice from a pet shop, I'm pretty concerned about your tort - not just the diet. Pet shops are natorious for giving out bad and often fatal advice.

That should be most shops i work in a pet shop and i give out care sheets to my customers and advice not they always listen, one guy didnt and bought sawdust for his poor tort that has now probably died from rp problems. But unfortunately you cant cure ignorance..

 

[tortoisenerd]

Jessica-Why the herbs? The lettuces (darker the better except watch for those that have high oxalic acid or can cause goiter) are fine if you can't do stuff from the garden. The herbs aren't very nutritional and I'm surprised the tort even thinks of them as food. We have a mix in the U.S. called Spring Mix (mixed salad greens) that has 5-10 kinds of lettuces in it. Wonder if you have something like this? It has the type of stuff like you linked to. It helps provide a lot of variety. Those pellets sound rather similar to Mazuri Tortoise Diet and ZooMed Grassland Tortoise Food except I hadn't heard of some of the ingredients (I believe they are weeds though). Looks good to me if you must feed commercial food as part of the diet.

 

[Jessica]

Yeah...it's hard to find enough of variety to a tortoises food here in Finland. The best thing is to dry plants in summer and offer them to the tortoise. Ninja loves them, so that's not a problem.

Here in Finland even the tortoise breeders use herbs in the diet, but not more than 20% of the whole diet! The only thing I have looked up about the herbs is the calcium-phosphorus proportion (sorry my bad english, I'm using a dictionary to write this). I wish I could translate the finnish forums in english, so you could see the explanations about the herbs in the diet.

Here is the nutritional values of basil: http://www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=11134&lang=fi (this is in finnish; kalsium = calcium, fosfori = phosphorus). The calcium-phosphorus proportion is okay, because there's over 6 times more calcium than phosphorus in basil. What other nutritional values do you think that we have to look for? What are the most important ones? I'm just asking because I want to compare finnish and american(?) information about tortoise feeding.

What would you suggest for Ninja as food instead of the herbs then? In the winter we can only get lollo rosso, romaine salad and this salad: http://puutarha.net/index.asp?s=/suorakanava/kasvikortti.asp?id=456 plus the Pre Alpin Testudo pellets and the dried plants.

 

[stells]

Seeds...
http://www.shelledwarriorsshop.co.uk/seeds---grow-your-own-food-18-c.asp

 

[tortoisenerd]

I had just always read here that herbs aren't a great diet for torts, but not that they are bad either. If it is common in your part of the world and a small part of the diet I'd then change my mind and say it is ok. I am surprised there are not more varieties of lettuce where you live. Growing your own food (even indoors in trays works well) is a great supplement too. Best wishes.

 

[Jessica]

Yeah...I just want to be sure, so I asked the breeders in Finland about this and I'm waiting for the answer. It's just that Finland is a very small country and our knowledge about tortoises and tortoisefeeding just got updated like 10 years ago, so that's why I want to be sure

Still many owners feed their tortoises only cucumber and like...ice salads... And it's hard because the petshops here in Finland give wrong advices too, and there's only one Internetpage where you can find the right information about tortoises (www.herppi.net) where all the breeders and owners discuss in a forum. All the books and other Internetpages still tells new owners to have russians to live on the floor, bathing them twice in a week, feed them tomatoes and cucumber...

And about the growing of plants...I have really tried to grow some plants here at home, but you need special lights and everything... It's so dry in this apartment in the winter, and cold too. There is not much light either. Well, now the sun is up already from 10 am to 3pm, but in the middle of winter you go to work when it's dark and come home when it's dark. I don't know where you live, and how dark and cold there is, but it would be nice to know how to grow plants in here

 

[tortoisenerd]

I have heard of people setting up grow lights and humid soil and having luck...I am not capable of gardening though.