Russian Tortoise Too Skinny?

chacha

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Jan 7, 2016
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Hi
Her shell looks a bit dry to me - it's good that You soak her often and offer water, accept that You could also partly fill her enclosure with moist fine coconut coir so she could dig herself in it. Also You did not mention anything about lightning in Your enclosure, except a basking light, have You got any additional UV in there?

Wish You and Cha Cha all the best ;)
Yes I do have UV. Its the ZooMed Powersun bulb. Thanks for checking!
 

Kori5

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The time limit really isn't the best, what if she's a slow eater? :). What I do when my Hermann is inside and cannot graze in the yard, is I put a big pile of food in the morning and let him decide when he wants it. You can even get two feeding bowls and divide that pile so it becomes more natural for her. The pile should be a handful of weeds, imagine a blanket covering her entire shell or a bowl the size of her shell filled with weeds. I think this is a much better guide than the feeding limit. But what you really need is a nice kitchen scale, I'll send you a pic of mine, so you can weight her every month to see how shes doing.
 

Kori5

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You don't have to chop her food, no one chops their food in the wild. It helps with their beak. This is the scale I have ( I live in the EU so don't know what you have) but this is just a regular electronic kitchen scale in purple :D. I'm a sucker for pretty colors :D. It is really precise and wasn't expensive, maybe 20 bucks.
 

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Tom

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Hello and welcome Chacha.

If fed the correct foods and kept at the right temps, your tortoise is not going to get fat. Its unusual to see a fat russian, and when we do its because they were fed the wrong foods, kept at the wrong temps, and kept in far too small of an enclosure. I am in agreement that your tortoise should be able to graze freely all day.

About the diet. Carrots should only be fed in very small amounts and very infrequently. Kale is okay as a small part of a varied diet, but should not be a staple. Spring mix is good for variety, but be sure it doesn't have a lot of spinach, and be aware that it lacks much needed fiber. If you must use grocery store foods over the winter, favor endive and escarole, but use lots of variety. Look for mustard, turnip and collard greens, bok choy, carrot tops, cilantro, celery tops, etc… You might also consider adding some blended grass hay or a soaked ZooMed Grassland pellet into the greens of the day to add that fiber in. Mazuri is a very good way to insure your tortoises diet is well rounded and he's getting all the nutrition he needs.

Humidity for russians should be moderate, not low. In an enclosure with a hot bulb and dry substrate, your humidity will be very low. I recommend coco coir or fine grade orchid bark. They can dig into either and make their own little humid micro climate if they wish. I also suggest offering a humid hide.

I think your routine of soaking three times a week is adequate for this tortoise. More won't hurt, but I don't think its necessary. I just rinse my soaking tubs out. I don't use any soaps or disinfectants.

Here is some further care info. You might find some helpful tips in these:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/russian-tortoise-care-sheet.80698/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/
 

W Shaw

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This is SO helpful. Thank you so much for all of the specific information!
Glad I could help! I was totally overwhelmed at first. 2 months in now, I'm finally starting to relax, so I understand exactly where you are at the moment!
 

W Shaw

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Hello and welcome Chacha.

About the diet. Carrots should only be fed in very small amounts and very infrequently. Kale is okay as a small part of a varied diet, but should not be a staple. Spring mix is good for variety, but be sure it doesn't have a lot of spinach, and be aware that it lacks much needed fiber. If you must use grocery store foods over the winter, favor endive and escarole, but use lots of variety. Look for mustard, turnip and collard greens, bok choy, carrot tops, cilantro, celery tops, etc… You might also consider adding some blended grass hay or a soaked ZooMed Grassland pellet into the greens of the day to add that fiber in. Mazuri is a very good way to insure your tortoises diet is well rounded and he's getting all the nutrition he needs.


This is great, Tom! You've included some things I thought I had to avoid, so I'm going to be able to expand Ronan's selection a bit. Question about the blended grass hay -- I mentioned doing that at Ronan's 1st vet visit and the vet said that I probably shouldn't blend it because not enough work has been done on fiber length with tortoises. Apparently (it was news to me!) fiber length doesn't matter in humans so we can use powdered fiber supplements, but for others, like cows, fiber length is really important so they don't get any benefit from powdered fiber. Have you heard anything about that?
 

Tom

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I mentioned doing that at Ronan's 1st vet visit and the vet said that I probably shouldn't blend it because not enough work has been done on fiber length with tortoises. Apparently (it was news to me!) fiber length doesn't matter in humans so we can use powdered fiber supplements, but for others, like cows, fiber length is really important so they don't get any benefit from powdered fiber. Have you heard anything about that?

Like so many other aspects of tortoise care, I know of no formal scientific studies done on this topic. I've chosen to go on an educated guess and use blended hay that is in chunks roughly between a quarter inch and one inch. In practice this seems to do the trick of adding fiber to a tortoises diet and not causing any problems.
 

W Shaw

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Like so many other aspects of tortoise care, I know of no formal scientific studies done on this topic. I've chosen to go on an educated guess and use blended hay that is in chunks roughly between a quarter inch and one inch. In practice this seems to do the trick of adding fiber to a tortoises diet and not causing any problems.
Gotcha... so not totally powdered. That makes sense! Thanks!
 

Tom

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Gotcha... so not totally powdered. That makes sense! Thanks!

The stuff I've seen for sale would best be described as "shredded". For my juvenile and small adult sulcatas and leopard tortoises I just use scissors and cut it all up any old length. The adults just eat it themselves off of the bale.
 

chacha

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Cha Cha is avoiding the blended hay and grass pellets. Any advice?
 

Kasia

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Cha Cha is avoiding the blended hay and grass pellets. Any advice?

Try putting water on the other food You give him and sprinkle blended hay/grass on it. When it sticks Chacha won't have any choice and will eat it. :) If he is extremely desperate it will take a day or two :p
 

W Shaw

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Cha Cha is avoiding the blended hay and grass pellets. Any advice?

Tortoise Supply has an herb hay that it seems a lot of tortoises find more palatable than plain grass hay. My Russian doesn't like it, though, and it's expensive stuff, so it's a gamble. I still mix a little in on his supplement days when I chop all of his food into tiny bits so that he can't pick around the supplements so easily.
 
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