soaking pellets

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Yvonne G

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Personally, I don't believe that soaking a Mazuri or Grassland pellet in water to soften it causes the tortoise to take in water. I think that the pellet absorbs the water and water then isn't available to the tortoise, just a mushy pellet.

I'd love to hear some pros and cons on this because I've seen a couple different folks post that the tortoise is getting water by eating a soaked pellet.
 

PeanutbuttER

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I think it's getting water. As the tort digests and breaks down the pellet its digestive system will pull the water out.

However, mazuri is very dry before hand so while it does suck up a lot of water, it probably contains (post soak) less or the same amount of water than some leafy greens. So, unless it is absolutely saturated, then the tort isn't getting any extra water IMO.
 

Edna

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I think of soaked mazuri as moisture neutral - it has only the amount of moisture needed to ingest-digest that bit of food, but not enough to replace moisture lost by respiration, etc. That said, my torts are too small to eat unsoaked mazuri, so it is always offered in a soaked state.
 

RV's mom

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emysemys said:
Personally, I don't believe that soaking a Mazuri or Grassland pellet in water to soften it causes the tortoise to take in water. I think that the pellet absorbs the water and water then isn't available to the tortoise, just a mushy pellet.

I'd love to hear some pros and cons on this because I've seen a couple different folks post that the tortoise is getting water by eating a soaked pellet.

I don't know about getting water from the pellet, but I did a test with RV and her mazuri. I had 2 food piles, same each except one had mazuri soaked with water/hay/opuntia slices. and the other pile with the mazuri dry. The dry still sits in the yard, the other gone. She cleaned up every bit. She is delicate enough to be able to tease out the Opuntia from the dry pile.
 

terryo

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Once a week I throw in a few dry mazuri in Pio's viv. By the end of the day they are gone. I have no idea if they get any water from the soaked pellet or not.....where's Mark when you need him.
 

Laura

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i feed it dry. cleaner less waste, and they are big enough to it whole. When fed dry i wonder if they drink more or if it suck moisture out fo them to digest..
if they eat soaked mazuri, they get some moisture from it.. but not enough to mke it life saving i would think.. like it it was the only moisture they got.
 

Madkins007

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I don't really think it makes much difference to the tortoise's hydration (assuming free access to water, proper humidity, etc.)

I think the main thing is will the tortoise eat it, and are you willing to deal with the messiness of the wettened version?
 

Tom

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I don't understand what I am missing. This seems like simple physics. Of course they are getting more water with soaked pellets than without. If tortoise "A" eats 10 grams of dry Mazuri and tortoise "B" eats 10 grams of Mazuri that has absorbed 10 grams of water, and now weighs 20 grams, then tortoise "B" has taken in more water than tortoise "A". In this case, exactly 10 grams more.
 

GBtortoises

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First of all, I don't think soaking food pellets in water should be a relied upon method to provide water to tortoises!
The pellets must be absorbing water, however small the amount may be, or they would not become soft and break down. If you leave them in water long enough they become the consistency of oatmeal. If they weren't absorbing the water that wouldn't happen.
I feed all of my tortoises Mazuri pellets once a week along with greens. I soak the pellets prior to feeding. When I first began using pellets I didn't soak them. I watched most of my several medium to adult size tortoises having a difficult time swallowing the dry, hard pellets. Some of the smaller and medium size tortoises had a hard time getting them into their mouths whole but didn't have the jaw strength to bite them in half either. The size of the Mazuri pellets alone rules out feeding it to hatchlings and young tortoises unless you crush it up in smaller pieces. For me it's quicker and simpler to just soak the pellets.
So I now soak all of the pellets fed to all of my tortoises from hatchling size to adult. Yeah, it can get a little messy, but they don't seem to mind!
I also find that there is less wasted pellets by soaking them. They adhere and mix in with the greens better rather rolling off the plate into the substrate and trampled.
I have never had any expectations of additional hydration coming from food sources of any kind. I always offer drinking water regardless of what type of foods they are being fed.
 

Madkins007

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Tom said:
I don't understand what I am missing. This seems like simple physics. Of course they are getting more water with soaked pellets than without. If tortoise "A" eats 10 grams of dry Mazuri and tortoise "B" eats 10 grams of Mazuri that has absorbed 10 grams of water, and now weighs 20 grams, then tortoise "B" has taken in more water than tortoise "A". In this case, exactly 10 grams more.

I agree with you, but I took the question to be a bigger issue- Overall- does wetting Mazuri boost what the tort would take in if you didn't? If you eat a lot of juicy watermelon, do you drink less?- kind of thing.
 

TylerStewart

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I just noticed this, and I tend to be with Tom in saying that it is pretty simple to think that the tortoise is getting more water with soakings than without it.... I would even go as far to say (hide the women and children) that in species like adult Russians or other types with very little water requirements, you could meet ALL their water needs by giving them moistened Mazuri or other commercial diets 2-3 times a week. Mazuri absorbs a lot of water for it's size, even if it's only soaked for a very short amount of time it easily doubles its weight. The digestive process has to do something with that water whether it wants to or not. Tortoises don't "expel" much water at all unless they want to, so any amount coming in is increasing their hydration.

I would say that soaked Mazuri has a higher water content by weight (which is how it all should be measured) than almost anything else you could feed. Certainly more than leafy greens or grasses.

I agree with you, but I took the question to be a bigger issue- Overall- does wetting Mazuri boost what the tort would take in if you didn't? If you eat a lot of juicy watermelon, do you drink less?- kind of thing.

You may still drink the same amount only because you have a cold drink in your hand, but if you were trapped in a dry desert with no civilization for 500 miles around, you could easily meet your hydration needs if you had a pile of watermelons sitting there with you (not sure how you'd get into that scenario, though....).
 

ALDABRAMAN

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I would think soaking the pellets would make it easier for them to eat them.
 
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