Please help today i went to a shop that sell alot of reptiles and they recommend that u miss a day feeding to give the tortys a chance to digest their food,,,,,, is this right before i starve poor Hugo and Alice????
Madkins007 said:It sorta is. In the wild, tortoises tend to do one of two basic feeding patterns- the graze and wander, where they take a few bites and go on to the next plant; and the gorge and sleep, where they find something they like, eat their fill, and sleep it off, sometimes for several days.
In captivity, we tend to offer too much food, with too many calories and carbohydrates, and too little calcium or protein. Many keepers and experts recommend fasting days to help off-set this. Many experienced keepers only feed their adult animals a couple times a week when they are indoors.
If you can limit yourself to smallish meals that are low in carbs and such, it is not such a big deal. My personal version of this is to offer some days of relatively low-nutrient greens or lettuces with a pinch of ground up Timothy hay and a tiny bit of calcium.
moswen said:In winters I feed a smaller amount of food but that's just bc they all seem to slow down a bit. Tula actually only comes out of her hide every few days, so I don't feed her unless I see her out, but I feed her a large amount when she does. even though in the wild they may not find a lot to eat in a dry or cold season, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't like to have something to eat that day. I can live without food for a day too, but I wouldn't want to. I've heard ppl say they only feed their hatchlings every other day. I don't really like this practice but as I've said I do feed a less amount in winter. You certainly won't starve your tort if you do this, but on a level that empathizes with a hungry animal I don't think it's very nice. But, actually after I just read that I don't think there's anything cruel about or wrong with the people that do! I just don't. Okay done lol.
emysemys said:Just to put an end to the squash/wormer fable: Its the ground up seeds that act as a de-wormer, not the squash or pumpkin.
maggie3fan said:charchar...please do some of us a favor...this is not Facebook or a text phone, so please for some of us older folks spell out your words so all of us can understand what you are trying to say. When some of us see text spelling we skip over that thread and go to one we can understand. Thank you...I mean no disrespect, but you want all of us to understand you, don't you?
Now with that said, you would not skip feeding your human growing baby so I don't believe in skipping meals for growing tortoise babies. I have 13 hatchling or yearling tortoises that I am feeding right now and I feed them the way they eat. Meaning, if they eat a little I feed a little, if they eat a lot, I feed a lot but I never skip a meal. I feed them according to what they tell me they need.
I almost go along with what Mark is saying, but I believe in the wild they would munch on branches, rocks, dirt or their own poop, but whatever it is they eat something daily even if it's just a little something. So I feed daily, and I recommend feeding daily and I always grow active healthy animals.