"Starve Days"? What?

Ruszian Tortoise

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I was looking around, and found this link...
It says "As a general rule, you should offer an amount of food equivalent to the size of your tortoise's shell. They should be fed once a day, 5 days a week. The 2 starve days can be implemented at any time, in any order. This allows the slow-working digestive system to catch up, removing the tortoise's need for a self starvation period in the summer."
Is this practiced by anyone? Or is it cruel? It seems strange.
 

Ink

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I feed mine a lot everyday. And when I think about it, it would be close if not a little more of shell size. That seems to be what they eat.
 

Markw84

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Do tortoises " self-starve" in the summer?
I believe this is another misinterpretation of their life in the wild. Self-starve and is they have a choice? No. Starvation periods of low to no food availability? Yes, for sure, for many species. Just a temperate species have the ability to brumate in cold weather, tortoises also have the ability to shut down and aestivate when weather is warm or hot, but food has become scarce and/or dried up. Some survive, some die, and don't make it until conditions improve. But just because they have the ability to do it as a survival tactic, does not mean it is a choice or optimal.


"to let the digestive system catch up"!! Food movement through most tortoises averages about a total of 12 days. Some more highly digestible foods, quicker, high fiber low food content, slower. Again an amazing adaptation to allowing food to remain longer when not available to allow the digestive system to get as much as possible from it. There are studies of reverse movement of higher fiber items backwards in the digestive tract to reabsorb more nutrients that have been further broken down. In times of plenty, more poop! Nothing to "catch up".

The debate is whether shutdown periods or slowdown periods are good for a tortoise and a reason they can live so long. Does the metabolism benefit from periods of shutdown? This is very different than "starvation days" A prolonged period of inactivity.
 

Maggie3fan

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In the PacificNorthWest my tortoises eat everyday all day the weeds and blooms and grasses growing. If tortoises can't get food the will eat their own poop or some other things poop...rotten leaves or anything...
 

Ruszian Tortoise

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In the PacificNorthWest my tortoises eat everyday all day the weeds and blooms and grasses growing. If tortoises can't get food the will eat their own poop or some other things poop...rotten leaves or anything...
Eww! ?
 

jsheffield

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Occasionally I'll miss a day feeding my tortoises and I don't worry about it... they're not going to starve.

Jamie
 

RosemaryDW

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I’ve never understood what exactly it is that is meant by a pile about shell size. Is it a fluffy pile of frisee? A bowl of sow thistles, with thick stems? A quarter pound of Mazuri (which I assume is high in density and heavy)?

I let mine eat as much as she wants. In Spring she eats like a pig; stabilizes in the summer; slows down in the fall. We’ve just had a couple of gloomy days and since she didn’t get super warm she ate less than she would on a sunny day.

There are times I’ve seen her eat so much I’m afraid she’ll explode but so far so good. I can’t imagine handing over just a shell’s worth. ?
 

wellington

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I’ve never understood what exactly it is that is meant by a pile about shell size. Is it a fluffy pile of frisee? A bowl of sow thistles, with thick stems? A quarter pound of Mazuri (which I assume is high in density and heavy)?

I let mine eat as much as she wants. In Spring she eats like a pig; stabilizes in the summer; slows down in the fall. We’ve just had a couple of gloomy days and since she didn’t get super warm she ate less than she would on a sunny day.

There are times I’ve seen her eat so much I’m afraid she’ll explode but so far so good. I can’t imagine handing over just a shell’s worth. ?
It's always been said on here too. However the big difference is most everyone then says if they eat that give a bigger amount next time and so on. Then it's almost always stated along with the above that they should be able to be fed enough that some is left over. That in the wild they will graze on and off all day.
Stated like that the shell size is a good starting point.
I'd like to make the people that gives a starve day or two a starve day or two. See how they like it.
 

RosemaryDW

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It's always been said on here too. However the big difference is most everyone then says if they eat that give a bigger amount next time and so on. Then it's almost always stated along with the above that they should be able to be fed enough that some is left over.
That’s true.

We never seem to have leftovers of anything we put out on a warm day, unless it’s not a favorite. And on those days we tend to find the nubs of some new plant she‘s eaten in the yard. :/ I think it must be because she gets to burn off more energy than she would in an enclosure? That or she’s trying to win some kind of eating contest.
 

turtlesteve

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I don’t like the term “starvation days” but this is a concept I have considered. I do not think it is stupid or ridiculous. Tortoises have a digestive behavior that varies depending on diet - it slows down if they eat less, to extract more out of the food. Are there actually any benefits of fasting? I have no idea, but it’s something I would love to see a study on.
 

Tom

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Are there actually any benefits of fasting? I have no idea, but it’s something I would love to see a study on.
Early on in my sulcata keeping days, I fed my first sulcata the same sort of "healthy" foods I fed to my green iguanas. My first one pyramided, so I asked the experts what I did wrong. They unanimously told me that I fed too much, too often and the wrong foods. It was thoroughly explained that there are no fields of lettuce growing in Africa for sulcatas to eat, and that in the dry season all they have to eat is a little bit of dead dry grass. I was told that mine pyramided because it was receiving too much nutrition. I was instructed to feed small amounts of weeds and dry grass every other day to simulate what would happen in the wild and to slow their growth.

I followed my instructions dutifully, and the result was tiny, stunted, pyramided, 30 pound, 10 year old sulcatas.

I don't see any health benefit to keeping them hungry. Slowing the growth did nothing to stop or slow the pyramiding. At that time, around 1996, we were stilll under the mistaken idea that these are desert animals and any moisture or humidity would give them shell rot and respiratory infections. This being the case (The wrong case as it turns out...) I kept them on rabbit pellets when indoors, and in a large sunning pen all day every day when the weather permitted. The poor things would chase down and devour any leaves that happened to blow in to their barren dry enclosure.

Fast forward 12+ years from those days, and free feeding the right foods, while housing them in the right conditions, produces smooth healthy babies that reach 80-100 pounds in 10 years.
 

wellington

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I don’t like the term “starvation days” but this is a concept I have considered. I do not think it is stupid or ridiculous. Tortoises have a digestive behavior that varies depending on diet - it slows down if they eat less, to extract more out of the food. Are there actually any benefits of fasting? I have no idea, but it’s something I would love to see a study on.
In the wild if there is food they will eat. They wouldn't purposely not eat. Wild animals don't always know if they will have food every day. If they don't find food they dont eat. It wouldn't be by choice though.
 

turtlesteve

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Early on in my sulcata keeping days, I fed my first sulcata the same sort of "healthy" foods I fed to my green iguanas. My first one pyramided, so I asked the experts what I did wrong. They unanimously told me that I fed too much, too often and the wrong foods. It was thoroughly explained that there are no fields of lettuce growing in Africa for sulcatas to eat, and that in the dry season all they have to eat is a little bit of dead dry grass. I was told that mine pyramided because it was receiving too much nutrition. I was instructed to feed small amounts of weeds and dry grass every other day to simulate what would happen in the wild and to slow their growth.

I followed my instructions dutifully, and the result was tiny, stunted, pyramided, 30 pound, 10 year old sulcatas.

I don't see any health benefit to keeping them hungry. Slowing the growth did nothing to stop or slow the pyramiding. At that time, around 1996, we were stilll under the mistaken idea that these are desert animals and any moisture or humidity would give them shell rot and respiratory infections. This being the case (The wrong case as it turns out...) I kept them on rabbit pellets when indoors, and in a large sunning pen all day every day when the weather permitted. The poor things would chase down and devour any leaves that happened to blow in to their barren dry enclosure.

Fast forward 12+ years from those days, and free feeding the right foods, while housing them in the right conditions, produces smooth healthy babies that reach 80-100 pounds in 10 years.

Yeah, I get it. And I don’t have one shred of evidence that runs counter to your experience. I free feed all of mine daily - it’s the best available information on tortoise care, at present.

Still, I can’t help but question things (sometimes everything). Tortoises are just so.... different from everything else. I mean, what other animals can do radically change their metabolism? I have seen 10 year old sulcatas that were 100 lbs and others that were one pound. Any other animal so stunted would have died, even other reptiles. But that one pound sulcata still has the ability to start growing rapidly if given the chance and will also mature into a 100 lb adult. This means that attempting to draw parallels to other animals, with regards to overfeeding or underfeeding, is useless.

We do know that tortoises have to fast in the wild sometimes, though certainly not by choice. So clearly, they have adapted to handle it. I have to consider the possibility that they have adapted to use periods of fasting for some (yet unknown) metabolic purpose. This is all 100% speculative, of course, but hopefully gives some insight into why I don’t find the idea absurd.

Steve
 

Ruszian Tortoise

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I come back the next day to find that this thread (at least partially) exploded ?.
So I think it's safe to say that this website is untrustworthy? Here's another exerpt:

There are a number of bedding/substrate available for tortoises. We personally very much like to use dry bedding, such as Aspen (a soft shredded wood based substrate), Kritters Crumble (a less soil based version of coconut husk) and Pellet bedding (compressed grass pellets). These options are organic, tortoise friendly and leave less dust than soil based products.

Alternatively, soil based products are available and are arguably more natural, however, they are high maintenance and take some time to find the correct amount of misting, so it is not too damp and never dusty.

... I think that they believe tortoises should not have much (if any) moisture at all in their enclosure?
 

turtlesteve

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I come back the next day to find that this thread (at least partially) exploded ?.
So I think it's safe to say that this website is untrustworthy? Here's another exerpt:

There are a number of bedding/substrate available for tortoises. We personally very much like to use dry bedding, such as Aspen (a soft shredded wood based substrate), Kritters Crumble (a less soil based version of coconut husk) and Pellet bedding (compressed grass pellets). These options are organic, tortoise friendly and leave less dust than soil based products.

Alternatively, soil based products are available and are arguably more natural, however, they are high maintenance and take some time to find the correct amount of misting, so it is not too damp and never dusty.

... I think that they believe tortoises should not have much (if any) moisture at all in their enclosure?

Yeah every bit of that advice is horrible and outdated. Go with what you read here.
 
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