1/3 of my fridge is tortoise food lol and Ive been putting off growing food, but the time has come. My question is, what do you guys grow that grows fairly fast? I originally planted some aloe and hibiscus but it just wasn't growing fast enough, I would have had to have a yard full to keep up lol. So what are some of the faster growing plants for tortoise?
sulcata tortoise's getting pretty big.. need to start growing food
- Thread starter taymag
- Start date
You can go to a feed store and buy a bale of grass hay. Orchard grass is the one I like because it's blades without hard stems. Also, if you practice pasture management, you can grow weeds in the tortoise yard. You fence off the yard into two or three sections, keeping the tortoise on one section while watering the other sections for them to grow. You can also grow opuntia cactus.
Go on Amazon.com and enter "seeds for tortoise food" into their search engine. You get several good ideas from that. And you can grow them while the tortoise is off that section of yard.
Go on Amazon.com and enter "seeds for tortoise food" into their search engine. You get several good ideas from that. And you can grow them while the tortoise is off that section of yard.
Welcome and good luck growing enough food for your Sully. Luckily, you are in Florida. How large of a Sully? Are you able to get your hands on some hay and get your guy eating some of that? We mix in a lot of different weeds, hay, mazuri, hibiscus flowers and leaves, etc.
Welcome to the Forum!
Welcome to the Forum!
Like Yvonne said, grass hay is your new best friend. I also like the orchard grass and sometimes use bermuda grass hay too.
To introduce it, I like to feed them their other foods on a bed of the grass hay. You can also chop up handfuls of the stuff with scissors and soak it in a bucket, then scoop it out with your hand and mix it all in with the greens you are feeding that day.
In the thread, there is a whole list of good stuff to feed:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/
To introduce it, I like to feed them their other foods on a bed of the grass hay. You can also chop up handfuls of the stuff with scissors and soak it in a bucket, then scoop it out with your hand and mix it all in with the greens you are feeding that day.
In the thread, there is a whole list of good stuff to feed:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/
I never run out of food for Charlie. He grazes the grass and weeds in the yard. I would think it would be pretty easy to grow enough for one sulcata in Florida. There are tortoise seed mixes at Tortoise supply.
Once established opuntia cactus grows quick.
Thanks for that Yvonne! Exactly what I was looking for.
I planted a few pads back in October to try to grow some and they're starting to sprout now. Any guesses as to how long it will take for the new sprouts to get up to size?
I told Vlad he can't have any more from this batch until they start growing [emoji16]
Nice!
