Switching a new tortoise to orchard grass

bandofett

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I just adopted a 2 year old Sulcata who appears to have been fed a diet of lettuce. He has some moderate pyramiding going on. I attempted to feed him some orchard hay yesterday but he declined. Just to see if he would eat anything, I threw some romaine in which he promptly ate. Now I am going to try the tough love method and only offer the orchard hay. Any thoughts of suggestions?
 

Juan V

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according to what I've read, the tortoise is too young to eat hay orchard. It will only start to eat that once they grow fully adults.
i'd suggest you switch to grass.
 

Dizisdalife

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Right now he may not recognize the orchard hay as food. You could introduce some other new foods first to get him eating a better diet. Endive or escarole are much better than romaine. Then you can cut up the orchard hay and add it to the greens that he is eating to get him used to the taste of hay. You could do the same with fresh cut grass to get him used to eating grass.
 

Yvonne G

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It has been my experience that babies won't start eating hay or grass until they've been outside and learn how to graze.
 

Yvonne G

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Then he just doesn't recognize the hay as food. Take some of your hay and cut it up. Then put it into a bowl of water to re-hydrate. Change the water a couple times until it looks clean. Then mix the re-hydrated hay with some of the foods he eats readily. As time goes on, you can lesson the other foods and stop re-hydrating the hay. Not all of my larger tortoises will eat hay. I've given it to Dudley, 110lb sulcata, and he just walks through the pile. But then, he has a big yard of fresh, green grass to graze on.
 

bandofett

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bandofett

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Chopping the hay finely and mixing it with the greens worked very well. Thanks for the tip. Im astounded by how ravenous this guy is. My manouria emys emys are very gentle when eating. This guy goes in like a hungry dog.
 

russian/sulcata/tortoise

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Sure is. Like I said, I just adopted him. Heres hoping with the proper care, it will lessen over time.
take all the substrate out and replace it will something that can hold humidity like coco coir, orchard bark, cypress mulch. pyramiding is caused by lack of humidity in a tortoises environment. the cage you have him in now is way to small it should be at least 4 times that size.
 

Gennifer11

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I'm pretty new to torts but the Petstore I got my sully was feeding him strait iceberg lettuce. I had to start mixing other foods with the lettuce and keep make the lettuce contents smaller and smaller. They seem to like pellets that are wet mush, you could easily mix the lettuce, hay and pellets and just change the amounts as you go.
 

Juan V

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lol I like the tortoise lasagna.
Bandofett the pyramidding wont get better, but it won't get any worse, and over time it won't be such a big deal for the tortoise :)
I'd say you swap the substrate and put something that is waaay more humid like normal earth or soil you use on pots and plants.

about the humidity, the higher , the better, High temperature in winter and humidity should be kept high. IMO no need to max it, but the higher probably will mean the better.
 

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