Tortoise started to eat substrate

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

Since Monday this week I have been able to take Edward outside a few hours a day to soak up some natural sun. Since his semi-temporary outdoor enclosure is not ready yet, I have been keeping him in a cold frame that is staked on to our lawn. The temps in the cold frame have been ranging from 20C in the shade to up to 35C in the sun. He could dig out under the cold frame, so we have been keeping an eye on him while doing yard work. During his trips outside he has been nibbling on some new foods: white clover (Trifolium repens), Alpine Chewing's fescue (Festuca nigrescens), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvesteris), moss (Mniaceae) and yarrow (Achhillea millefolium). I know that yarrow isn't ideal, but he thankfully got only a few nibbles. He has also eaten a few dried up leaves: Thorn apple (Crataegus monogyna), Norway maple (Acer platanoides) and Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia).

But, my main concern is that he seems to have started to eat substrate? He hasn't done this in his indoor enclousure, not when his substrate was a mix of sand and coco coir (which I switched out, because it was irritating his eyes and nostrils) and not now when it is 100% coco coir. But outdoors he seems to take the occasional bite, and today his poop seemed to be just straight up soil. We don't use any pesticides on our lawn, but last year we added some soil to plant some new clover patches on our lawn. This soil was mostly composted spaghnum moss, with some bioactive carbon and calcium carbonate additives. Do you think eating this could be harmful/cause an impaction risk? Could this be a sign of something wrong with his diet? (I sprinkle repticalc on his food 3 times a week)

Biolan Peat-Free Garden Soil - www.biolan.com

www.biolan.com

 

[TammyJ]

Maybe @Tom can help.

 

[Tom]

Since Monday this week I have been able to take Edward outside a few hours a day to soak up some natural sun. Since his semi-temporary outdoor enclosure is not ready yet, I have been keeping him in a cold frame that is staked on to our lawn. The temps in the cold frame have been ranging from 20C in the shade to up to 35C in the sun. He could dig out under the cold frame, so we have been keeping an eye on him while doing yard work. During his trips outside he has been nibbling on some new foods: white clover (Trifolium repens), Alpine Chewing's fescue (Festuca nigrescens), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvesteris), moss (Mniaceae) and yarrow (Achhillea millefolium). I know that yarrow isn't ideal, but he thankfully got only a few nibbles. He has also eaten a few dried up leaves: Thorn apple (Crataegus monogyna), Norway maple (Acer platanoides) and Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia).

But, my main concern is that he seems to have started to eat substrate? He hasn't done this in his indoor enclousure, not when his substrate was a mix of sand and coco coir (which I switched out, because it was irritating his eyes and nostrils) and not now when it is 100% coco coir. But outdoors he seems to take the occasional bite, and today his poop seemed to be just straight up soil. We don't use any pesticides on our lawn, but last year we added some soil to plant some new clover patches on our lawn. This soil was mostly composted spaghnum moss, with some bioactive carbon and calcium carbonate additives. Do you think eating this could be harmful/cause an impaction risk? Could this be a sign of something wrong with his diet? (I sprinkle repticalc on his food 3 times a week)

Biolan Peat-Free Garden Soil - www.biolan.com

www.biolan.com

There are four typical reasons why they eat substrate. See if you can eliminate them all.
1. Colored lighting. Red or blue "night" lights will some times cause this behavior. Might the plastic of the cold frame be doing weird things with the light?
2. Mineral imbalance and/or lack of fiber. We see substrate eating when people feed a lot of grocery store foods with no supplementation or amendments. The lack of proper calcium and minerals will often make them eat the wrong stuff when given a chance. This is often seen when they are housed indoors during a cold winter and fed lettuce and other grocery store greens, and then people put them back outside on the dirt when nicer weather returns.
3. Too much calcium. Some people use calcium every day. Calcium interferes with the absorption of other important mineral and trace elements. Too much calcium often makes them eat substrate in an attempt to regain a balance of minerals in their body. Three times a week should not be doing this in your case, but how much calcium are you mixing in?
4. Disease. Certain diseases seem to make them want to eat substrate for some reason. This one is often tough to diagnose without necropsy.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

1. To me it doesn't seem like the cold frame is doing anything with the light.
2. Since I got him in February I have been feeding his grocery store greens with rabbit pellets for fiber. On 13.4. I started to introduce Agrobs Herbs pellets. I now feed him 50 : 50 ratio of both pellets, since he still won't eat the Agrobs on its own. About 3 weeks ago I was able to switch from grocery store greens to weeds in our garden, but I still offer pellets mixed in with the weeds 3 times a week, along with the calcium.

• His grocery store diet: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/grocery-store-diet-for-russian-tortoise.213414/
• The ingridients of the rabbit pellets: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/hay-pellets-meant-for-rabbits.213475/

3. I mix in about 2.5 ml of calcium three times a week, the amount comes from the instructions on the packaging, do you think that it needs changing?
4. About diseases, I can't be sure of course. Do you think that I should take him to the vet without any other symptoms?

At this point I am suspecting the calcium, since as I said I just read the instructions on the packaging.

 

[Tom]

1. To me it doesn't seem like the cold frame is doing anything with the light.
2. Since I got him in February I have been feeding his grocery store greens with rabbit pellets for fiber. On 13.4. I started to introduce Agrobs Herbs pellets. I now feed him 50 : 50 ratio of both pellets, since he still won't eat the Agrobs on its own. About 3 weeks ago I was able to switch from grocery store greens to weeds in our garden, but I still offer pellets mixed in with the weeds 3 times a week, along with the calcium.

• His grocery store diet: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/grocery-store-diet-for-russian-tortoise.213414/
• The ingridients of the rabbit pellets: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/hay-pellets-meant-for-rabbits.213475/

3. I mix in about 2.5 ml of calcium three times a week, the amount comes from the instructions on the packaging, do you think that it needs changing?
4. About diseases, I can't be sure of course. Do you think that I should take him to the vet without any other symptoms?

At this point I am suspecting the calcium, since as I said I just read the instructions on the packaging.

This is an adult male Russian? Or he's close to adult size, right? If he's eating weeds and getting fiber and variety from the rabbit pellets and Agrobs, you probably don't need any calcium supplementation. Try stopping the calcium for a few weeks. On a weedy diet, he will not be calcium deficient. All the extra calcium may be causing an imbalance. When far comes back around and the weeds are no longer available, give a tiny pinch of calcium once or twice a week mixed in with the grocery store greens.

This is my best guess for your situation. You have done a tremendous job of learning how to take care of the tortoise and understanding the concepts that are taught out in the world. Most sources recommend a lot of calcium because most people don't feed them right and buy lettuce from the grocery store. In a case like that, a tortoise would need all that extra calcium. In a case like YOUR case, where you are feeding an excellent, high fiber, high variety, high calcium, weedy diet, I don't think you need much calcium supplementation if any at all. If it were a re growing hatchling, or an egg laying female, I might suggest more calcium supplementation, but its just not needed in your case.

As to your vet question: A vet visit is not likely to yield any benefit. As I said, most of these things are exceedingly difficult to diagnose in a live tortoise and most vets end up doing more harm than good. If all else is good and no other symptoms are present, I wold not go to the vet.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

Yes, he is an adult male, not sure about his age, but he seems pretty much full grown. I suspect that he is well over 15 years old. Before me his diet was strongly grocery store based and he didn't get any calcium supplementation during his years at the shelter. But he did get some pellets for fiber supplementation, though not consistently. Because of all this I suspect that he was wild caught as adult, since his shell is quite smooth even though both his previous owner and the shelter kept him on a thin layer of dry sand/sometimes reptibark.

Yeah, you are probably right about the calcium. When I started feeding him weeds from my garden 3 weeks ago, I pondered whether I should stop supplementing him so I am totally ready to try it now that it is suggested.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

As per your advice, I haven't been giving any calcium supplementation. I haven't been able to take Edward outside since Sunday, beacause the weather has cooled down a bit. Now his stool has been clear of any substrate, so it seems that this was thankfully just something that he did outside. I will still not give him calcium.

But today there was quite a bit of moss in his poop. There is some moss mixed in with our lawn, so that is probably where it is from. Thankfully he was able to pass it. Should I stop giving him access to the lawn altogether until his outdoor enclosure is ready?