What are your diet staples?

[Pearly]

how do you guys deal with a tortoise that won't eat certain foods. My tortoise doesn't like lamb lettuce or cats grass.

There are PLENTY of alternatives out there

 

[Pearly]

There are PLENTY of alternatives out there

Also, good old chopping/mixing favorites with the less-favorites in slowly increasing proportions and persistence

 

[Careym13]

As occasional treat. My RFs love it too

Yes! Mine would live on it if I let them. Its their weekend treat when I can find it.

 

[Careym13]

So I realized I half-way hijacked this thread rather than answered the original post so here goes: My staples are Endive, Escarole, Frisee and other store bought greens whenever weeds are scarce, which is mostly just in winter. The rest of the year my guys mostly get whatever I find in the yard like plantain, different grasses, dandelions, hibiscus, grape leaves and wild chicory leaves and flowers. I supplement with Mazuri and grassland tortoise food once a week or so as well as herbal tortoise hay.

 

[Pearly]

I've been growing plants for my tortoise to eat and I've had him for about 3 weeks now and his diet is not the best I've been feeding lamb lettuce, romaine, kale, cucumber and rape seed cress. I was wondering what do you feed your tortoise as a main or staple ingredient. By the way I also have this but my tortoise will not eat it https://www.amazon.co.uk/WhitePytho...43&sr=8-1&keywords=tortoise+food+white+python.

I'm currently growing
daisy
coneflower
cat grass
timothy hay
plantain
lamb lettuce (he is not a fan)

I live in the uk are there any vegetable that can be feed on a regular basis. I'm only planning on feeding till my plants grow. I use the tortoise table for help and I'm now thinking of feeding artichoke.

. Disclaimer: MINE ARE OMNIVOROUS species so what is good staple food for me may be excellent addition to staple diet of grasses and weeds in herbivorous torts.
My dailys are: Opuntia (cactus) pads, dandelion, collard, mustard, turnip greens, escarole and endive letuces, raddicchio, occasional kale, parsley whatever green fresh herbs I have on hand I let them sniff/decide if they want to try it, edible flowers, wild forest mushrooms like chanterelles, oysters, chicks of the forest, morrells (all that I get in organic section of my farmers market). To that I add some soaked Mazuri which I rotate with other dry tort food brands while they last. This just about concludes my list of "staples". With the Mazuri Since I had to buy like 30 lbs of Mazuri once all the other brands go, I'll just stick with Mazuri along all the fresh food. Oh and probably those tiny colorful "chips" that they absolutely love. I sprinkle them on top of their food when they are not as eager to eat and that usually gets their attention. This year I also started harvesting my plantings from last year: grape leaves, chicory, hibiscus, lambs quarters, ice plant, mallow and bunch of others that I planted when my babies were tiny and I was working on enclosing their tortoise garden. Within any given week I make effort to serve as many of these as possible for the variety. Of course in RF case, we have more things to add to diversify their diet: fruits, veggies, animal protein. If my torts were the herbivorous species, I'd probably be getting those tortoise mix seeds from tortoise supply and plant that in my tortoise garden rotating the grazing sites. The point of this whole post is VARIETY is a key in good nutrition. Of course I can give some romaine now and then or little cucumber (that has very little nutritional value) when confident my pets get all of the foods listed above on regular bases. STAPLE to me = recurring diet item used daily or almost daily in small amounts along with other foods.

 

[JaySparks]

I live in a beautiful climate and don't have any staples except in the summer, when the weeds stop growing. At that time, I use a lot of grape leaves and squash leaves, along with some things I buy from an Asian open market. (If you have any kind of ethnic markets near you, you can probably find some interesting foods to add in.)

Does your tortoise have any time outside? My outside Russian has really been loving our yarrow lately. It has enough "spring" that it can take some walking and grazing from a small tortoise. It's a pretty tough ground cover and so easy to grow. I did a little reading and it sounds like a common plant over there.

its been sunny in london recently we do not have a garden but we have a fairly large balcony where the sun hits hard and i use one of those wooden enclosure you buy with a tortoise for my little guy to be out and enjoy the sun too.

 

[JoesMum]

As you're in the UK I'll suggest the Shelled Warriors shop as a good source of tortoise friendly seeds. They also sell "plug plants" (plants that you grow on) from time to time
http://www.shelledwarriorsshop.co.uk/

There's plenty of food to pick now. Dandelion, sow thistle, plantain (not the banana type thing) and clover are all growing well.

Rather than recommend foods, I recommend that you make a list of the plants that grow around you and those that you can buy and look them up on The Tortoise Table Plant Database for suitability to feed
http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/

There's also an electronic plant ID booklet on that website to help you identify the common weeds.

 

[Big Charlie]

do you grow them yourself or do you pick them up?

Sorry for the delayed response. I thought I had posted this yesterday! I grow them myself. The grass, weeds and sow thistle grow naturally in my yard. I've always had roses. However, gophers just killed my hibiscus. I'll have to plant another. The first one I never planted; it just started growing. Birds must have dropped the seeds in my yard.
Charlie has a large area to graze in, enough that he doesn't eat it down to the ground.