What is a good hay to start introducing into his diet?

[Ezarate]

What is a good hay to start introducing into his diet? There isnt any grass up here for most of the year so his diet has consisted of Kale, and baby romaine. He is really healthy and his enviorment is always humid. Last year I tried introducing orchard hay into his diet, he ended up walking all over it and dragging it everywhere instead. He did try to eat a little tiny bit but the grass was too big for him to chew. Now that he's 2 years old he got significantly bigger but I'm wondering if there's smaller bladed hay he could easily eat. I know there's no better diet then grass that's why I really want to get him to eat it.

Also I changed his substrate from Coco Fiber to Orchid bark as its significantly easier to clean and maintain. Ever since I changed out the substrate he hasn't been eating as much, infact today he didn't really eat much at all.

 

[Ezarate]

The new Substrate is Cypress Mulch, not Orchid Bark.

 

[Tom]

He's still too small for hay. Wait until he is around 12 inches long to begin introducing it. Until then, you can buy the little plots of sprouted wheat grass at the pet store and use that. If you keep it watered and in the window sill, you can get 8 or 9 cuttings from each plot.

Romaine is poor nutrition. I wouldn't feed it at all. Likewise kale is only good to feed as part of a mixture once or twice a week at most, and I prefer to not feed it at all. This is probably why he's still so small after two years. At two year he should be at least 10 pounds if not closer to 20. If you must use grocery store food, favor endive and escarole. Use cilantro, collard, mustard and turnip greens, carrot or celery tops, bok choy, watercress, etc... for some variety. You'll need to mix in some grass, soaked ZooMed Grassland pellets or some rehydrated horse hay cubes into it to give it the needed fiber. Introduce any new food slowly by mixing in only a tiny tiny amount at first and gradually adding more as time goes by. Tortoises generally don't like new foods and take a while to get used to new stuff, even if its better. You should also add in some Mazuri once or twice a week.

Here is more explanation and a food list:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/

 

[Ezarate]

He's still too small for hay. Wait until he is around 12 inches long to begin introducing it. Until then, you can buy the little plots of sprouted wheat grass at the pet store and use that. If you keep it watered and in the window sill, you can get 8 or 9 cuttings from each plot.

Romaine is poor nutrition. I wouldn't feed it at all. Likewise kale is only good to feed as part of a mixture once or twice a week at most, and I prefer to not feed it at all. This is probably why he's still so small after two years. At two year he should be at least 10 pounds if not closer to 20. If you must use grocery store food, favor endive and escarole. Use cilantro, collard, mustard and turnip greens, carrot or celery tops, bok choy, watercress, etc... for some variety. You'll need to mix in some grass, soaked ZooMed Grassland pellets or some rehydrated horse hay cubes into it to give it the needed fiber. Introduce any new food slowly by mixing in only a tiny tiny amount at first and gradually adding more as time goes by. Tortoises generally don't like new foods and take a while to get used to new stuff, even if its better. You should also add in some Mazuri once or twice a week.

Here is more explanation and a food list:
https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/

Thank you so much this explains alot. We read on other posts about kale and romain that's why we've been feeding him that. I'm ordering the zoomed pellets online now. We put in some mustard greens to see what would happen and he's eating them! I'm going to sprinkle grass we have growing in the back of the trailer, and try some cilantro tomorrow