Is This Diet Ok?

Tolis the tortoise

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Each and every species of tortoise needs different dietary needs, but here's what I learned from my research.


80-85%: 80-85% of your tortoise's diet should consist of fresh vegetables. Include plenty of leafy greens such as dandelion, kale, mustard, collard greens, arugula, etc. You should also include a bit of other vegetables like squash, or bell pepper. Try not to include lettuce in their diet unless you are feeding them it as a treat.

10%: about 10% of your tortoise's diet, should consist of commercial tortoise food, Timothy or alfalfa hay. You can offer these foods with fresh vegetables, any time during your tortoise's meal.

2-5% try to limit the amount of fruit you are feeding your tortoise, and do not make fruit part of your tortoise's diet unless you have a rain forest species such as a red foot tortoise or a yellow foot tortoise. The fruits you can feed you tortoises in strict moderation are cherries (with the pits/seeds and stems removed), pineapple, kiwi, apple, strawberries, banana, etc.

Supplements and Vitamins: Your tortoise will need calcium dust (for reptiles) dusted on their food 2-3 times a week during each meal. Vitamins however, will only need to be used 2-3 times a month.
 
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Yvonne G

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I don't get it?...
She's 'alerting' me to your thread.

She, along with me, is worried that new members might think the Forum is making these posts and take them as good advice from the Forum. I've been trying to figure out a way to advise you that it's ok to share, but if you're taking this stuff off the 'net, a lot of what you find is old and outdated information. Maybe if you preface your threads with "my opinion" or "this has worked for me" or something like that???
 

wellington

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I agree with Yvonne. Some or all of your information is old outdated and not good for our tortoises. Most information from the internet we do not use. We have long time tortoise keepers that have done all the mistakes, have done research on their own, traveled the world and have learned the correct ways for our tortoises and have shared that on this forum.
If you still stand by what you are posting maybe tell us what your experience is and how you come by this information.
This forum works hard daily to get the correct info out and discourage the spreading of the old outdated info out on the web.
 

Mrs.Jennifer

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She's 'alerting' me to your thread.

She, along with me, is worried that new members might think the Forum is making these posts and take them as good advice from the Forum. I've been trying to figure out a way to advise you that it's ok to share, but if you're taking this stuff off the 'net, a lot of what you find is old and outdated information. Maybe if you preface your threads with "my opinion" or "this has worked for me" or something like that???
There is another earlier post about tortoise health that had me concerned...
 

TammyJ

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Parts like "will need calcium dust sprinkled on their food 2-3 times a week" - have me concerned for sure. This can be taken to mean ANY amount of calcium dust, and someone who is not aware may really pour it on and be totally wrong in doing so. A lot of this advice needs to be edited and updated, and elaborated upon with regard to the species requirements, which differ greatly!
 
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TeamZissou

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Trudy, I think that you need to think about what the Tortoise Forum is and isn't.

This forum is a place for people to share ideas about tortoise keeping. Most importantly, we are here to learn from the experts. Second, we are here primarily to ask questions and discuss possible new ways to improve our tortoise husbandry, and people with more experience can point us in the right direction. Unless we have experience on a subject in a thread, or have credible references that we can point to, we should avoid responding as if we are authorities on the subject.

While there is a section for 'Off-topic-chit-chat', it's not really appropriate to use this section as one's personal message board. You explained in another one of your threads that you have no other online outlet. I get that, and it is tough. This last year has been incredibly rough on everyone around the world due to the isolation required to combat the pandemic. We all need to think about ways to interact with people to keep from going insane. I would encourage you to try to look for other ways to interact with kids your own age on your non-tortoise-related stuff, through video chats or some other safe means.

By no means are we asking you to leave the forum; rather, try to stay on subject and ask questions, learn about different species, and how to improve your tortoise husbandry.
 

Maggie3fan

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Parts like "will need calcium dust sprinkled on their food 2-3 times a week" - have me concerned for sure. This can be taken to mean ANY amount of calcium dust, and someone who is not aware may really pour it on and be totally wrong in doing so. A lot of this advice needs to be edited and updated, and elaborated upon with regard to the species requirements, which differ greatly!
I personally have been hollering about that. Like stop sprinkling stuff.
 

Two babies

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I personally have been hollering about that. Like stop sprinkling stuff.
Maggie3fan, I may be making another mistake. My torts don't use the cuttlebone, so once a week or two I scrape a bit off the cuttlebone on the top of their food. They don't get it all, but some. Is that "sprinkling" too much?
 

Yvonne G

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Maggie3fan, I may be making another mistake. My torts don't use the cuttlebone, so once a week or two I scrape a bit off the cuttlebone on the top of their food. They don't get it all, but some. Is that "sprinkling" too much?
no, that's fine.
 

Maggie3fan

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Maggie3fan, I may be making another mistake. My torts don't use the cuttlebone, so once a week or two I scrape a bit off the cuttlebone on the top of their food. They don't get it all, but some. Is that "sprinkling" too much?
lol no it's not, you are fine. FYI...I pick on a large group of newbies, so this time I really meant another new keeper who is sprinkling calcium and supplements once or twice A DAY
 

Tolis the tortoise

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She's 'alerting' me to your thread.

She, along with me, is worried that new members might think the Forum is making these posts and take them as good advice from the Forum. I've been trying to figure out a way to advise you that it's ok to share, but if you're taking this stuff off the 'net, a lot of what you find is old and outdated information. Maybe if you preface your threads with "my opinion" or "this has worked for me" or something like that???


I deeply apologize for the inconvenience, I wanted to stay off of the off topic chit chat section and I wanted to try to help. (I will avoid writing answers on tortoise forum. I will stick to asking questions about tortoises, so I don't cause any trouble) Thank you for changing this thread. Someone who claimed they were a reptile expert gave me this diet with all the information and said I should share it, and It is "good" for tortoises, which I now know it isn't based on the replies. I still have the texts asking me to share this with people who own tortoises and all, but I deeply regret that I posted something that could harm other people's tortoises and I don't want that to happen. It was stupid of me to post this without researching properly, and next time I will make sure the information that I am receiving from others is legit.

In case you are wondering here are the text messages I received. They first got permission by messaging me on quora, saying they want to message me by phone, before I let them text me via phone. (I really shouldn't have done that.):

Screenshot 2021-01-25 at 5.04.41 PM.png

Screenshot 2021-01-25 at 5.03.11 PM.png
Screenshot 2021-01-25 at 5.06.04 PM.png
Screenshot 2021-01-25 at 5.11.59 PM.png


Screenshot 2021-01-25 at 5.14.40 PM.png

Screenshot 2021-01-25 at 5.16.22 PM.png

By the way, this was on a new phone we received last week, with a character limit of around 1600. Many modern phones have this limit. I could not reply to this thread earlier because I had forgotten my email, and the password on this account. Luckily, I was able to restore it today. (Restoring a gmail account is quite difficult)
 

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Tolis the tortoise

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Yeah, i'm not really sure why they didn't answer my question on the site but rather on texting, but I should have never posted this on the forum. I never knew it was misinformation, and i'm not sure if that person got the information from the internet or not.
 

Maggie3fan

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You don't have to stay off the off topic threads. They are fun, and social, well, The Nut House is more musical than nutty. However, most conversations there are funny and can be entertaining. Please don't feel you have to stay off those TFO threads because of your age.
You also shouldn't stop leaving comments.
When you read a question about something that you know, for instance...question..."I'm a newbie with a hatchling Redfoot. He's on rabbit pellets and I need to know what kind of heat he needs" So you compose your comment then you go to the section for Redfoots. At the top is a list of the threads under Redfoot and at the top is a link to a care sheet Redfoot and Yellowfoot...you right click on that link, that copies it, then go back to your post right click again, hit 'paste' and there you are! TFO approved care sheets so you can offer your own brand of advice


Oh, and ya need to tell that person rabbit pellets is not a good substrate...lol
 

Tolis the tortoise

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You don't have to stay off the off topic threads. They are fun, and social, well, The Nut House is more musical than nutty. However, most conversations there are funny and can be entertaining. Please don't feel you have to stay off those TFO threads because of your age.
You also shouldn't stop leaving comments.
When you read a question about something that you know, for instance...question..."I'm a newbie with a hatchling Redfoot. He's on rabbit pellets and I need to know what kind of heat he needs" So you compose your comment then you go to the section for Redfoots. At the top is a list of the threads under Redfoot and at the top is a link to a care sheet Redfoot and Yellowfoot...you right click on that link, that copies it, then go back to your post right click again, hit 'paste' and there you are! TFO approved care sheets so you can offer your own brand of advice


Oh, and ya need to tell that person rabbit pellets is not a good substrate...lol


Thanks for the advice, I really didn't know there were care sheets because I'm new to the site.
 

Tolis the tortoise

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Trudy, I think that you need to think about what the Tortoise Forum is and isn't.

This forum is a place for people to share ideas about tortoise keeping. Most importantly, we are here to learn from the experts. Second, we are here primarily to ask questions and discuss possible new ways to improve our tortoise husbandry, and people with more experience can point us in the right direction. Unless we have experience on a subject in a thread, or have credible references that we can point to, we should avoid responding as if we are authorities on the subject.

While there is a section for 'Off-topic-chit-chat', it's not really appropriate to use this section as one's personal message board. You explained in another one of your threads that you have no other online outlet. I get that, and it is tough. This last year has been incredibly rough on everyone around the world due to the isolation required to combat the pandemic. We all need to think about ways to interact with people to keep from going insane. I would encourage you to try to look for other ways to interact with kids your own age on your non-tortoise-related stuff, through video chats or some other safe means.

By no means are we asking you to leave the forum; rather, try to stay on subject and ask questions, learn about different species, and how to improve your tortoise husbandry.


I'm trying my best to limit using it too much, and I am focusing more on tortoise related content. The thread posted was a mistake. If you take a look at the end of the forum, you would know I was tricked who claimed they were a reptile expert, and that I should share this information. I should have checked what they said. Now I know the forum has care sheets, and I will be relying on those. If you check the bottom of the thread you will see the text messages that someone sent to me about "proper" tortoise diet. Therefore, I will learn and research more about tortoises.

Thank you for your response.
 

Tolis the tortoise

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Parts like "will need calcium dust sprinkled on their food 2-3 times a week" - have me concerned for sure. This can be taken to mean ANY amount of calcium dust, and someone who is not aware may really pour it on and be totally wrong in doing so. A lot of this advice needs to be edited and updated, and elaborated upon with regard to the species requirements, which differ greatly!


Again, I have replied to many people on this thread. It was not entirely my fault as someone messaged me and suggested I share it with tortoise owners. I was not quite thinking of what I was writing. I apologize for my mistake and I suggest that you check the message I wrote below for more information:

I deeply apologize for the inconvenience, I wanted to stay off of the off topic chit chat section and I wanted to try to help. (I will avoid writing answers on tortoise forum. I will stick to asking questions about tortoises, so I don't cause any trouble) Thank you for changing this thread. Someone who claimed they were a reptile expert gave me this diet with all the information and said I should share it, and It is "good" for tortoises, which I now know it isn't based on the replies. I still have the texts asking me to share this with people who own tortoises and all, but I deeply regret that I posted something that could harm other people's tortoises and I don't want that to happen. It was stupid of me to post this without researching properly, and next time I will make sure the information that I am receiving from others is legit.

In case you are wondering here are the text messages I received. They first got permission by messaging me on quora, saying they want to message me by phone, before I let them text me via phone. (I really shouldn't have done that.):

View attachment 316335

View attachment 316334
View attachment 316336
View attachment 316339


View attachment 316340

View attachment 316341

By the way, this was on a new phone we received last week, with a character limit of around 1600. Many modern phones have this limit. I could not reply to this thread earlier because I had forgotten my email, and the password on this account. Luckily, I was able to restore it today. (Restoring a gmail account is quite difficult)



Thank you for your response.
 

Tolis the tortoise

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There is another earlier post about tortoise health that had me concerned...


I'm not sure what you are exactly concerned about the tortoise health. If I made an error you do not like please send me a PM.

Check the message below, please:

I deeply apologize for the inconvenience, I wanted to stay off of the off topic chit chat section and I wanted to try to help. (I will avoid writing answers on tortoise forum. I will stick to asking questions about tortoises, so I don't cause any trouble) Thank you for changing this thread. Someone who claimed they were a reptile expert gave me this diet with all the information and said I should share it, and It is "good" for tortoises, which I now know it isn't based on the replies. I still have the texts asking me to share this with people who own tortoises and all, but I deeply regret that I posted something that could harm other people's tortoises and I don't want that to happen. It was stupid of me to post this without researching properly, and next time I will make sure the information that I am receiving from others is legit.

In case you are wondering here are the text messages I received. They first got permission by messaging me on quora, saying they want to message me by phone, before I let them text me via phone. (I really shouldn't have done that.):

View attachment 316335

View attachment 316334
View attachment 316336
View attachment 316339


View attachment 316340

View attachment 316341

By the way, this was on a new phone we received last week, with a character limit of around 1600. Many modern phones have this limit. I could not reply to this thread earlier because I had forgotten my email, and the password on this account. Luckily, I was able to restore it today. (Restoring a gmail account is quite difficult)


For the tortoise health, it is likely it won't do any harm. It was on how to inspect your tortoise's health. I did not mention people should medicate their tortoise in any way. Thank you for your concern though.
 
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