Tortoise diet - How to Care for a Tortoise. There is immense confusion and misinformation about what to feed tortoises. ![]() Baby Sulcata Tortoises For Adoption. SULCATA DIET: Sulcata Tortoises are strictly veggie eaters. Sulcata Diet Sheet (Written and. Calcium supplementation is not required if a tort is eating a high calcium diet. Sulcata Tortoise diet: Dec 22, 2014. Sulcata Tortoise Care Sheet. Captive-bred baby sulcata tortoises are available from many sources. Approved Foods for Sulcata. Sulcatas get all of the protein they need from the grasses and other plants in their diet. African Sulcata Tortoise. ![]() I have seen many websites and pet stores disseminating completely wrong advice and I have some pretty shocking deformities in tortoises resulting from bad nutrition. This need not be the case, as the basics of tortoise nutrition can be understood in ten minutes. This article will give you those basics. Of course, there is much to learn beyond the basics. You could spend years studying the biochemical and micronutrient requirements of a tortoise and it is impossible to give guidelines that are correct for every species of tortoise at all times. Expert keepers adjust diet based on species, age, sex, activity levels and time of year. All I can give here are some general guidelines. Having said that, if you follow these guidelines, you will still be doing better than 9. The first thing you need to know is that there are herbivorous tortoises and omnivorous ones. The herbivorous ones must only ever be fed plants. Other species are omnivorous and will take insects, snails and slugs, but can also be raised successfully on a plant- only diet. Omnivorous tortoises are the same.)For the purposes of this article, I will divide all tortoises up into two broad categories: tropical tortoises (whose Latin names begin with geochelone), which are omnivorous and Mediterranean tortoises (whose Latin names begin with testudo), which are herbivorous. I strongly encourage you to find out as much as possible about the specific requirements of the species you have. A more in- depth guide is given in Practical Tortoise Care. It is absolutely fundamental for all tortoise keepers to know for sure what species their tortoise is. Read that sentence again. Calcium, fiber and minerals: good. Phosphorous, protein and fat: bad. This is a good diet for a Mediterranean tortoise. The size of the words represents the quantity of the food. This is a good diet for a tropical tortoise. The size of the words represents the quantity of the food. Leafy green plants are high in calcium, fiber and minerals. Therefore they should form the backbone of most tortoises’ diets. This can include weeds, salad greens, leaves and flowers. Some favourite tortoise foods are. Dandelions. Roses. Nasturtium. Henbit. Hibiscus. White clover. Mulberry leaves. Prickly pear. Cos lettuce, romaine lettuce, lamb’s leaf. Nettles. Parsley. Flowering maple. Agave. Hollyhock. Aloe. Purslane. Timothy hay. Petunia. Plantain. Celeriac. Daisy. Calendulamarigolds. Chicory. Comfrey. Artichoke. Bermuda grass. Fennel. Strawberry leaves. Raspberry leaves. Blackcurrant leaves. Blackberry leaves. Dahlia. Wild rosemary. Oregano. To make dinner for your tortoise, grab about a handful of mixed greens and chop it all up quite finely. You can use a blender or food processor, but I find it’s just as easy to chop it all up with a kitchen knife. You will need to experiment a bit to determine how much this is. Most species do not need to be fed every single day: five or six times a week is best. You never need too feed them more than once in a day. If you have an outdoor tortoise enclosure, you can turn it into a little edible landscape for tortoises by growing things like dandelions and nettles. Tortoises eat so little that it is possible to grow everything they need in a small garden. Some tortoise oweners have let their toroise roam around the garden, watching it carefully to see what plants it goes for, then planting more of those as tortoise food. It might take a little while to establish the growth you need to keep the tortoise fed, but once the system is set up, it can be really beautiful to see a tortoise roving around an outdoor enclosure, munching on living plants that are a perfect diet for it. Other tortoise keepers I know have gotten free food just by going to local fields and gathering up dandelions, nettles or other weeds. The point is that you can easily feed a tortoise for free. I wonder why they don’t mention this in pet shops? As with human nutrition, variety is a good policy. Tortoises observed in the wild tend to wander over a wide area, eating everything they come across, and some have been observed eating over 2. I try to keep this image in mind when designing a diet for tortoises. Let them eat the way evolution built them to eat. Variety is good for two reasons. First, it ensures they’re getting everything they need. If a nutrient, such as a trace mineral, is absent from one food, they will get it in another. Secondly, variety means they are not getting too much of any one thing. If a certain plant contains a toxin or lots of phosphorous or something, making sure they don’t eat it all the time allows the tortoise’s body to eliminate it before it becomes a problem. Species that hibernate will generally slow down their metabolism greatly during the winter months. Even if you choose not to hibernate them, they will reduce their intake of food, sometimes to the point of only eating once a week or so. This is no cause for alarm; the tortoise knows what it’s doing. What not to eat. A word of caution on feeding tortoises grass: some species are very well adapted to eat large amounts of grass. Others can not handle the levels of silica foud in grasses and hays. Species that evolved to graze include African Spurred tortoises, Leopard tortoises, Aldabra tortoises and Galapagos tortoises. These should be fed grass as two- thirds or three- quarters of their diet and the rest should come from weeds, flowers and leafy greens. For Mediterranean tortoises, the inverse is true. Leafy greens should make up the bulk of their diet, and grass can be given occasionally, perhaps making up 5% of their diet. Vegetables in the brassica family . It is generally not necessary to eliminate them completely. Peas and beans in general should be avoided. These foods are high in protein, which stresses the liver and kidneys, and contain anti- nutrients like phytic acid. Fruit. You will hear a lot of conflicting advice on whether or not to feed tortoises fruit. The truth is, it depends on the species. Mediterranean tortoises are not able to digest fruit properly, and it causes gastric problems including intestinal parasites and diarrhea. Some people say that this is only a problem when fruit is given in large quantities, and to give a little piece of fruit once a week or so is alright. My own belief is that it is safest just to avoid fruit entirely. Certainly no Mediterranean tortoise has ever been harmed by having too little fruit in its diet, and I know some very successful keepers who have raised hundreds of thriving Mediterranean tortoises without ever feeding them a scrap of fruit. Tropical tortoises are a different story. Their natural environment includes forests where fruit would drop off trees and the tortoises find it lying on the ground. Fruit forms a sigificant portion of their natural diet. It is fine to feed these animals fruit. In the wild, fruit makes up about one- quarter of their diet. Calcium. One of the quirks of tortoise nutrition is that they need very high amounts of calcium. The reason for this is obvious if you think about it: calcium is what we use to build and maintain our bone mass. A tortoise’s bony shell, which takes up a huge portion of its body- mass, means it is one of the most calcium- hungry animals there is. During the juvenile growth spurt and when a female is forming eggs, the demand for calcium becomes higher still. Calcium deficiencies are common among tortoises in captivity. This is sad because it is easily preventable. It is all too common to see inexperienced tortoise owners complaining that their animal has a soft shell. Ninety- nine times out of a hundred, this is simply because they have not been given sufficient calcium. Egg- binding, where a female forms an egg but cannot expel it, is another common problem caused by insufficient calcium. A bound egg can damage the internal organs, sometimes with fatal consequences. Most tortoise owners supplement with calcium, and I recommend this. One word of warning: make sure the calcium supplement you choose does not contain phosphorous. While high levels of calcium are important, the calcium: phosphorous ratio is arguably more important. If a tortoise consumes plenty of calcium but too much phosphorous, itt can still suffer calcium deficiency because the phosphorous blocks the absorption of the calcium. Get a phosphorous- free calcium supplement. Supplements that contain vitamin D as well as calcium are great. Tortoises (like us) need vitamin D to absorb calcium from their digestive tract. They can synthesize a certain amount of vitamin D from sunlight or ultraviolet lamps (again like us), but unless you live in a very sunny climate, it is best to be safe and choose a calcium supplement that contains vitamin D. A lot of people have asked about using ordinary human calcium supplements for their torts. At first, I didn’t want to risk it, but then I started reasoning that, as calcium is just calcium, it should be the same regardless of what species is eating it. It took me some research to find the right kind of calcium supplement, but I am pleased to report to the tortoise- lovers’ community that yes, you can use ordinary calcium supplements from a health food store to feed your tortoise. The trick is to use calcium carbonate powder, which the tortoise can absorb easily. Avoid capsules or pills, as these contain a lot of binders, besides being ridiculously overpriced. You can get calcium carbonate powder on Amazon and I’ve never had any problems with it. This can be sprinkled on their dinner and they seem to like it just fine. An alternative way to provide extra calcium is with cuttlebone. Cuttlebone is the shell of cuttlefish, a crustacean. Seasoned tortoise owners know that when a cuttlebone is left in a tortoise’s enclosure, the tort will nibble at it when it needs to, expertly regulating the amount of calcium in its diet. This is the perfect solution to meeting the calcium needs of your tortoise.
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