Vet2010,

You should definitely NOT let the tortoise eat the Aspen shavings. It can cause intestinal blockages from which the animal could die. I kept sulcatas for many years and successfully housed them on a straw and hay mixture. When hungry, the adult sulcatas would routinely eat the straw and hay if they had finished eating everything else that was available, especially if the substrate had just been put into their pens and smelled fresh.

I have had a couple of very nice Star Tortoises die from eating Aspen shavings even when I thought the tortoises were too small to ingest it (4". It seems that some of them like the taste of it for some reason. It might not hurt a really large sulcata (iron stomachs), but I would still avoid letting one eat Aspen shavings just because of my experience with the Stars.

Bill Z

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