Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi, his is my first time posting but anyway, i recently picked up a small sucata (2in) that was not being cared for properly. he had no uv or heat source of any kind and was kept in a small ten gallon tank along with several other small sulcatas. i brought he little gu home and all he would eat was romaine and yellow squash, but he would eat a lot of it. i have had him for around a week and he still remains active but wont eat that much grass ( i have been offering orchard and bermuda) and he only eats small amounts of it and still sticks with the greens and squash. this isnt myfirst tort so i know what it generaly needs,however it is my first sulcata. i dont know much about them other than the get to be really big, and the websites and books i have read said that they eat a variet of grasses. any help would be appreciated, thankyou

Are you chopping up the grasses/hay into little bits and mixing it with the romaine (chop that up too)?

If not, try that. Most tortoises will eat a pile of food if it is mostly the stuff they want, especially if the unwanted stuff is really small and hard to pick out.

Eventually you can add more of the good stuff and less of the other.

i have been chopping it and mixing in greens, its just that he wont touch it unless there are mostl greens in the dish. what i was thinking of trying is let him get used to the amount of greens that are in there and slowly ween him off the greens. thanks

I had the same problem. I bought a $10 food processor at Wal-mart. I chop everything up so they can't pick out what they like. I have a few sulcatas including a large one and this worked for all. Now they'll eat anything I give, even if it's not chopped up. I often use romaine, collard greens, carrots, and corn, as well as various other veggies and grasses. Make sure to use calcium powder. And they love strawberries and apple slices out of your fingers as treats, but too much fruit will give them runny stools. Good luck!