Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased a Leopard Tortoise (a week ago). I've read about the dietary requirements, and was expecting that it would eat mostly hay. So I've been offering mostly: Grass Hay, Timothy, Alfalfa, fresh Wheat grass, and a chopped mix of hays with some flower petals and such made for rabbits. I've seen it pick at those a little bit.

I've also offered some Tortoise Monster Diet (wetted), and it may have had a bite or two of that.

But When I offer Kale, it goes crazy eating it! From what I understand, the leafy greens should be the minority of the diet, but I can see this tortoise really eats a lot of it.

Should I keep offering the hays and let the tortoise get hungry enough to eat them?

Thanks!

Hi JoG-
I have a Leo&aStar and I have to CHOP CHOP CHOP their hay! I use scissors, or the paper cutter at the office when I can get to it- lol... When I first got my Leo, he only scarfed fresh greens. Then I read about the tortoise chows like mazuri, pretty-pals, monster and rep-cal. So I started mixing greens and/or hay with the tortoise foods moistened. He really enjoys the rep-cal, it smells like candy!

Great, I'll give it a try.

Thanks!

Joe please don't give up on the hay. Orchard, timothy, and bermuda hay are great choices(alfalfa is too high in protein). Simply cut up the hay really fine and soak. Add the greens like kale, chickory, and endive. Cut these up small as well. Start with a lot of greens and a little hay. Slowly increase amount of hay while decreasing greens. Also if you have access to fresh grass it will be easier to transition from greens. Please be careful of commercial diets like mazuri etc.. Often very high in protein.

Julia

Hi Julia,

Mazuri tortoise diet is not high in protein which should not be of any concern anyway. It is one of the better diets that you can provide for your tortoise when you consider it has been well researched, balanced and formulated specificly for tortoises. I actually think the nutritional value of this particular comercial diet is way better than what the average tortoise keeper can put together on their own.

I only mention this because of some of the misleading information some folks lead you to believe sometimes makes the keeping of tortoises unnecessarrily difficult.

>>Joe please don't give up on the hay. Orchard, timothy, and bermuda hay are great choices(alfalfa is too high in protein). Simply cut up the hay really fine and soak. Add the greens like kale, chickory, and endive. Cut these up small as well. Start with a lot of greens and a little hay. Slowly increase amount of hay while decreasing greens. Also if you have access to fresh grass it will be easier to transition from greens. Please be careful of commercial diets like mazuri etc.. Often very high in protein.
>>
>>Julia

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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

If you treat Mazuri as supplement for your tort once or twice a week they should be fine, the possitive results can be quite dramatic on a certain species!

I have used Mazuri as a staple for going on 6 years now. It represents 50 to 75 % of the diet for some species I keep but I still recommend no more than 25 to 50% to any other keepers.

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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Ed do you have sulcatas by any chance? Do you notice any pyramiding with the mazuri diet? I'm considering using but have heard a lot of conflicting views. I'm a little concerned with preservatives and corn/soy fillers. Also are you familar with sulcata gold from ectotherm?

Sorry so many questions,
Julia