Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought some Mazuri for Moxie, primarily so I could use it to give him Panacur. Well, he really likes it. I'm not planning to make it a big part of his diet, but I was wondering how many of you use it, how often you feed it, and what percentage of your tort's diet it comprises? I'd especially like to hear from those of you with Mediterranean torts. And, if you don't use it, why?

Thanks so much for your responses,
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Jeannie

0.0.1 California King Snake (Rex)
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa (Lucas)
0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa (Bella)
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake (Bess)
1.1 Rubber Boas (Isaiah & Esther)
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise (Moxie)
2.0 DSH Cats (Amos & Silas)
1.0 English Springer Spaniel (Jimmy)
and...
2.0 Kids
1.0 Husband

I feed it to both my sulcata and my redfoot every other feeding - i feed every other day so thats about once every four days - When I feed it I soak it in water and mix it about half and half with either hay for the sulcata or fruit/greens for the redfoot. So i guess it makes up around % of their diet.

HTH
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Adam
http://anraviary.cjb.net
0.0 African Sidenecked, 0.0 Northern Diamondback Terrapin, 0.1 Redfoot, 0.1 Sulcatta, 1.0 Western Hognose, 1.0 Crested Gecko, 0.1 Mali Uromastyx

I feed it every three days to my baby leopard and the russian. I also soak and mix with greens... From what i have heard, many tort breeders do use mazuri and love the stuff.
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Cindy
PHFaust
Email Cindy
Land of the Outcasts!

np
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Jeannie

0.0.1 California King Snake (Rex)
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa (Lucas)
0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa (Bella)
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake (Bess)
1.1 Rubber Boas (Isaiah & Esther)
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise (Moxie)
2.0 DSH Cats (Amos & Silas)
1.0 English Springer Spaniel (Jimmy)
and...
2.0 Kids
1.0 Husband

One of our Russian's eats it, all the others ignore it. None of our Greek's will touch it. Our Redfoot's get it once every two weeks mixed with papaya and chopped up greens.

IMHO, only feed it once in a blue moon to Med torts. It was designed for Galops, not Med's. Keep feeding your Herman what they eat in the wild (lots of weeds and high calcium greens) and forget the commercial food. It was far too much protein for Med torts.

I use it for my russians, leopards, and a little for my american box turtles.

For the russians and leopards the priority list for them is:

1) Weeds and grasses
2) Grocery greens and chopped vegetables
3) Canned foods

When the yard has weeds and grasses, that's what they get. If not, then grocery stuff. Canned stuff to add variety to the grocery stuff. I don't know how the %s breakdown, but I'd like to think that Mazuri makes up no more than 10% of the russian's diet, and maybe 25-30% for the leopards. It's a very "nutrient dense" food and it could be easy to overfeed them with it. I moisten the Mazuri and often mix timothy hay into it.

For the box turtles they eat the bugs in their pen. I then throw in fruit and pellets. Their pellet foods are Friskies Cat food, RepCal Bearded Dragon, and a little Mazuri.

I use it for greaca and hermanni (I think those can be classified as Med. tortoises (I have the damnest time spelling Medi...)
It seems that those that use Mazuri as roughly 50% of the tortoises diet have the greatest results.
Now for those people running around screeming 'TOO MUCH PROTEIN'... they need to find out 'what is too much protein?'. This is an old subject that might be classified as a 'dead horse' topic but this horse is alive and kicking. It will remain so until somebody does some extensive studies on the metobolic requirements of chelonians. This will probably never happen. So, with that said, my suggestion is to feed a varied diet with no attention paid to the individual components. The reason for this is that if you focus on one component you are sure to either over do it or under do to it considering that you do not know what is 'too much' or 'too little'.
In the case of Mazuri, It was formulated as a complete diet many years ago. It is still being 'tweeked' but the protein content of that product has been given extremely careful thought BUT it should still be used with caution which is why many keepers recomend using it as a component of a varied diet.
Ed
(I'm sure there is more to follow...)

Hello Ed. It's Binh. I met you at this past weekend Rep Show in Houston. Thanks for all the advice. In terms of Mazuri... I wholeheartedly endorse it. I give a heaping two cups of it to my adult 2.2 Leopards that live outside almost daily. They primarily graze on grasses but enjoy the supplementation. My small Radiated also receive Mazuri every other day. Their is much debate on this topic and in the end, much R&D have given to Mazuri and I trust the brand but again emphasize that variety is key.

Binh