Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased a young russian tortois about 2 weeks ago and I'm quite sure that he is not eating. I have been to a few web pages that give advise on these animals and everything is good with his housing and environment. Does anyone know how to get him to eat?

first and foremost... leave it alone.
Make sure it has good weight and then leave it alone.
Offer greens every day or 2 for about an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Start with romain, green leaf, endive or pick up a bag of spring greens and try that. If you have access to broadleaf greens try plantain, dandelion greens, milk thistle...
Ed

I agree with Ed. One other item you can try is Radicchio. Russian's, like many other tortoises, are wired to go to the color red. Radicchio isn't the best green you can feed them, but it was what I used to get two of our reluctant Russian's to start eating.

Good luck.

Make sure you are housing him properly and have the correct temps in his enclosure. He may not eat if it is not warm enough. When one of my tortoises wasn't eating, I mixed some chopped up apple with the salad greens. Apple (or any fruit) should not be part of the regular diet.

I got my baby Hermann's tortoise about 6 weeks ago, and at first he ate very little, just nibbling a bit here and there. After a lot of experimentation, I found that what he really likes is a good mix of weeds chopped fine in a food processor, then blended with a small amount of Mazuri tortoise food (he gets probably 1/2 a Mazuri kibble a day, but I mix enough food for about 5 days), plus calcium and vitamins. For some reason, he likes everything all mixed together and kind of mushy. His pen is full of weeds, plus I have a barrel of weeds growing, so I just go out and harvest some when I need to. His diet includes dandelion, mulberry leaves, clover, vetch, viola, sedum, opuntia, geranium, mallow, nasturtium, hibiscus, and rose leaves/petals.

Don't know if this will work for you, but Moxie is a little chowhound now.
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Jeannie

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)
1.0 Leopard Gecko (George)
2.0 adopted DSH Cats (Amos & Silas)
1.0 rescued English Springer Spaniel (Jimmy)
and...
2.0 Kids w/ 0.0.1 California King Snake (Rex), 0.1 Leopard Gecko (Geico), 1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa (Lucas)
1.0 Husband (no pets, just us, lol)