Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It was highly recommended to me on this forum. Is anyone else using it? Any positive or negative feedback would be appreciated. It is for a sulcata 6 month old.

Thanks

I used it for about a year for my russians, leopards, and sometimes to the box turtles.

It didn't seem to harm them, other than maybe quick weight gain which needed to be closely monitored, but I realized I only used it out of convenience, not by conviction. It is made of things that aren't recommended as tortoise foods (soy, grains, etc.), and so I decided to quit using it. Pellets do make for an easy way to deliver calcium supplements by mixing powder with softend pellets.

I think you'll find that most people recommend using it as a supplement, not a steady diet. If you have only one (or a few) tortoises, I think you'd do just as well to stick to grasses, hay, some grocery greens, etc., as appropriate to the species.

With my small group I think it is part of the fun of keeping tortoises to try and vary their diet as much as possible. Using pellets just eliminates some of the fun and introduces some questionable food items.

You are going to find many conflicting opinions about Mazuri Tortoise diet. If you follow the instructions the results will convince you that you made a good choice... Is it the 'right' choice? That's where the debate comes in. I use it for about 15 different species and love the results. Those that don't recommend it have not used it or don't use it based on the theory that Soy is bad for you. Well, there are many things that tortoises eat in the wild that are bad for you. I've tried the Mazuri (on a bet with my 9 year old) and I wouldn't make it a staple of my diet (it's very bland)(but then... have you ever tasted grass?)

There is something in the mix that is obviously beneficial to the animal based on the resulting development of the animal that uses it. That point cannot be argued by the person that has ever used it for any length of time. I'm going on 4 years of use now and go through about 25 lbs a month. I feed it about every 4 days and feed as much as they will eat in one sitting the remove the leftovers.

Not all tortoises will eat it but those that do can smell it coming and react accordingly.

Btw... I just found out that Petsmart carries 1/2 and 1 lb. containers of the stuff.

As with many ideas with keeping tortoises you are going to find strong oppinions on both sides. This opinion is based on successful use over a decent time period and only more time will tell if I'm making the proper decision.

One other btw... I believe this diet has been used by zoos for larger tortoises for over 15 years now.
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

You certainly cannot get more dedicated than trying out your tortoises food first!
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1.0 Uro Archimedes
0.0 Fish
0.1 Sulcata Minnie
1.1 Iguanas Flik and Loki
0.1 Newfoundland Jasmine
0.1 Feline Winter
Indiana & Wisconsin

that must say something for his trust in the stuff, if he'll try it himself -- i can't think of any commercial pet food i've ever come across that i'd try (dog and cat food not only smelling bad, but containing god-knows-what).

since petsmart carries it now, maybe i'll see if my little "baby" digs it.

Heck, I've eaten cheap canned dog food and dry cat food, and I sure wouldn't recommend either one of them for any species!

It might help to look at the ingredients of the different herbivore foods sold by mazuri. They start with a base of grains and soy. Just like some dog & cat foods.

Maybe it does no harm, but it seems to me that most canned pet foods are designed by first using a cheap, readily available base of soy/wheat/corn/oats and then adding enough vitamins and minerals to overcome the problems wit soy/wheat/corn/oats.

From www.mazuri.com

Tortoise diet:

"Ingredients
Ground soybean hulls, ground corn, ground oats, dehulled soybean meal, wheat middlings, cane molasses, brewers dried yeast, soybean oil, wheat germ, dehydrated alfalfa meal,...."

Reindeer diet:

"Ingredients
Ground soybean hulls, wheat middlings, ground aspen, dried beet pulp, dehulled soybean meal, cane molasses, dehydrated alfalfa meal, sucrose, soybean oil, dicalcium phosphate, brewers dried yeast,..."

Ferret diet:

"Ingredients
Ground corn, dehulled soybean meal, dried whey, sucrose, dicalcium phosphate, cane molasses, animal fat preserved with BHA, dried beet pulp, soybean oil, dehydrated alfalfa meal, calcium carbonate,..."

And mazuri recommends that you use it as the major part of the diet.

From www.mazuri.com:

"Feeding Directions
Feed 1-4% of body weight per Tortoise per day. It is not necessary to wet the diet, although this may help to acclimate tortoises to the diet. Feed consumption will vary with temperature. Feed with good quality grass hay. Fresh fruits and vegetables (less than 20% by weight of total diet) may also be provided if desired."

But nobody here does that.

And before anyone gets concerned, I'm not knocking anyone who uses it. I used it up to a couple months ago. Maybe there's something highly beneficial to each of the above species by scientifically re-arranging the amounts of soy hulls, dried wheat middlings, cane molasses and dehydrated alfalfa meal.

:->

So far I haven't been given any evidence or even anecdotal events of any harm the diet has/can do.

I've got a large collection in which I use the stuff and network with many zoos who have used it and still do.

You may have been kidding about rearranging specific ingredients but I really do think you can change ratios of the same components to fit the need of specific species.

Mazuri does not recommend the Tortoise diet as anywhere near a main staple and neither does anyone I know who recommends the diet.

1-4% bodyweight. My tortoises consume at least 15 to 20% of their body weight on any given day with the temperatures over 80 degrees F.
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

You said Mazuri doesn't recommend it as a staple diet.

The instructions I copied from www.mazuri.com said (in part):

Feed 1-4% of body weight per Tortoise per day

My view is if you are told to feed it every day, then it is being promoted as a staple. Maybe that's not your definition of staple .

I was only kidding a little bit about the soy/corn/alfalfa stuff. Seems to me that the pet food industry has a standard set of base ingredients that they can mold to produce a product. It makes for a nice, convenient food. Maybe the needs of reindeer, ferrets and tortoises are that similar. (Just being silly)

Heck, even Tortoise Trust has promoted Pretty Pets tort food as an occassional supplement, and that's just corn/oats/beet pulp.

(I did notice that about the Pretty Pets and it blew me away)

My understanding of a 'staple diet' is a stand alone diet where there is no supplementation. I feed my Rottie (not a tortoise) IAMS and only IAMS... that is what I call a staple.

4% is what I call a supplement/portion of the diet and that is only what the manufacturer suggests.
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Last comment on a minor point - not really arguing.

Mazuri wants you to feed the equivalent of 1-4% of the tortoise's
*bodyweight* in tortoise chow every day, not 1-4% of the diet.

From mazuri.com

"Feeding Directions
Feed 1-4% of body weight per Tortoise per day. It is not necessary to wet the diet, although this may help to acclimate tortoises to the diet. Feed consumption will vary with temperature. Feed with good quality grass hay. Fresh fruits and vegetables (less than 20% by weight of total diet) may also be provided if desired."

==============================================================

If you have a 100 pound tortoise, you would feed it 1 to 4 pounds of Mazuri pellets every day! They do suggest a limit on fruits and vegetables based on the total weight of the diet, not the tortoise.

I tried feeding my russians on this 1-4% schedule for awhile. They grew tired of the food. It's actually quite a lot! I weigh 185 and can't imagine stuffing down 1.85-7.4 pounds of those pellets every day. Maybe 7.4 pounds of Oreos.

I have an old can of Pretty Pets Iguana diet. They suggest making the pellets 80% of the total food intake. Pet food makers really want you to buy a lot of the product, because they aren't going to make much money selling occasional snacks.

Ok...They're mistaken... kinda.

At a temperature of greater than 80 degrees I can very easily see a 100 lb tortoise consume 4 lbs of the stuff daily in addition to 5 or 10 lbs of grasses...

Let's got to the other end of the spectrum. Do you think a 100g tortoise would be harmed by consuming 4g daily? I don't think so but I don't do this or recommend this either.

It is kind of a minor point because the manufactures recommendations is just that... a recommendation. Networking will help you refine your tortoises diet no matter what direction you choose.
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

i was considering just trying some to see if my tort even likes it, and if so, feeding some in addition to what i'm already feeding him. i'm guessing that it'd be a good source of fiber? how much of your torts' diets is mazuri? do you feed it along with other food items, or in place of other foods every so often?

This is a couple posts down.
Link

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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

I use Mazuri with every feeding. My Sulcata is about 7in SVL. I have had her for four years since she was a hatchling. I only had problems with pyramiding very early on using store bought tortoise diet. Now she virtually shows no signs of pyramiding and is very active and healthy. I always wet then crush about 10-15 pellets and mix it in with hay which I also wet. On top gets a sprinkle calcium. The tortoise loves it and is very healthy. I'll try to get some pics up later on.

Erik

Related point: Some years ago, before Purina spawned Mazuri, I was in regular contact with Purina's nutritionists when they were developing one of their zoo diets. I was hugely impressed by the quality and depth of research they put into the development phase, as well as by the quality control they apply to the manufacture of all their feeds. And their attitude--they sought out the thoughts of keepers and anyone elses with relevant experience, and made good use of the info so obtained. They have considerable experience and expertise in feeding exotics, and an enviable track record to boot. If people are having problems with the product, I suspect that the Mazuri people would be interested in hearing about them. And no, I have no Purina/Mazuri shares, or linkage of any sort, other than purchasing their feeds.

A fine supplement for Redfoot's, Yellowfoot's, Kinixys, Elongata, Forsteni, and Burms when fed once every 10 days to 2 weeks.

Would not suggest for any other tortoises. Too many ingredients that are not part of any torts natural diet and untested for any long-term effects. It's much cheaper and better for your torts to feed them weeds from your yard or surrounding areas than any commercial food, most of which are crap. It's only in teh last year I started feeding our Redfoot group Mazuri aside from that I haev never fed a commercial food to any tortoise in 33 years of keeping the critters. Never had one die, only 6 vet visits in 33 years. something to be said for natural foods.

Ernie

The Tortoise diet is one of the most well tested of the Purina products. It was developed to head start Galapagos tortoises and zoos have been using it ever since.
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

My testudos (Hermanns, Russian, & Egyptian) LOVE it. They get it every 3 or 4 days & start getting excited when they hear the the container rattle.

Hi, I feed this to my 7 month old redfoot 'Sage', every third day...He loves this stuff!!!! on the off days he gets Dandelions, endive, tomatoes, mango...But Sage gets the most excited about the Mazuri, he gets excited even before he sees the plate put in his pen... shawne1

My daughter seems to love most what it the least valuable food for her. And to be honest,- I LOVE cookies.
Does this mean, that they are good for me?

This is not meant to be an offence at all, but just because a human or an animal develops a taste for a food, simply doesn't mean, that it is also good for the individual.

I also wonder, if one reason for using Mazuri in zoos might be, that it is so convenient to feed. When I spend an hour washing salads and greens, cutting them up and preparing fruits and supplements to make a 'salad' for my little guys, I sometimes wonder, how long it takes people, who have many tortoises of different species, to prepare all the meals...
From a purely scientific standpoint (sorry,- my job...) I would love to see a liver- and kidney status of tortoises, that are mainly herbivorous and have been fed Mazuri over a larger number of years. It will be very interesting, once some keepers on this forum will have used it long enough, to have an impact on a tortoises overall lifespan, to see the longterm results (also in terms of longer-term follow up on the development of resulting hatchlings).
I think, that at that point we will have advanced to having actual knowledge about this diet, and this will be very interesting for the keepers community and very beneficial to many tortoise lifes...

Gaby

My redfoots favorite foods are in order, dog poop, mango, papaya, and Mazuri. I wouldn't feed any of those items every day (um, especially that first one). Even the mangos that are only seasonal get fed, at most every other day.

Whether the tortoises like it or not is not the point.

The point is that the tortoise diet has been used for years on tortoises. It is a time proven product. It is easy to feed. It does appear to provide a good component of a ballanced diet when used as instructed.

All the zoos I know that use it, use the diet as instructed. It is a component of a diet that includes the Tortoise diet, greens and grasses where applicable.

As I pointed out earlier, it has been in use for many years in many zoos on high profile tortoises. I would think that if there was a problem with the diet it would have been brought to light by now.

My initial decision to use this stuff is based on many conversations with many keepers and a few researchers (not too many tortoise nutritionists). The worse opinion I could get about the product is indifference.

I can't help but wonder why convenience is a bad thing if the overall results is good.
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Mazuri is a soy and corn based product. These ingredients are cheap fillers that provide questionable nutritional value. No mass produced and packaged product can match the nutritive value provided by grasses and/or hay.

Timothy hay can comprise the majority of a Sulcatta's diet. It's a source of food that the animal can graze on at its liesure (if used as a substrate). It is best to use a variety of grasses, however, such as Oat hay, small amounts of Alfalfa, and others (http://www.oxbowhay.com). These grasses naturally posses the correct amounts of nutrients, and are closer to what the tortoise would naturally eat in it's native environment than either prepared foods or supermarket produce. They promote proper digestions and physical development as well. If you check you will find that this is what most zoos use for their large tortoises, regardless of what it says on the Mazuri website.

Why this is such a controversial topic is because nobody really knows the nutritional requirement of any reptile.

Every diet that I know of has been developed by trial and error. The diet is at first thrown together based on the creators assumption of what is required. If the manufacturer is good they will then test it out for at least a little while and tweek it as necessary before releasing it to the public commercially.

The idea of a 'natural' diet is no different than using say... u Mazuri Tortoise diet as a substitute to fulfill a component that was originally found in a tortoises native range. Note I said substitute.

Unless you go to the country of origin and collect all the plants that are known to occur and are known to be consumed you are using substitutes. There's a big problem outside of the first part of this picture. You have to know what the animal consumes in it's native habitat. Two tortoises, Leopards and DTs, come to mind that have some good studies done on the diet of these animals in their native range and both have an obvious flaws. The range of both animals is so extensive that there is no way all the animals are going to consume the same plants. Another point... if you have a free ranging tortoise and watch it go through it's daily routine you can't help but notice that they eat everything. Keeping this in mind you can't help but notice that not all of the same things are available all year around.

With this in mind... how can you come up with a nutritional requirement accept by trial and error.

Oh, lets not forget temperature. The metabolism is going to function differently at different temperatures which I would thing would lead to different nutritional requirements.
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

I think so lol, I think the wider the varity provided the better chance of hitting the correct amounts of nutrients needed. The only thing is, hay/grasses being such a big part of the diet, i can not for the life of me convince my sulcata to go near the stuff unless it is covering something else. and even then she manages to only eat very little. I only want to ensure the health of my tortoise by providing good nutrition, hence the inquisition. Thanks all for your input. Much appreciated.

You hit the nail on the head... I call it the shotgun method. You give it everything and you are bound to hit the nutrients/conditions it needs because it is very difficult to determine what these animals actually need.

Getting it to eat grasses is easy (kinda). They seem to be programmed to constantly forrage. Use the grass as a substrate. Another suggestion, believe it or not, even my Cherryhead redfoots can resist fresh cut lawn clippings.

My feeding schedule consists of Mazuri one day, skip a day, gorcery greens one day, skip a day and then, lawn clippings one day and so on. The mazuri is the only food that is removed after they walk away. On the other stuff it is left until it is finished and not replenished until it is. (so the 'skip a day is flexable) (The rate of consumption is obviously tied to temperature so the rate of feeding has to be flexable.)

The guys outside also eat whatever falls into the pen (leaves, seed pods, worms, bugs, bird feathers... birds) and what pops up in the pens.

So the majority of my guys do get a pretty varied diet and that is what I recommend.

(welcome to the world of chelonians)
(kinda reminds me of the opening line to the Twilight Zone)
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Ed
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Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care