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My daughter is wanting to get a leopard hatchling. She presently has a Russian and we have decided to add a leopard. However, the info about diet for them seems to be sometimes contradictory. I have seen some care sheets and books that recommend a commercial diet for the first year and others that say the greens and vitamin supplements will be sufficient. Since this will be a few month old hatchling we want to do the right thing to promote proper shell growth. We are als confused by similar differences of opinion on substrate. Help us out please!

Welcome to the tortoise world.

I'm a strong advocate of the prepared diets (particularly Mazuri tortoise diet) because it makes your job easier by taking all the guess work out of the decision making process. The only thing you are going to have to vary is the amount. I found that you will sometimes have to restrict the amount. Feeding greens between the feeding of the tortoise diet adds variety but does not seem to be necessary.

>>My daughter is wanting to get a leopard hatchling. She presently has a Russian and we have decided to add a leopard. However, the info about diet for them seems to be sometimes contradictory. I have seen some care sheets and books that recommend a commercial diet for the first year and others that say the greens and vitamin supplements will be sufficient. Since this will be a few month old hatchling we want to do the right thing to promote proper shell growth. We are als confused by similar differences of opinion on substrate. Help us out please!
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

I've used several of the canned tortoise foods. Mazuri, RepCal and currently Pretty Pets. They are made out of the usual grain products (oats, wheat, corn, soy) with added vitamins and minerals. It is convenient and it does add more fiber over a straight grocery greens diet.

But part of the fun for me is providing a varied and stimulating diet to my animals. My leopards (and russians) will sit there and eat a pile of pellets, but they seem more energized and involved in their environment when they can graze upon a variety of weeds, grasses and greens. In my yard I can find clover, dandelion, several dandelion look-alikes, wild violet, wild strawberry, plantain, henbit, at least a couple varieties of grass and several other weeds whose names I can't recall. From March until around December I can collect several of these for every meal. Lots of fiber, which is really important for my leopards. I've noticed that when I give my leopards nothing but grocery greens, their feces get very runny.

I also throw in several things from the grocery: endive (their favorite), the basic greens (collards, turnip, mustard), and a little bit of dark lettuces like red and romaine. Also, a few vegetables like carrots and squash. Sometimes I can find cactus pad (remove the spines!) which my leopards love. And I can also get hibiscus flowers and mulberry leaves from time to time.

Then around December the weeds and grasses die off (I live in Missouri) and I have to use more grocery foods. To improve the fiber content of the diet I will add some tortoise pellets along with chopped timothy hay, both soaked and then mashed together. The tortoises (both leopard and russian) like this mix. The hay boosts the fiber content and is also high in calcium.

The main drawback to the using the yard and the grocery as your food source is figuring out how to balance vitamins and minerals. I don't worry about vitamins too much because my tortoises are getting about 10 different foods a week in good weather, and at least a few hours of sunlight each week from about April to October. I sprinkle plain calcium carbonate on their food a couple times a week and also throw some cuttle bone in their enclosure.

To give my leopards more access to natural graze, I've made a rectangular frame of 1"x6" boards and covered it with a screen top. The bottom is open. I place my tortoises on a level patch of yard that has a variety of weeds and grasses and then place this frame over them. I also place a board or piece of tile over one end so there is a shady place to hide. The leopards don't dig, so they are secure, and they spend the day either grazing or napping. They get lots of sun and therefore vitamin D. I generally do this on weekends when I'm around the house.

So if you like the idea of hunting for your tortoise's food and have access to a chemical free yard, think about using weeds, grasses and greens as the main diet and pellets only when necessary.

Thanks for the info. I am going to go the pellet route with the greens and grass hays mixed in. I will have a grassy area under some trees which will allow me to keep him outside duing the late spring through early fall. I like the idea of the frame enclosure that you can move around and had already started to put one together. The little fellow should arrive next week and we are looking forward to his coming. Do yours ever eat prickly pears from the cactus?

I tried the prickly pears (I assume you mean the fruit, not the pads of the cactus plant).

My torts liked it, but it was a gooey mess to feed and seemed to give them loose stools. I decided to stick with just the pads.

I have had my eight hatchlings for about six weeks now and they are growing very well. I feed them endive, escarole, hay(for fiber) dandelion, romaine , raddico, and grass from my yard. They would not eat when I mixed in hay or vitamins so I started to mix them all the night before . I am not sure why but it worked because they eat like crazy now .I measure them weekly and they have grown almost a quater of an inch with NO pyramiding . I use rep-cal calcium and herptivite multivitamins. One important thing with leopards that shocked me is the humidity and water they need. I soak my leopards every day and keep their hide boxes as humid as possible. I use cardboard boxes and always keep them wet. I read on africantortoise.com that low humidity can cause pyramiding and dehydration. You should check out africantortoise.com it is a great site.

...yer not thinking of putting both of them in da same enclosure...or are you?...

>>My daughter is wanting to get a leopard hatchling. She presently has a Russian and we have decided to add a leopard. However, the info about diet for them seems to be sometimes contradictory. I have seen some care sheets and books that recommend a commercial diet for the first year and others that say the greens and vitamin supplements will be sufficient. Since this will be a few month old hatchling we want to do the right thing to promote proper shell growth. We are als confused by similar differences of opinion on substrate. Help us out please!