Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We bought our sulcata hatchling in Florida about three weeks ago, and he/she has been eating voraciously a mixture of grass, dandelions, clover, grape leaves, carrot pieces and romaine. Since we live part of the year in a cold area (Maine) and can't get access to grasses, etc, how and at what age does one introduce it to eating hay (we have obtained Timothy hay)? We will be taking it to Florida for the winter months of January through March. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

i was told by many that it is never too early to introduce hay to your tortoise but that they do not take a liking to it when they are so young. so, what i do is cut up buffalo hay real tiny and mix it into my hatchlings food so that he eats it without knowing it. i purchased a bunch of hay from turtlestuff.com. you can also grow your own grass during the cold months indoors. you can by the seeds from carolinapetsupply.com along with other stuff such as cactus pads.

Thanks for the information. We took some of the hay and put it into a small blender and ground it up into almost a powder. Then we sprinkled it on Kobe's food. He/she ate it all! What a great idea. We were also wondering, how much (1/2 cup, cup, ??) should we be feeding this hatchling, and how many times a day? On all of the web sites we can't find that information. Again, thanks for your previous suggestion and links.

the only info that i have ever seen on the amount of food that should be fed is at the following website:

http://home.earthlink.net/~rednine/sulcatacare.html

scroll down to the feeding section and it will answer your question. i feed my hatchling twice a day only because the food drys out while i am at work if it is not eaten right away. so, once in the morning and once when i arrive home. i hope this helps you out.

YAY!! I'm glad your blender trick worked!
-----
PHRatz