Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do they eat pumpkin? PreHistoric pets had some pumpkin in their enclosures yesterday..the torts were chowing down on it.

Is this something my little guy will FINALLY let me feed him?

>Is this something my little guy will FINALLY let me feed him?

Well, pumpkin is seasonal and for your tort should be an occasional treat. Use the *pie* pumpkin, not sure why but that's what I was told. Remove seeds and toast for your own treat! Apparently, the tiny pumpkins or gourds are not an appropriate food.

While you're buying pumpkin, get a head of radicchio, an expensive chickory, the red leaf in "Spring Mix." No tort I know refuses it; of course not, it's expensive!!

HTH,
Pat

YEah see, I actually tried all that in the very beginning. He's way picky, won't touch a thing.

Seems to be how my reps always are. Corns won't eat the mice with calcium, so I have to put it in their water. Leos won't eat crickets..tort won't eat anything but crab grass. Bah.

>>Seems to be how my reps always are. Corns won't eat the mice with calcium, so I have to put it in their water. Leos won't eat crickets..tort won't eat anything but crab grass. Bah.

I've noticed that you say your tort won't eat anything except crabgrass. But you also state in another post that he would eat pellets, but you are against that.

Are you trying to make a gradual change in the tort's diet, or are you forcing him to go cold turkey? If the tort has been on a bad or compromised diet for a long time, it may not recognize other items as "food". And I'm a little concerned that the only thing it eats is grass. I've seen russians listed as not eating grass, but mine always consumed a little bit. Thing is it came out in their feces looking undigested, so I'm not sure they were getting anything except fiber from it.

If you haven't already done this, trying mixing something the tortoise likes (crabgrass and/or pellets) with a little bit of something new (greens and weeds). And I mean mix it - don't throw a hunk of romaine in next to a pile of crabgrass. Actually chop the two items together. And make it 95% of the favorite and 5% of the new stuff. The new stuff should be so insignificant and small that the tort won't know the difference. A finely chopped salad.

Feed him this for a week or two. Then slowly increase the percentage of good stuff. 10% for a couple weeks, then 20%, etc. Don't expect a dramatic change in two meals! Or even 20. Show patience.

And don't be a purist and refuse to feed him pellets. Crab grass may not provide him much nutrition since russian torts don't seem to be capable of digesting it. Even the ultra-purists at the Tortoise Trust advocate using Pretty Pets tortoise pellets on a limited basis. Most of these pellets are based on standard grain products with vitamins and minerals. Russians are broad-leafed weed eaters. If the tort won't get away from eating crab grass, try using pellets as the basis of the dietary change. Make a mushy salad of wet pellets with a small amount of greens and work from there. The pellets will provide the basic nutrition and allow you plenty of time to change the tort over to a more varied diet of greens, weeds and maybe a few pellets.

Concerning snakes and mice - I've always heard that an adult mouse provides a complete diet for snakes. No need to add calcium. Supposedly mouse pinks are a little calcium deficient since their skeletons are not fully developed.

Good luck - and be patient!

No no, not that he'll eat pellets, because the ones that came in the box with him from the pet store were untouched. They are FEEDING them pellets at the pet store. I bought the same ones to try the night I got him from my girlfriend, and he wouldn't go for it again, he just walked through them.

And i'll try the mushy pellets, not a bad idea. Thanks.

Yeah, most pellets are best soaked in some water. I will occasionally throw some 'monster' brand pellets on top of my tortoises' greens (a little treat every week or two), but those usually soak up some water from the greens anyways.

How many fecals have you taken to the vet? If you've only done one, I would try taking another in (sometimes they will go unnoticed).

I think the main thing right now, as has already been said, is to take something that he likes and mix it with something that's good for him. If he likes eating crabgrass, then pick some of it and serve it to him with some shredded greens. You'll probably have to block off his access to the crabgrass he usually eats as well, but put it near there. Once you get him to eat this concoction, then you can start mixing a little bit more greens until he is eating just greens. In theory it should work, however reptiles always tend to suprise us.

On a final note (for now)... temperatures? The temperatures of the outdoor enclosure are important data to us right now. If it's getting a little chilly, the tort might be getting ready for hibernation, in which case eating small amounts of grass might be his way of helping to get everything out of his system. Get us some accurate temperature readings of the outdoor enclosure (areas where he basks, sleeps, etc.). Do not let him hibernate this year. He is probably a fairly fresh import, and you just don't want to risk it if he may be unhealthy.

Do NOT give the canned pumpkin for pies. You can give the canned pumpkin that is not sweetened. i.e. simple canned pumpkin

Fresh pumpkin is also available this time of year. Squash, zucchini, Red Leaf lettuce, Green Leaf lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, thinly sliced Radish, mustard greens, and Mums (readily available right now) are also loved by Russians.

An added benefit of pumpkin is that it has some natural worming properties (the curcurbitin content). Here's a bit of correspondence off the russiantortoise forum website - I hope it's OK for me to copy it here, as it's very interesting on pumpkin - especially the second half of the posting:

>>>>>>

Nina

Oops, my cutting and pasting of the correspondence didn't seem to work. I'll try again, because the second half of the correspondence is especially interesting. Again this correspondence is from the russiantortoise yahoo forum website:

Joe Heinen, DC wrote:
The seeds are high in cucurbitin and the flesh is high in mannitol and cucurbitin
http://www.botanical-online.com/medicinalscucurbitapepoangles.htm
Med Parazitol (Mosk). 1966 Jul-Aug;35(4):487-8.
[On the discovery of cucurbitin--a component of pumpkin seed with anthelmintic action]
[Article in Russian]
Rybaltovskii OV.
PMID: 5993845 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
J Ethnopharmacol. 1999 Dec 15;68(1-3):183-92.
Traditional antihelmintic, antiparasitic and repellent uses of plants in Central Italy.
Guarrera PM. Dipartimento Biologia Vegetale, Universita La Sapienza, Rome, Italy.
The uses of 51 plants of Marche, Abruzzo and Latium, distributed in 28 families, are listed here. Memories and news of continued use of the plants in these sectors were collected from farmers and shepherds in person (mostly oldpeople).
The plants most frequently used as antiparasitics and repellents are Juglans regia, Lupinus albus, Ruta graveolens, Fraxinus ornus, Datura stramonium,Artemisia absinthium, Allium cepa, while R. graveolens, Cucurbita maxima, A.absinthium, Allium sativum are the most commonly used as antihelmintics.
PMID: 10624877 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Pumpkin - a favorite subject.
All of the below are direct clips copied from things I wrote a year or more ago and from a brief article I wrote on pumpkin last fall.Someone asked if pumpkin was good to feed. I do so myself but I do not freeze it in order to use it frequently as the composition is not really all that great. But as a food that is available only once in volume (halloween) a year -
I do not think it to be dangerous. The values for raw pumpkin are as follows.
In 100 grams of raw pumpkin
91.600 % water
1.000 % protein
6.500 % Carbohydrate
0.500 % Fiber
21.000 mg Calcium
44.000 mg Phosphorus
1600.000 IU Vitamin A
As you can see the Calcium / Phosphorus ratio is wrong to use this as a staple.
I add a calcium supplement liberally to it when I use it. Paula Morris and some others use it as a fall "fiber flush " and high
carbohydrate source for prepping for hibernation. For such a purpose it is made to order. On a side note to this - pumpkin contains Mannitol, which is a known Anthelminthic (source of information - "The Wealth of India raw materials. Publications and Information Directorate, CSIR, New Delhi."A food that is nearly free AND a natural wormer? This is in the flesh not in the seeds, though the seeds are high fiber. Pumpkin is the food
that has the highest level of mannitol by far. 150,000 - 200,000 ppm. In contrast other natural sources are pomegranate; 18,000 ppm and celery stems with 10,000 - 20,000 ppm. Chicory also contains it but to a much lower degree.
Pumpkin contains almost an order of magnitude more than the next possible natural tortoise or turtle food. It is a known
anthelminthic and by virtue of its primary site and mechanism of action, mannitol has a high diuretic potential and can markedly increase fluid flow rate in all nephron segments including the proximal tubule. Thus, when administered early in the course of acute renal failure, mannitol tends to flush out cellular
debris and prevent tubular cast formation. In emergency care, mannitol is used (intervenously) in the treatment of head injury to decrease cerebral edema and intracranial pressure, and in the
promotion of urinary excretion of toxic substances.
All of the above are based on human studies - but until a better source comes along........
I wish to stress that in no way should "folk" remedies ever take the place of veterinary care. But - if I were treating an animal with probable / possible kidney problems I would add some pumpkin to its diet to helpclear the kidneys. As it promotes urination I would not use it with an already dehydrated animal. Interestingly this also promotes water absorbtion from the intestines. (Yes it does both.) Logically this leads me to believe that it might
be worthwhile to mix it in diets of newly imported Asians undergoing treatment as so many of them seem to suffer kidney problems as long as hydration is maintained, especially if I were treating with a antibiotic that has known kidney impact. And as a possible natural worming agent I do feed it - seasonally
and with added calcium as stated above.
--
Joe(Chiro)

Nina