Hay pellets meant for rabbits

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I have been feeding these hay pellets to my Russian tortoise as a fiber supplementation to his food at least 3 times a week. I have ordered some Agrobs Testudo Fibre for him to replace these hay pellets. I am just wondering, can I feed him the rest of the hay pellets or should I toss them as unsuitable for for tortoises? When I bought them, I was mostly focused on the Ca/P ratio and the amount of fiber. I also made sure online that none of the ingredients used on the hay pellets were toxic. But the packaging mentioned some ingredients not mentioned online, plus I don't know what the MOS stands for. These are a local brand here in Finland, so I thought it is the best to post the list of ingredients on the packaging and let you decide whether I should toss it or not. Remember that English is not my native language and I translated this myself

Contents (In order from largest quantity to smallest):

Hay flour, oats, molasses, soybean meal, wheat bran, vitamin and trace element blend, calcium carbonate, mono-calcium phosphate, vegetable oil, magnesium oxide, sodium chloride, MOS, Yucca Shidigera

Nutritional composition:

Crude protein 12,5 %

Crude fat 3,9 %

Crude fiber 14,9 %

Ash 7,9 %

Calcium 8,6 g/kg

Phosphorus 4,7 g/kg

(Ca/P=1,8)

Sodium 1,9 g/kg

Magnesium 2,2 g/kg

Iron 0,3 g/kg

Additives:

Vitamin A 9500 IU/kg

Vitamin D3 1000 IU/kg

Vitamin E 70 mg/kg

Vitamin C 30 mg/kg

Biotin 0,5 mg/kg

Betaine 150 mg/kg

Manganese oxide 70 mg/kg

Zinc oxide 40 mg/kg

Copper sulfate 9 mg/kg

Potassium iodide 0,45 mg/kg

Sodium selenite 0,2 mg/kg

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

Hi! The composition of these pellets doesn't look very nice (but, to be honest, popular Mazuri Tortoise Diet 5M21 doesn't look much better).

Out of potentially harmful components I see high vitamin A and some vitamin D3. With right diet and UVB exposure tortoise make enough of their own vitamins and dietary supplementation can lead to overdose.

Hay flour, perhaps isn't a good source of long fiber strands which are needed for digestion.

I think, you can feed him the rest of pellets if he likes them, for example when introducing new foods. But no more often than once/twice a week and only a little. I doubt these pellets offer something extra over Agrobs.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

Hi! The composition of these pellets doesn't look very nice (but, to be honest, popular Mazuri Tortoise Diet 5M21 doesn't look much better).

Out of potentially harmful components I see high vitamin A and some vitamin D3. With right diet and UVB exposure tortoise make enough of their own vitamins and dietary supplementation can lead to overdose.

Hay flour, perhaps isn't a good source of long fiber strands which are needed for digestion.

I think, you can feed him the rest of pellets if he likes them, for example when introducing new foods. But no more often than once/twice a week and only a little. I doubt these pellets offer something extra over Agrobs.

I don't think either that these will offer some extra over the Agrobs. Just wondering about the composition, whether I should get completely rid of them. Edward really likes them, so I can probably use them to introduce the Agrobs pellets. I will just lower the amount he is getting the rabbit pellets per week and feed the rest to him.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

Hi! Wanted to update you, I gave him the agrobs pellets for the first time today. Maybe I was a bit too ambitious, but I went for half agrobs, half his old pellets. I mixed together the two different soaked pellets and wrapped them in red lettuce (his favorite food). He ended up leaving almost all of the pellets untouched Maybe i will go with 3/4 of his old pellets and 1/4 of agrobs next time. Maybe he can smell that they are too healthy...

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

That's certainly an expected behaviour (don't eat what you don't know) Start really slowly - maybe one or two pellets, soaked and mushed with finely chopped familiar greens. And be prepared for some weeks of "slow and steady" introduction I wish my tortoise eat everything I give from the first try. Never happened yet

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

That's certainly an expected behaviour (don't eat what you don't know) Start really slowly - maybe one or two pellets, soaked and mushed with finely chopped familiar greens. And be prepared for some weeks of "slow and steady" introduction I wish my tortoise eat everything I give from the first try. Never happened yet

Yeah, I have just had luck this far. There have only been some herbs and celery he has tasted but not eaten. All the other plants and the hay pellets he has always eaten! I will go with just one pellet next time and see how it goes I will try to mix in the pellets he is used to, maybe that helps

 

[Tom]

I have been feeding these hay pellets to my Russian tortoise as a fiber supplementation to his food at least 3 times a week. I have ordered some Agrobs Testudo Fibre for him to replace these hay pellets. I am just wondering, can I feed him the rest of the hay pellets or should I toss them as unsuitable for for tortoises? When I bought them, I was mostly focused on the Ca/P ratio and the amount of fiber. I also made sure online that none of the ingredients used on the hay pellets were toxic. But the packaging mentioned some ingredients not mentioned online, plus I don't know what the MOS stands for. These are a local brand here in Finland, so I thought it is the best to post the list of ingredients on the packaging and let you decide whether I should toss it or not. Remember that English is not my native language and I translated this myself

Contents (In order from largest quantity to smallest):

Hay flour, oats, molasses, soybean meal, wheat bran, vitamin and trace element blend, calcium carbonate, mono-calcium phosphate, vegetable oil, magnesium oxide, sodium chloride, MOS, Yucca Shidigera

Nutritional composition:

Crude protein 12,5 %

Crude fat 3,9 %

Crude fiber 14,9 %

Ash 7,9 %

Calcium 8,6 g/kg

Phosphorus 4,7 g/kg

(Ca/P=1,8)

Sodium 1,9 g/kg

Magnesium 2,2 g/kg

Iron 0,3 g/kg

Additives:

Vitamin A 9500 IU/kg

Vitamin D3 1000 IU/kg

Vitamin E 70 mg/kg

Vitamin C 30 mg/kg

Biotin 0,5 mg/kg

Betaine 150 mg/kg

Manganese oxide 70 mg/kg

Zinc oxide 40 mg/kg

Copper sulfate 9 mg/kg

Potassium iodide 0,45 mg/kg

Sodium selenite 0,2 mg/kg

I think it is fine to use up these pellets as a small part of a varied diet. I'm using up a 50 pound bag of rabbit pellets this way right now with similar ingredients. About once a week I soak some and mix it in with their other foods. I wouldn't recommend people go out and buy it on purpose to feed to a tortoise, but using it up should do no harm.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I think it is fine to use up these pellets as a small part of a varied diet. I'm using up a 50 pound bag of rabbit pellets this way right now with similar ingredients. About once a week I soak some and mix it in with their other foods. I wouldn't recommend people go out and buy it on purpose to feed to a tortoise, but using it up should do no harm.

Yeah, I bought it just because that was the only thing available to me to get quickly, all petstores near me were out of tortoise pellets (and somehow still are). So the same night I got him I bought a bag of rabbit pellets, I bought the smallest sack (1,5 kilos or 3,3 ponds), but it will still take a while for a single russian to eat all that! When I had done enough research what fiber source to go with and asked about brands here I ordered the agrobs.

Today I got him to eat the agrobs by melting some finely cut spinach from the freezer (that is something you can buy here, it melts into this green mush) and mixed the spinach mush with the pellets, served on top of his greens.

 

[Tom]

Yeah, I bought it just because that was the only thing available to me to get quickly, all petstores near me were out of tortoise pellets (and somehow still are). So the same night I got him I bought a bag of rabbit pellets, I bought the smallest sack (1,5 kilos or 3,3 ponds), but it will still take a while for a single russian to eat all that! When I had done enough research what fiber source to go with and asked about brands here I ordered the agrobs.

Today I got him to eat the agrobs by melting some finely cut spinach from the freezer (that is something you can buy here, it melts into this green mush) and mixed the spinach mush with the pellets, served on top of his greens.

I think you had the right idea. Most people just buy some grocery store lettuce and call it good. Adding fiber on purpose like this is an advanced move!

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I think you had the right idea. Most people just buy some grocery store lettuce and call it good. Adding fiber on purpose like this is an advanced move!

It is all courtesy to the research I did before getting a tortoise, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been that worried about his fiber intake. As said I even checked the calcium phosphorus ratio, the amount of fat, protein and fiber. I just didn't know what ingredients were healthy and what unhealthy, let alone about any other vitamins than vitamin D. Just saying, these were the best rabbit pellets I was able to buy, there are a lot worse options with nuts, toxic plants, colorants etc.