Maybe a go plan for this species, at least in the USA.

tortadise

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Purple sweet potato won the morning's offerings. I put some purple wandering jew in and some pothos. @tortadise I don't know what 'monsters plant' is, could you post an image?
Ah damn, that was an autocorrect sorry. I should of had proof read my response. Monstera it's a massive philodendron plant species. It is of course one of those that is highly suggested not to feed. But I'm seriously taking the tortoise table as being largely incorrect with a lot of species. Pothos is also on that list along with alocasia and coloclasia. That consists of main wild diet for manouria. Obviously not a staple diet for all mentioned above.
 

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So far mine have readily cleared the plate. I have separated them into 3 tubs one with 4 and 2 tubs with 3. I had to utilize this method when I hatched emys emys. They are food bully's for sure. Anyways. The plate consisted of oyster mushrooms, a small dabble of catfish filet shredded, mazuri tortoise, mazuri turtle, and paw paw fruit with a wee bit of yams all blended in a blender. They try to pick out the mushrooms first but ingest the other goodies while trying. This mixture I'll use every 2-3 weeks or so since it has higher amounts of protein. I'm going to also try Marion tortoise chow. That has a great affect on Wild collected cuora turtles that are extremely tough feeders. Basically I'm using the same feeding method as cuora mohoutii youngsters. Which are incredibly picky and only want worms.
 

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That consists of main wild diet for manouria. Obviously not a staple diet for all mentioned above.

Focusing on this I find I'm not sure what you are saying. Feed alot or feed a little?

I have found Taro (Colocasia esculenta) in grocery stores and have fed it out to the Manouria adults and neonates. I could never grow it fast enough for full time usage as I have not enough space for now.

Pathos is of course a main staple of Monkey tail skinks (Corucia) and is native all over southeast Asia. and I have fed it out to many tortoises for many years.
The Monstera is almost a wild plant here where it gets enough water. I'll have to get some cutting and get some growing.

Very Good to hear about your little new ones going for it.
 

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4227416525_64426a688a.jpg
?
?????
 

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Focusing on this I find I'm not sure what you are saying. Feed alot or feed a little?

I have found Taro (Colocasia esculenta) in grocery stores and have fed it out to the Manouria adults and neonates. I could never grow it fast enough for full time usage as I have not enough space for now.

Pathos is of course a main staple of Monkey tail skinks (Corucia) and is native all over southeast Asia. and I have fed it out to many tortoises for many years.
The Monstera is almost a wild plant here where it gets enough water. I'll have to get some cutting and get some growing.

Very Good to hear about your little new ones going for it.
@tortadise ?
 

tortadise

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A crap. Stupid autocorrect. Monstera plant. It's in the philodendron family. Grows massive leaves like pothos. Understory Flora and grows up trees. Taro yes indeed. I have 5 that are finicky. Just ordered a load of different commercial additive diets from Pangea, to Marion, to repashy omnivore/fruit diets for an addition. I'm starting to speculate that this species is much like neonate terrepene and they forage only on a specific plant and insects when young. Just have to figure what that is. Even pothos naturally will be out of reach from them when hatched. Moss, mushrooms, maybe even carrion or newly fallen leaves from upper canopy. I don't know. Maybe a trip to Laos or Cambodia would be in order soon
 

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A crap. Stupid autocorrect. Monstera plant. It's in the philodendron family. Grows massive leaves like pothos. Understory Flora and grows up trees. Taro yes indeed. I have 5 that are finicky. Just ordered a load of different commercial additive diets from Pangea, to Marion, to repashy omnivore/fruit diets for an addition. I'm starting to speculate that this species is much like neonate terrepene and they forage only on a specific plant and insects when young. Just have to figure what that is. Even pothos naturally will be out of reach from them when hatched. Moss, mushrooms, maybe even carrion or newly fallen leaves from upper canopy. I don't know. Maybe a trip to Laos or Cambodia would be in order soon

I'm finding that they pretty much like the oyster mushrooms and bright colors. I've been using in proportion, about a quarter offerd food stuff to be oyster mushroom, but I have been using hen in the woods mushrooms too. Then I chop other things into that mushroom, so far all these things have been eaten chopped into the mushrooms - kale, spinach, arugula, sorrel, romaine, taro, hibiscus (leaves and flowers), mulberry, fig (fruit, skin preferred over the 'meat'), ZooMed aquatic turtle diet, yellow and green summer squash, butternut squash, purple sweet potato, orange sweet potato, green, purple striped, and solid purple wandering Jew, today I added a little hardboiled egg. I have small limbs of mulberry, hibiscus and the three wandering jews growing in the cypress mulch, at least until eaten.

What I see of the chopped up stuff is that they are just really bad at aiming their mouth at what they poked with their nose. Each mouth full is a mix of stuff. I don't blender it, I chop it all together so there is varying particle size and they get mixed pretty good. I don't want them to find blendered as the way it 'should be'. This weekend when I have a bit of time I will put some smaller isopods (made to be able to wiggle but not walk away) in the enclosure on the food pile.

The 'planted' things just magically disappear. I have not seen them eat any of it, but little bite marks show they do, and then boom, it's gone. I think they eat at night, there is enough light creeping in they can probably see, or just go by memory or smell.

The studies I have read, that are illustrated never show neonates in the wild (go figure?) but the forest floor is thick with leaf litter. I have the large water tray that you can see in the video, but now I have many large magnolia leaves in there so they can sit under the leaf in the water as well as on the couple kinds of substrate (moss, cypress, tile, little collections of sticks).

I finally tagged them with a sharpie so can better tell one from another. They have all pooped in a separate water tray, and I have seen them all eat. They all have the faintest growth seam showing. The humidity stays 85%RH to 99%RH, but I spray them once a day now as well. This makes them all close their eyes, and wipe their faces with their front legs.

The temps have stayed in the mid 70'sF and as high as 88F now. They seem more triggered by the humidity and spraying than the temps, at least within this temp band. I don't think they are as tough as the M.e.p. but they are hardy enough. Compared to baby leo's though they are total wimps.
 

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Thank you both for sharing. This is an amazing resource. I have limited experience with these guys from my short time at the BCC. They were kept in the "cloud forest" greenhouse. I believe the high was 84F and low was 72F. Humidity kept very high constantly. They were each housed individually in relatively small enclosures. Bamboo leaf litter was added regularly. And the diet, at least when I was there, was primarily leafy greens and oyster mushrooms. I thought I'd share this video from the TC:
. Manouria in the wild and conversation with native biologist starts at 19:00. Love the info. Keep it up. :)
 

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Thank you both for sharing. This is an amazing resource. I have limited experience with these guys from my short time at the BCC. They were kept in the "cloud forest" greenhouse. I believe the high was 84F and low was 72F. Humidity kept very high constantly. They were each housed individually in relatively small enclosures. Bamboo leaf litter was added regularly. And the diet, at least when I was there, was primarily leafy greens and oyster mushrooms. I thought I'd share this video from the TC:
. Manouria in the wild and conversation with native biologist starts at 19:00. Love the info. Keep it up. :)

Hi Kevin, I would think this could support it's own thread. Only seems to be lost here, I don't otherwise have any 'issues' regarding any post in any
thread.
 

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Update of sorts, One of them seems confused about eating. It will eat very little on it's own, and so I have given oral gavage (no worries I do mice frequently). Any how his plastron is a bet distended, so I'm thinking he has not pooped in a bit. I placed him in a warm soak (84F I think) nothing happened. It's the only one not showing active growth. Any ideas. I don't have anything small enough for an enema and then it's tricky thing in tortoises anyways. That darn cloaca. I'm considering gavage of mineral oil, but that too is a bit tricky with such a little one.
 

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Using a bigger soak bowl, which encourages them to move more, and leaving them in there for a much longer time, to scramble trying to get out, sometimes helps them to go.
 

tortadise

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Update of sorts, One of them seems confused about eating. It will eat very little on it's own, and so I have given oral gavage (no worries I do mice frequently). Any how his plastron is a bet distended, so I'm thinking he has not pooped in a bit. I placed him in a warm soak (84F I think) nothing happened. It's the only one not showing active growth. Any ideas. I don't have anything small enough for an enema and then it's tricky thing in tortoises anyways. That darn cloaca. I'm considering gavage of mineral oil, but that too is a bit tricky with such a little one.

I've got 2 like this! No interest at all in eating. Still quite active. Maybe a bird dropper. Just so difficult with them being small. Mineral oil would work. If you can successfully get in the cloaca.
 

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I tried a larger soak area with a mulberry leaf for cover/food. There is no net loss of weight, as best as my crude scales can measure. I'll go for a mineral oil gavage today or tomorrow. All the other are walking over the food tile as I put food in, the hand - food association is building.

I have also seen neonates popping up all over Europe, Asia too, they all look more or less the same. I have seen much variability in adults, maybe neonates all look more or less the same?????
 

tortadise

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I tried a larger soak area with a mulberry leaf for cover/food. There is no net loss of weight, as best as my crude scales can measure. I'll go for a mineral oil gavage today or tomorrow. All the other are walking over the food tile as I put food in, the hand - food association is building.

I have also seen neonates popping up all over Europe, Asia too, they all look more or less the same. I have seen much variability in adults, maybe neonates all look more or less the same?????
I know when I got some Lawson line and tremper line back in the day. These for sure are quite different looking than those lines. Those were justnolive deal color. These are quite nice looking.
 

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I tried a larger soak area with a mulberry leaf for cover/food. There is no net loss of weight, as best as my crude scales can measure. I'll go for a mineral oil gavage today or tomorrow. All the other are walking over the food tile as I put food in, the hand - food association is building.

I have also seen neonates popping up all over Europe, Asia too, they all look more or less the same. I have seen much variability in adults, maybe neonates all look more or less the same?????


A larger soak area is all well and good, but if you want to encourage the baby to poop, you need to put it into a bowl of water that it can't get out of and leave it in there until it starts to get impatient and starts scrambling to get out. It's the scrambling that gets things inside moving.
 
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