A bunch of hatching questions

[Buranman87]

I had a ton of questions, so I thought I would cram them all into one thread. Should I be concerned about overfeeding? Often, once she's about halfway through with her spinach and grass blades, she just pulls most of her food out of the dish and it gets all covered in substrate, so then I'll usually remove the dirty food and get her some new food. Are there any negative effects of her stuffing her stomach a little too much? Also- how worried should I be if she ingests a little bit of substrate(clean peat moss)? Sometimes if some get onto her food, she'll eat it before I can replace the dirty food with clean food. Thanks for listening! expect a LOT more questions. I researched for months, but I feel like as soon as I picked my tortoise up, I realized how much left I had to learn!

 

[Buranman87]

I have a sulcata BTW.

 

[Golden Greek Tortoise 567]

So, I wouldn’t be worried about over feeding unless she has no room to move around. For your other question if she eats a tiny bit I wouldn’t be worried if she’s acting normally your Sulcata is probably ok. Also in your post you said peat moss? If so I would remove that, if she eats a lot of that it can cause impaction.

 

[Buranman87]

So, I wouldn’t be worried about over feeding unless she has no room to move around. For your other question if she eats a tiny bit I wouldn’t be worried if she’s acting normally your Sulcata is probably ok. Also in your post you said peat moss? If so I would remove that, if she eats a lot of that it can cause impaction.

Thanks! the peat moss was only going to be temporary, I got some coco coir, but made a rookie mistake and got coco husk instead. i'll get some coco coir right away.

 

[Tom]

I had a ton of questions, so I thought I would cram them all into one thread. Should I be concerned about overfeeding? Often, once she's about halfway through with her spinach and grass blades, she just pulls most of her food out of the dish and it gets all covered in substrate, so then I'll usually remove the dirty food and get her some new food. Are there any negative effects of her stuffing her stomach a little too much? Also- how worried should I be if she ingests a little bit of substrate(clean peat moss)? Sometimes if some get onto her food, she'll eat it before I can replace the dirty food with clean food. Thanks for listening! expect a LOT more questions. I researched for months, but I feel like as soon as I picked my tortoise up, I realized how much left I had to learn!

Spinach is not a good food for hatchings. Its not toxic, but I would not offer that very often.

You need to get rid of the peat moss ASAP. Coco husk is the same as coco coir. Coco coir is ground up coconut husk. What size particles is the stuff you've got? Coco coir/husk is safe, but its messy. Not my first choice. Here in SoCal, its easy to find fine grade orchid bark and this is the best substrate for them.

They cannot over eat when fed the right foods and housed correctly.

Its great that you did research, but there is a problem... Almost everything that is written about them and how to care for them is wrong. Been wrong for decades. So many people do what you did, lots of research, only to discover that the people who wrote or produced the video content that you watched, have the same wrong idea that has been taught and parroted for decades. Then, almost all of the breeders producing these babies start them all wrong, following all that same wrong info.

But YOU are in luck! Here is the correct and up to date care info. All you have to do is read it and follow it. Questions are welcome:

The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. Babies hatch during the...

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