Baby Sulculta and greens

[tort74]

Hey our new Albino Sulculta, Little Fella, will only eat Mazuri and no greens. If we only put out greens you think he will go ahead and eat or is that bad idea? We don't want him to starve....Any suggestions?
He is also housed with our baby Leopard Tort, Coco, and he eats both and twice as much with no preferences???[/font]

 

[TheCobbler]

Usually younger torts are more picky when it comes to food. from what I know it can sometimes be difficult to get young sulcatas to eat something else if they've been given something they really like for a while. however, there are some people who have been using a full mazuri diet and I haven't read any problems with it. but that's not to say you shouldn't try to get him/her to start eating grass. try slowly introducing some with the mazuri. push in some blades of grass into the mazuri pieces after you soak them. hope it works!

 

[SulcataSquirt]

Your tortoise definitely will not starve himself, I would try the tough love route and try feeding just greens and see if that works. There is nothing wrong with just feeding mazuri but greens can be a good part of their diet as well. We had to mix in chopped greens in with our mazuri to get our sulcata to acquire a taste for them.
I also wouldn't house your sulcata and leopard together - not usually a good idea to mix breeds in the same enclosure as they require different things and grow at different rates.

 

[jackrat]

I too use the tough love method.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

This is just my personal opinion and experience because I know someone who raises very healthy looking Sulcata on Mazuri alone, but I don't like it for babies. I think they need to be fed a wide variety of greens and I don't think that Mazuri should be fed to them at all. The accepted diet for the Sulcata species is 80% grasses and weeds. The reality for most people is that's just not possible so we feed dark greens and grass and dandelions. I feed Mazuri to my 100 pound Sulcata in the winter only. I feed grass and weeds to Bob, and I add Mazuri only as grass and weeds are harder to come by. I don't ever feed Mazuri to babies. And your baby is a good example of why. They lock on to the molasses that holds the nuggets together and they won't eat anything else and that's just not good husbandry in my opinion. Not saying that you are not a good keeper, just saying that your situation now with your baby is not good. They need a variety of foods and the experience of eating them. They need to be taught to graze and to be given the opportunity to choose which weeds they like and what they don't. If I were you, I would stop feeding Mazuri and offer greens only. A healthy tortoise will not starve themselves, it would be harder on you then them. And when they get hungry they will eat greens.

 

[yagyujubei]

Why are there two threads answering the same question?