Thank you Mark. Your input is always very much appreciated.
I kinda thought that about the skin and shell, since it looks like nothing can bust through, but when I used coconut oil (again, extra virgin, organic, cold pressed) I was hoping all the anti things (anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal) that coconut oil has, that these benefits/properties would serve as a barrier of sorts from Wabi-Sabi getting more problems. My head was thinking, if they have something from their far away travels from the Middle East to the USA, and they are so scared/stressed that they are my new impulse buy pet zombie tortoises, I certainly did not need any more icky things that may be here to attack them. We all know the basic thing in nature. If you are weak, you get attacked. I used the oil externally as an armour of sorts. I did not need them to be shiny and blingy. I needed them to not die. I did, twice a week, add some coconut oil to their Mazuri or their Grassland. About 1/8th of a teaspoon. But when they were refusing to eat, hello? they would not get it. The chickens and the worms in the compost pile saw the benefit from all the food I threw away untouched by my little shelled freak outs. I added coconut oil to their water when I did the baby food soaks, in hopes that it would get in to them that way. I had read Yvonne and Maggie explain that they can get some of their spa water in from their little bum. I think what finally got them going was a combination of things and that they were finally feeling safe and that I was probably not going to eat them. We must look weird to them. Big and scary and predator like, if they have been in a desert with not much human contact, like all their lives. Until their strange trip out of their native lands.
I totally agree about holistic, it has to be as a whole, from the most basic, with real food to nourish and exercise to rev things up, on out. Natural remedies need to be tried and tested by each individual since every one has different chemistry or tolerances. No different than western prescribed FDA approved/paid for, expensive, medicine. Until years later, when the commercials from the lawyers show up on the telly and ask you if you had a stroke, or heart attack, or died, then hey, have we got a lawsuit for you to join in! Excuse me?
If the drugs are speculative with side effects, then I am placing my bets on what nature made and not what man thinks will work because man made things fix one thing and compromise the other, like liver, kidney or heart. Oh wait, we really, really need those. Chinese medicine, thousands of years older and tried and true practical, dare I say evidenced-based by millions of people perhaps. more than Western cmedicine, clearly emphasizes liver and kidney support. Compromising those, results in a downward spiral. You fix one and mess something else that is perhaps even more vital.
I share this in the hopes that others will consider options in helping their tortoises to thrive. And for themselves too, the keep peeps.
Thanks again, Mark. And Heather, yes, of course! : )
I kinda thought that about the skin and shell, since it looks like nothing can bust through, but when I used coconut oil (again, extra virgin, organic, cold pressed) I was hoping all the anti things (anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal) that coconut oil has, that these benefits/properties would serve as a barrier of sorts from Wabi-Sabi getting more problems. My head was thinking, if they have something from their far away travels from the Middle East to the USA, and they are so scared/stressed that they are my new impulse buy pet zombie tortoises, I certainly did not need any more icky things that may be here to attack them. We all know the basic thing in nature. If you are weak, you get attacked. I used the oil externally as an armour of sorts. I did not need them to be shiny and blingy. I needed them to not die. I did, twice a week, add some coconut oil to their Mazuri or their Grassland. About 1/8th of a teaspoon. But when they were refusing to eat, hello? they would not get it. The chickens and the worms in the compost pile saw the benefit from all the food I threw away untouched by my little shelled freak outs. I added coconut oil to their water when I did the baby food soaks, in hopes that it would get in to them that way. I had read Yvonne and Maggie explain that they can get some of their spa water in from their little bum. I think what finally got them going was a combination of things and that they were finally feeling safe and that I was probably not going to eat them. We must look weird to them. Big and scary and predator like, if they have been in a desert with not much human contact, like all their lives. Until their strange trip out of their native lands.
I totally agree about holistic, it has to be as a whole, from the most basic, with real food to nourish and exercise to rev things up, on out. Natural remedies need to be tried and tested by each individual since every one has different chemistry or tolerances. No different than western prescribed FDA approved/paid for, expensive, medicine. Until years later, when the commercials from the lawyers show up on the telly and ask you if you had a stroke, or heart attack, or died, then hey, have we got a lawsuit for you to join in! Excuse me?
If the drugs are speculative with side effects, then I am placing my bets on what nature made and not what man thinks will work because man made things fix one thing and compromise the other, like liver, kidney or heart. Oh wait, we really, really need those. Chinese medicine, thousands of years older and tried and true practical, dare I say evidenced-based by millions of people perhaps. more than Western cmedicine, clearly emphasizes liver and kidney support. Compromising those, results in a downward spiral. You fix one and mess something else that is perhaps even more vital.
I share this in the hopes that others will consider options in helping their tortoises to thrive. And for themselves too, the keep peeps.
Thanks again, Mark. And Heather, yes, of course! : )
