Feeding cuttlebone

[hingeback]

Hi, I am not sure whether my home's hingeback finds snails often to eat, the last time I seen her eating snails had been a few weeks. A few questions about feeding cuttlebone:

1.How do I feed her ( put in the whole piece? )

2.How often should I feed her?

3.How much to feed?

Thanks

 

[dmmj]

you can put the entire piece in the enclosure and let your tortoise control its own calcium intake.

 

[hingeback]

Thanks

 

[ZEROPILOT]

It's very common for my tortoises to ignore a cuddlebone for weeks or more...And then one day, just start eating it.

 

[hingeback]

It's very common for my tortoises to ignore a cuddlebone for weeks or more...And then one day, just start eating it.

She also ignored when I gave her just now.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

She knows when she needs some

 

[W Shaw]

You can also get tortoise blocks that are a little more ethical. Just make sure you don't get one that's mostly plaster of Paris. ZooMed makes one that's got the right ingredients, and has some cactus bits in it to encourage use. My Russian has one. He ignored it for some time -- probably because I was new to the whole tortoise thing and giving him way too much calcium/D3 supplement -- but then one day I noticed a little corner of it seemed to have some scrape marks & now I can clearly see where he's been nibbling on the edges. So he gets all the benefits of a cuttlebone -- but without the guilt.

 

[Tom]

Sometimes tortoises will ignore cuttlebone for weeks or months and then munch half of it down all in one day. I break mine in half for smaller tortoises or tortoises that are not used to eating it. Some tortoises munch on them regularly and in small amount, some tortoises ignore them entirely, and some tortoises ignore them for a long time and then eat a bunch.