Frozen Food Portions

[Chenderson]

Hi all, currently I am setting up a little growing area for my Redfoot tortoise. However for now, I purchase fresh fruit and veg from the local fresh produce store. However being a new tortoise owner, I am just getting into the groove of feeding patterns if you will.

What I tend to do is, at the start of the week, I will purchase a selection of fruit and veg, cut it into bite size pieces, mix it together, and bag it. Each day I take a small portion from the sealed bag, and over the cause of the week it slowly begins to deteriorate(she seems to enjoy it more). However only being a small tortoise, a lot of it is wasted.

This week I purchased; Lettuce, Blueberries, Kale and Butternut Squash. While dicing it up, I seperated the overall mixture into seven equal portions. I was thinking(and done for testing purposes) to put a few extra portion bags in the freezer. And at the end of the week I will purchase a new batch of different fruit and veg and repeat the process.

Eventually I will have a large collection of pre-made frozen portions for the tortoise, that I can defrost the night before, giving a large selection of variation in the diet more regularly. Is this practical? does freezing fresh fruit with no preservatives cause any issues with the produce? Will it have reduced flavour/nutritional values etc. I am young and naive, and any advice on this would be brilliant.

 

[newCH]

Doesnt lettuce/greens when defrosted come out like its rotten?

I just feed greens and one veggie in the am.
Next day different greens and different veggie. Plus he gets
a bedtime snack after his soak. I dont dice it ahead of time.
I save fruit days for when I am running late and a banana slice
will work.
For greens I usually get spring mix, carrots with the tops
(my senior rabbit enjoys them also) & either some romaine or
boston lettuce. I like serving foods seperate so I can know what he likes.
Veggies I take a slice out of a red or green bell peppers, shredded
carrots. I make Chinese food with the peppers by the end of the week.
I have some frozen strawberries and mango chunks in the freezer also. Sheldon and I are the only ones in the house who love mango !

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Babies should be fed a little less fruit. And yes. They love rotten fruit.
It sounds like a good idea. I'd use some warmed up to room temperature mush maybe placed on a nice green hibiscus leaf or a Romain sliver.
I make up mush once a week. Very little fruit. It lasts me all week. It's very easy to sprinkle in vitamins and such this way.

 

[kdub]

I would not freeze lettuce but fruits and veggies would be fine. I cut up a mango and a papaya into small chunks and put it all in a freezer bag and just take out a chunk at a time as needed. No need to defrost as the heat within the enclosure warns it up quickly.

 

[dmmj]

Greens tend to get mushy when defrostd but as far as I know there is no nutritional difference in frozen.Seems like a pretty good plan overall.

 

[Chenderson]

I did try freezing the lettuce, and kale with the fruit. The fruit came out fine when defrosted, and the kale seemed fine also. However the lettuce was darker. I did some google research, freezing most types of lettuce causes the cell structure to crystallize and rupture, which is more visible in lettuce. However Im not sure if this actually effects the nutritional value, and if eaten the same day as defrosting, I would imagine it would be okay for a Redfoot(a lot of places have said they prefer ripened fruit/veg). Next time I will try with freezer friendly lettuce though, a lot of people freeze lettuce for smoothie consumption, so I would imagine its fine, except looks and expiry time.

 

[Chenderson]

Babies should be fed a little less fruit. And yes. They love rotten fruit.
It sounds like a good idea. I'd use some warmed up to room temperature mush maybe placed on a nice green hibiscus leaf or a Romain sliver.
I make up mush once a week. Very little fruit. It lasts me all week. It's very easy to sprinkle in vitamins and such this way.

Call me stupid, does mushing up fruit/veg effect its digestibility? I thought about this myself, and came to an uneducated assumption that; due to the 'fact' that the higher in fibre and harder(slower) to digest the food, the healthier it is for the tortoise, so I tend to just chop into manageable sizes. I also try to choose fruit that is low in citrus and sugars, and as high in protein as fibre as I can while keeping it varied. I keep to about 30-40% fruit in her mixture.

 

[keepergale]

Hi all, currently I am setting up a little growing area for my Redfoot tortoise. However for now, I purchase fresh fruit and veg from the local fresh produce store. However being a new tortoise owner, I am just getting into the groove of feeding patterns if you will.

What I tend to do is, at the start of the week, I will purchase a selection of fruit and veg, cut it into bite size pieces, mix it together, and bag it. Each day I take a small portion from the sealed bag, and over the cause of the week it slowly begins to deteriorate(she seems to enjoy it more). However only being a small tortoise, a lot of it is wasted.

This week I purchased; Lettuce, Blueberries, Kale and Butternut Squash. While dicing it up, I seperated the overall mixture into seven equal portions. I was thinking(and done for testing purposes) to put a few extra portion bags in the freezer. And at the end of the week I will purchase a new batch of different fruit and veg and repeat the process.

Eventually I will have a large collection of pre-made frozen portions for the tortoise, that I can defrost the night before, giving a large selection of variation in the diet more regularly. Is this practical? does freezing fresh fruit with no preservatives cause any issues with the produce? Will it have reduced flavour/nutritional values etc. I am young and naive, and any advice on this would be brilliant.

I like you noticed a lot of waste. This is easily solved by adding more tortoises.

 

[Chenderson]

I like you noticed a lot of waste. This is easily solved by adding more tortoises.

Haha, I totally agree. My partner already suffers with a bad case of tortoise envy, I would probably be single if I don't wait until the end of the year