How to get my sully to eat mazuri

[joshua_moncada]

Hello everyone,

Hope you all are doing great and your torts as well. I have a year old sulcata and I've been trying to feed him the mazuri food and I can't get my sully to eat it. Any ideas??

Josh.

 

[Zeko]

Hey!

Assuming he eats other food just fine, I'd recommend soaking the Mazari to soften it up and then breaking it into little pieces and cover his food in it.

If he's of bigger size, you can soften some and wrap your greens around it.

Both have worked for me in the past with tricky eaters!

 

[MichiganFrog]

Hello everyone,

Hope you all are doing great and your torts as well. I have a year old sulcata and I've been trying to feed him the mazuri food and I can't get my sully to eat it. Any ideas??

Josh.

What works well for me and @sibi is to put some mazuri inside of greens and feed them the mazuri with the greens. Romaine works well for this, and so does Bok Choi, although our torts prefer Romaine.

While Romaine doesn't have a lot in the way of nutrients, it does contain lots of moisture, which is great if your torts don't want to drink water. It's also a great vehicle for delivery of the mazuri. Our sulcatas each eat a whole head of romaine including the stem. For variety, we add other veggies like kale, dandelion, arugula, and endive.

We also add grass for roughage and shredded carrot for beta carotene to the mazuri mix. (Vitamin A metabolized from the beta carotene is supposed to help protect against respiratory infection, and there's no danger of Vitamin A overdose/toxicity.)

I hope that this helps!

 

[joshua_moncada]

Wow thanks! I'll try that. I give my little sully romaine already so that should work and I'll start giving him carrots too. Thank you!!

 

[TortMomma]

My father gave me a giant ziplock filled with ground up mazuri and ground up alfalfa (i think) pellets. I just sprinkle it over slightly moistened greens for my young Leo, sully, and EBTs. I was told to do it every other day, as they can become almost addicted to the mazuri. I suppose you could grind it up in a food processor or in a coffee bean grinder. I store it in the fridge (I wasn't told to but for extra precaution).
I had never thought to try it that way. My dad's friend who is a tortoise breeder swears by it.
Before I had never tried mazari, but only the soaked zoo med grass land and forest blend tort/turtle pellets, and the cup diet small pellets. My guys never really went crazy over it. But having this all ground up seems like a great way to get extra nutrients and fiber into their diets especially when I can't always find the best greens for them.

 

[leopard777]

there is something missing in mazuri that doesnt entice hatchlings sulcata to like it , quite a number of threads regarding this

 

[joshua_moncada]

Yes I've heard feeding babies and hatchlings this can be a pain sometimes. I know people that have older sulcatas and love mazuri. I will keep trying to get my sully to eat it. He is a picky eater anyway. Lol

 

[joshua_moncada]

My father gave me a giant ziplock filled with ground up mazuri and ground up alfalfa (i think) pellets. I just sprinkle it over slightly moistened greens for my young Leo, sully, and EBTs. I was told to do it every other day, as they can become almost addicted to the mazuri. I suppose you could grind it up in a food processor or in a coffee bean grinder. I store it in the fridge (I wasn't told to but for extra precaution).
I had never thought to try it that way. My dad's friend who is a tortoise breeder swears by it.
Before I had never tried mazari, but only the soaked zoo med grass land and forest blend tort/turtle pellets, and the cup diet small pellets. My guys never really went crazy over it. But having this all ground up seems like a great way to get extra nutrients and fiber into their diets especially when I can't always find the best greens for them.

Thank you for the tips! I'll try and see what works for my picky little guy!

 

[DeanS]

You can always try these tried and true methods...

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/tortoise-lasagne.19944/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/tortoise-meatballs.39021/

 

[joshua_moncada]

You can always try these tried and true methods...

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/tortoise-lasagne.19944/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/tortoise-meatballs.39021/

Wow Deans that's an awesome meal you got there!! My tort is still a baby I'll just down size it and give it a go

 

[DeanS]

Wow Deans that's an awesome meal you got there!! My tort is still a baby I'll just down size it and give it a go

With hatchlings, I start out at 2 kibbles per animal and add everything else in proportion. If you add hay, make sure to cut it to ~1/2" in length...any longer and you're wreaking havoc on their tiny systems. LMK how it works out for you.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Mazuri pellets are held together with molasses. Small torts get addicted to that sweet taste and stop eating the grass and weeds that are best for them. There's a lot of dextrose in Mazuri. I don't feed babies Mazuri, I feed them a wide variety of store bought produce, (not romaine) and grasses, weeds, leaves, blooms. Bagged Spring mix is great for the small hatchlings. I don't try to feed them hay either. (Sorry Dean). Hay comes when they are a bit older. I have a 100 pound Sulcata that will eat anything I offer him. I also have a 7 yr old or so female Hermanni who goes thru phases where she won't eat unless it's Mazuri. So I stop offering her Mazuri, I offer only greens and weeds, if she doesn't eat it, I take it away. It took a month last time to get her off Mazuri and back on good greens. So every once in a while since then, I'd give her 2 or 3 pellets when I fed Bob his, and now she's refusing greens again and wants only Mazuri. So it's back to tuff love with her.
I personally would feed the weeds grasses and greens on the Sulcata list and give up on the Mazuri for now. It should only be used sparingly as a supplement in my opinion anyway...

 

[DeanS]

Mazuri pellets are held together with molasses. Small torts get addicted to that sweet taste and stop eating the grass and weeds that are best for them. There's a lot of dextrose in Mazuri. I don't feed babies Mazuri, I feed them a wide variety of store bought produce, (not romaine) and grasses, weeds, leaves, blooms. Bagged Spring mix is great for the small hatchlings. I don't try to feed them hay either. (Sorry Dean). Hay comes when they are a bit older. I have a 100 pound Sulcata that will eat anything I offer him. I also have a 7 yr old or so female Hermanni who goes thru phases where she won't eat unless it's Mazuri. So I stop offering her Mazuri, I offer only greens and weeds, if she doesn't eat it, I take it away. It took a month last time to get her off Mazuri and back on good greens. So every once in a while since then, I'd give her 2 or 3 pellets when I fed Bob his, and now she's refusing greens again and wants only Mazuri. So it's back to tuff love with her.
I personally would feed the weeds grasses and greens on the Sulcata list and give up on the Mazuri for now. It should only be used sparingly as a supplement in my opinion anyway...

Remember Maggie, once all the ingredients are in place, they're soaked for a long time (essentially, rehydrating hay back to grass! Tom uses the same ideology when feeding...and we've had no problems yet! And, um-hm, I never feed bagged salad to my animals. And, when I did...more than two years ago...it was Santa Barbara Mix...for the record, I don't try to feed hay. They take it on their own...something Tom and I learned from Brad...the breeder of Sudans...they actually like hay...even as youngsters. As Tom will tell you...variety is the key! @maggie3fan ...is this our FIRST dispute?

 

[leopard777]

i would love to not feed mazuri if possible ,maybe as a treat , its so expensive here .

checking the ingredient , it does have cane molasses and ground corn , its safe to feed fresh corn then ?

 

[TortMomma]

Mazuri pellets are held together with molasses. Small torts get addicted to that sweet taste and stop eating the grass and weeds that are best for them. There's a lot of dextrose in Mazuri. I don't feed babies Mazuri, I feed them a wide variety of store bought produce, (not romaine) and grasses, weeds, leaves, blooms. Bagged Spring mix is great for the small hatchlings. I don't try to feed them hay either. (Sorry Dean). Hay comes when they are a bit older. I have a 100 pound Sulcata that will eat anything I offer him. I also have a 7 yr old or so female Hermanni who goes thru phases where she won't eat unless it's Mazuri. So I stop offering her Mazuri, I offer only greens and weeds, if she doesn't eat it, I take it away. It took a month last time to get her off Mazuri and back on good greens. So every once in a while since then, I'd give her 2 or 3 pellets when I fed Bob his, and now she's refusing greens again and wants only Mazuri. So it's back to tuff love with her.
I personally would feed the weeds grasses and greens on the Sulcata list and give up on the Mazuri for now. It should only be used sparingly as a supplement in my opinion anyway...

That's basically what I was told with the mazari. That the molasses can get them hooked and to be careful with feeding them the pellets. I mainly never tried it before because I've always tried a wide variety of greens and weeds. Not until my dad gave me the ground up version. I only think it's mixed with the mazuri to get the alfalfa pellets into them for the fiber since it's not good to give them hay yet and because super market greens aren't the best. I wouldn't push it too much or like I said try grounding it up and adding it on top greens. When it's ground I doubt they even get a pellets worth over their greens, and it's mostly alfalfa compared to mazuri. However I can see how the mazari can be great for ppl to supplement in between getting to the produce store and in the winter, or another way to get their torts to eat certain beneficial foods.
*This is all info I've gotten from my dad and his friend. My dad who is an avid herp collector/breeder and in the past has bred star tortoises and his friend who breeds tortoises of all types.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Remember Maggie, once all the ingredients are in place, they're soaked for a long time (essentially, rehydrating hay back to grass! Tom uses the same ideology when feeding...and we've had no problems yet! And, um-hm, I never feed bagged salad to my animals. And, when I did...more than two years ago...it was Santa Barbara Mix...for the record, I don't try to feed hay. They take it on their own...something Tom and I learned from Brad...the breeder of Sudans...they actually like hay...even as youngsters. As Tom will tell you...variety is the key! @maggie3fan ...is this our FIRST dispute?

Nope, no dispute here. I have never had any success at trying to feed babies hay. Of course I always gave in to them. I haven't fed the bagged stuff in quite a while, but it was good for the babies in the winter when nothing grows here.