Human vitamins for hatchling?

[maybeshoe]

I was looking at vitamin supplements at Petco and the surly employee said they were cheaper online. Then he told me human vitamins work too. Just sprinkle on food. So how much would I use for a hatchling? I have Nature Made Multi Complete.

 

[Yvonne G]

Where your animal is concerned, don't worry about price. Just buy a little bottle of liquid bird vitamins and put a few drops in your tortoise's soaking water about every other day. If you feed your tortoise a good, varied diet, you won't need to add vitamins. Just calcium.

this is what I use, but any brand is fine:

 

[dmmj]

no human vitamins bird vitamins are better

 

[maybeshoe]

Is bird better because it's water soluble and that is the best way to dose? Cause one would hope human vitamins would be better than any pet ones

 

[dmmj]

yes water soluble is better but human vitamins are formulated for a 200-220 pound plus human being not a small tortoise

 

[maybeshoe]

That's why I asked how much should I sprinkle on the food...Thanks for the bird vitamin tip though. I'm gonna read up on that after work.

 

[Tom]

I would not use human vitamins. The dosage for an adult human is no where near what a 50 gram tortoise would need.

I'm not a fan of vitamins in the water either. That could promote unwanted growth of bacteria or fungi. Not knocking anyone who does it that way, but it doesn't make sense to me.

Just buy the stuff made for reptiles and use a little pinch once a week or so.

 

[Bee62]

A question: Would you use vitamins for horses for you ?
I think no.
So it is like the vitamins for humans. They are not made for torts. Please don`t use them. Some vitamins could damage the health of a tortoise by overdosing them.

 

[jaizei]

Grind up the vitamins and sprinkle/mix a tiny amount into the food every few days.

The dosing is accomplished by the amount you use. A single vitamin pill would probably last a month (or longer) for a hatchling, so it isn't the same as giving a hatchling the equivalent dose as a adult human.

 

[maybeshoe]

A question: Would you use vitamins for horses for you ?
I think no.
So it is like the vitamins for humans. They are not made for torts. Please don`t use them. Some vitamins could damage the health of a tortoise by overdosing them.

Hah. But I'll use a bird vitamin on a tortoise? The more I read about tortoise vitamins, the more confused I grow. From people's experiences, it looks like I could choose any of them (or even none) and be ok. I think I'll get the ones for reptiles first while I weigh the opinions VS facts.

 

[Pearly]

There are vitamins, trace elements and even probiotics formulated for torts. I'm all FOR supplementing in sick or recovering from illness torts and the picky eaters whose dietary intake is questionable. Especially probiotics to help their gut and through it their immune system. Some big box petstore stock them but you are more likely to find such things in smaller specialy family own pet supplies stores or better yet- online. When you do your google search you have bunch of different ones pop up. I don't supplement mine and do not worry about it anymore bcs their eating habits are well established and I'm confident in the kind of nutrition they get - true "rainbow of colors"!!! Which is always a good nutrition goal at least for the omnivorous creatures. Herbivorous will probably need to stick around the "green spectrum". Also in my torts' "early childhood" I had decided on experimenting with variety of commercial diets formulated for my species and discovered quite a few different brands often containing different ingredients. Most or all of them are supposed to fully meet nutritional needs of your pet so all the protein, fiber, aminoacids, vitamins, trace elements etc. of course there are always those ingredients that are almost impossible to pronounce as well (chemical preservatives and stuff like that) and stuff that we wouldn't normally put in our torts' food dish (like grains).... but after doing some reading and talking to my human dietician/nutritionist friends I have decided to use commercial diets in limited amounts just to fill in the gaps to complement their diet of fresh greens, fruits/veggies, mushrooms and animal protein. The key is always a good VARIETY! A RAINBOW! This is how i teach my children about healthy eating that the goal is "to eat the rainbow of colors every day" or at least throughout the 7 days of the week. I'm always on a quest for new tortoise diets at pet stores, or different fresh forest mushroom (not the white buttons or creminis, or portabella), talking here about the chanterelles and such. Always after different kinds of greens at farmers markets, since i live in subdivision and my tortoise harden plants are not established enough to supply their greens, I have to buy my dandelions, escaroles, endives, collards which is ALL OK, as long as there is different stuff every day. I keep about 6-7 different brands to "land tortoise", "forest tortoise", and "omnivorous tortoise" foods by Mazuri, ZOOMED, All Living Things and others. Every day I include one of them as a small (maybe 20-25%) of their fresh meal. I soak all of the pellets and served as mash mixed into their chopped greens to coat them almost like a salad dressing, except for the tiny round colorful flakes which i just sprinkle on top of my babies' salad, they love those! I have seen some pet stores just put those big hard pellets in baby torts enclosures... they maybe able to scrape some but I'm not sure how efficient of a nutrition that would be. Anyway I have been soaking mine since day 1 and still do (my babies will be 2 in June). I think that between rotating the fresh foods and different brand of pellets every day throughout the week, plus cuttle bone always there for them, should cover all the nutritional needs of a healthy tort. I did see a "tort probiotic" in spray form but it was nit cheap (nothing is anymore!), I have to research it bfr going there, it maybe a gimmick. Probiotics are kinda finicky with how many, what kind to take to have them actually do anything. So to wrap the story up for you: myself I do NOT supplement. Not even the calcium, BUT!!!!! I do all that other stuff, and that works for me. We all have to figure that stuff out for ourselves.

 

[maybeshoe]

There are vitamins, trace elements and even probiotics formulated for torts. I'm all FOR supplementing in sick or recovering from illness torts and the picky eaters whose dietary intake is questionable. Especially probiotics to help their gut and through it their immune system. Some big box petstore stock them but you are more likely to find such things in smaller specialy family own pet supplies stores or better yet- online. When you do your google search you have bunch of different ones pop up. I don't supplement mine and do not worry about it anymore bcs their eating habits are well established and I'm confident in the kind of nutrition they get - true "rainbow of colors"!!! Which is always a good nutrition goal at least for the omnivorous creatures. Herbivorous will probably need to stick around the "green spectrum". Also in my torts' "early childhood" I had decided on experimenting with variety of commercial diets formulated for my species and discovered quite a few different brands often containing different ingredients. Most or all of them are supposed to fully meet nutritional needs of your pet so all the protein, fiber, aminoacids, vitamins, trace elements etc. of course there are always those ingredients that are almost impossible to pronounce as well (chemical preservatives and stuff like that) and stuff that we wouldn't normally put in our torts' food dish (like grains).... but after doing some reading and talking to my human dietician/nutritionist friends I have decided to use commercial diets in limited amounts just to fill in the gaps to complement their diet of fresh greens, fruits/veggies, mushrooms and animal protein. The key is always a good VARIETY! A RAINBOW! This is how i teach my children about healthy eating that the goal is "to eat the rainbow of colors every day" or at least throughout the 7 days of the week. I'm always on a quest for new tortoise diets at pet stores, or different fresh forest mushroom (not the white buttons or creminis, or portabella), talking here about the chanterelles and such. Always after different kinds of greens at farmers markets, since i live in subdivision and my tortoise harden plants are not established enough to supply their greens, I have to buy my dandelions, escaroles, endives, collards which is ALL OK, as long as there is different stuff every day. I keep about 6-7 different brands to "land tortoise", "forest tortoise", and "omnivorous tortoise" foods by Mazuri, ZOOMED, All Living Things and others. Every day I include one of them as a small (maybe 20-25%) of their fresh meal. I soak all of the pellets and served as mash mixed into their chopped greens to coat them almost like a salad dressing, except for the tiny round colorful flakes which i just sprinkle on top of my babies' salad, they love those! I have seen some pet stores just put those big hard pellets in baby torts enclosures... they maybe able to scrape some but I'm not sure how efficient of a nutrition that would be. Anyway I have been soaking mine since day 1 and still do (my babies will be 2 in June). I think that between rotating the fresh foods and different brand of pellets every day throughout the week, plus cuttle bone always there for them, should cover all the nutritional needs of a healthy tort. I did see a "tort probiotic" in spray form but it was nit cheap (nothing is anymore!), I have to research it bfr going there, it maybe a gimmick. Probiotics are kinda finicky with how many, what kind to take to have them actually do anything. So to wrap the story up for you: myself I do NOT supplement. Not even the calcium, BUT!!!!! I do all that other stuff, and that works for me. We all have to figure that stuff out for ourselves.

Thank you for that thoughtful reply. We use the Tortoise Table as a nutritional guide. We're in a condo, no yard, so we got a kiddie pool and planted it with geraniums, viola, grass and seeded it with a variety of greens and flowers. We try a rainbow approach like spring mixes, opuntia, hibiscus, timothy hay, flowers, Mazuri, etc. but so far he/she seems to prefer dandelions over anything. I would love to get the hatchling to eat Mazuri though. The probiotics thing is hilarious. 4 years ago the pediatrician swore by it. My yoga hippie parents had me eating yogurt growing up so I agreed and bought expensive live cultures for the kids. Then our vet said you gotta feed this to your dog and cat. Later the studies came out. No scientific evidence it boosts our gut flora. But I'm already programmed to believe and my parents trust anything from ancient India. Whenever my kids take antibiotics, I feed them more yogurt. Better safe than sorry. Who knows how a wild Hermann maintains tortoise microbiota? Or a captive one? I guess this is why there are so many reptile/bird/human supplements to choose from. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Pearly]

Thank you for that thoughtful reply. We use the Tortoise Table as a nutritional guide. We're in a condo, no yard, so we got a kiddie pool and planted it with geraniums, viola, grass and seeded it with a variety of greens and flowers. We try a rainbow approach like spring mixes, opuntia, hibiscus, timothy hay, flowers, Mazuri, etc. but so far he/she seems to prefer dandelions over anything. I would love to get the hatchling to eat Mazuri though. The probiotics thing is hilarious. 4 years ago the pediatrician swore by it. My yoga hippie parents had me eating yogurt growing up so I agreed and bought expensive live cultures for the kids. Then our vet said you gotta feed this to your dog and cat. Later the studies came out. No scientific evidence it boosts our gut flora. But I'm already programmed to believe and my parents trust anything from ancient India. Whenever my kids take antibiotics, I feed them more yogurt. Better safe than sorry. Who knows how a wild Hermann maintains tortoise microbiota? Or a captive one? I guess this is why there are so many reptile/bird/human supplements to choose from. Better safe than sorry.

Haha! I think i like your parents! As for the yogurts, I am very sceptical about their probiotic claims due to pasteurization process all commercial stuff goes through, same thing in many drug store "probiotic" brands... I haven't really had the time to research all details but really unless you are lucky enough to live out in a country and purely live off the land, most times things are just not what they claim to be. Some are closer than others to their claims but research takes time. I tend to believe in old natural Indian medicine. I grew up in Poland, very small, old country with old traditions and folk wisdom as well and when younger thought of many of those as a "bs", but have come to appreciate many old traditional ways of healing. Look at the huge come back of herbal medicine! Chiropractic, acupuncture, acupressure, reiki, recently- cupping therapy! I wish that modern science stops being so dismissive about alternative/holistic methods of healing and start working together where acupuncturist is allowed to needle very sick hospital patient to help get over health crisis. And yoga!!!! Boy! Do i wish I had the patience to do it! I know 100% that I would be so much more physically fit if my adhd brain would just let me hold those breaths iiiiiiinnnnn and oooooouuuuuttttt... and not go "ok ok, c'mon, let's go! What's next???" Back to human vitamins, i would not use human on torts, dosing would be #1 reason. Most if not all med doses are calculated by either body weight or BMI or BSA both of which involve the weight and I'd always rather "under" than "over" in dosing bcs its much easier to correct the "not enough", with "too much" is kinda too late and contrary to popular belief our bodies are not that quick to "just excrete the excess with urine". I'm not sure how that would work on a 200 lbs aldabran... again... I'd rather stick with stuff formulated by veterinary nutritionists and scientists/doctors for that species