Live Oaks leaves around outdoor enclosure

[Pearly]

Hi Guys, Spring is here in Texas, some trees budding and blooming and pollens kicking up, allergies are making tons of people sick... Time to get going with my RF outdoor habitat. I have already cleared the area of old raised bed timbers and cut down the 2 big oleander bushes in there. I think this will be a great tortoise habitat, the only worry now is the oak leaves. I have several live oaks around my house, and they will be shedding last years leaves soon. Little leathery prickly oak leaves will be flying all o er the place. How worried should I be about those? Is the concern about the tort ingesting them? Or is it more about them getting mixed in with substrate and releasing some toxic chemicals while they break down? I'm asking because depending on the answer, our Shellie could start spending her days outside pretty soon, once the perimeter is enclosed with whatever fencing material I decide on. But if oak leave are of big concern then I can't leave here there unsupervised until I cover the top with some type of chicken wire or something to keep the leaves out (and still let the sunlight in). So Guys please give me a shout: how bad those oak leaves really are and how crazy I need to make myself about keeping them away from Shellie

 

[jaizei]

If she shows an inclination to eating them, you may want to try to rake them up, but otherwise they aren't that big of a concern. Maybe make sure they don't get in her water. I think they have to be consumed in larger quantities to be really harmful and I haven't heard it them being a problem for anyone. Most people around here don't give them a second thought.

 

[Sheldon the russian tortoise]

I live in the New Orleans area and we have oaks everywhere. I do not have a problem with the tortoise trying to eat them but I do pick them up every once and a while

 

[Pearly]

Thanks guys. So, another question related to oak leaves. My oaks shed the last years foliage every spring while the new leaves and all the pollens come in. Those leaves are very hard, leathery and take forever to decompose, I like to use them in my garden in areas where soil needs some aeration. Been doing this for many years and always had nice healthy plants in this pain in the butt Texas Hill Country soil (of luck there of). Since I don't know what in osk leaves makes them toxic to torts, I'll take it step further: will plants growing in that soil with oak tree leaf litter mixed in be potentially unhealthy for the torts?

 

[aimeerusko]

Hi pearly I'm new to tort care my self but I've been dealing with live/black oak and pygmy goats since i was a kid. My papa keep goats all my life and one of the biggest killers to the kids was oak leaf poison ( because baby goats are dumb and eat everything) so every year papa would get all is grandkids together and we would ride on the tractor with a rake in hand to nock as many leaves down has we could. Then we all would take them all up and onto the compost pile they would go. And my papa used that compost to grow tons of yummy vegetables. Many of which were feed back to the goats with no problems. From my experience i would say what plants you grow will be fine.

 

[Pearly]

Hi pearly I'm new to tort care my self but I've been dealing with live/black oak and pygmy goats since i was a kid. My papa keep goats all my life and one of the biggest killers to the kids was oak leaf poison ( because baby goats are dumb and eat everything) so every year papa would get all is grandkids together and we would ride on the tractor with a rake in hand to nock as many leaves down has we could. Then we all would take them all up and onto the compost pile they would go. And my papa used that compost to grow tons of yummy vegetables. Many of which were feed back to the goats with no problems. From my experience i would say what plants you grow will be fine.

Awesome! Thank you! And I adore baby goats!!!!

 

[aimeerusko]

I do too but they can be a real pain in the butt (literally and figuratively)