Kr1st1n
New Member
Hi,
Today was a nice warm day here in Tucson, AZ (actually quite hot), and so I decided to take Fergus (sulcata) outside during my lunch break (I WFH). He has finally reached 8.5" so I'm not as worried about loosing him to a ground squirrel's burrow hole or my resident rock squirrel's burrow in a dense brush pile... but I still don't leave him unattended quite yet.
As I was tinkering around the yard while he explored, I noticed that Fergus was eating something on the ground and there wasn't any vegetation there. Come to find he was eating rocks!!! My yard is all DG. That being said, over the past 9 months, I've been actively trying to grow stuff but it's just not come in quite yet (or it's in designated areas like a greenhouse-type area / potted).
I kept trying to watch him to see if he was just testing to see if it was something to eat and then leaving it, but no, he was actually eating rocks... so I moved him to another area, and then he found bird poop and he was going nuts over it (like it was his favorite thing in the land!!!)
In my experience, when any animal is desiring to eat something that it shouldn't, it generally means there's a dietary deficiency... so I'm sure that's the same thing with Fergus. His diet is primarily dandelion greens, Bermuda grass (that I grew myself), grasses from a Dry-Climate Browsing & African Grazer seed mixes that I bought and grew from TortoiseSupply (which appears to have wild radish in it... and he loves those leaves), spring mix, collard greens, and baby prickly pear pads (some are spineless and some aren't... either way, I scrape them both to remove any glochids). He also gets a rotation of MinerAll, Mazuri, Repashy Grassland Grazer Tortoise Diet Gel Premix... he also has a cuttle bone in his enclosure but he never touches it (he use to like them).
Does anyone have any suggestions? I was very much looking forward to starting to house him a bit more outdoors this summer but I'm worried I'll never be able to let him be outside if all he's going to do is eat the DG all over my yard???
Thanks in advance for any guidance,
Kristin
Current Enclosure
Orchid bark substrate, Arcadia UV, basking spot, LEDs, temperature and humidity all regulated by thermostats & humidistats (basking, relaxing, humidity --> 100°, 80°, 80%)
Today was a nice warm day here in Tucson, AZ (actually quite hot), and so I decided to take Fergus (sulcata) outside during my lunch break (I WFH). He has finally reached 8.5" so I'm not as worried about loosing him to a ground squirrel's burrow hole or my resident rock squirrel's burrow in a dense brush pile... but I still don't leave him unattended quite yet.
As I was tinkering around the yard while he explored, I noticed that Fergus was eating something on the ground and there wasn't any vegetation there. Come to find he was eating rocks!!! My yard is all DG. That being said, over the past 9 months, I've been actively trying to grow stuff but it's just not come in quite yet (or it's in designated areas like a greenhouse-type area / potted).
I kept trying to watch him to see if he was just testing to see if it was something to eat and then leaving it, but no, he was actually eating rocks... so I moved him to another area, and then he found bird poop and he was going nuts over it (like it was his favorite thing in the land!!!)
In my experience, when any animal is desiring to eat something that it shouldn't, it generally means there's a dietary deficiency... so I'm sure that's the same thing with Fergus. His diet is primarily dandelion greens, Bermuda grass (that I grew myself), grasses from a Dry-Climate Browsing & African Grazer seed mixes that I bought and grew from TortoiseSupply (which appears to have wild radish in it... and he loves those leaves), spring mix, collard greens, and baby prickly pear pads (some are spineless and some aren't... either way, I scrape them both to remove any glochids). He also gets a rotation of MinerAll, Mazuri, Repashy Grassland Grazer Tortoise Diet Gel Premix... he also has a cuttle bone in his enclosure but he never touches it (he use to like them).
Does anyone have any suggestions? I was very much looking forward to starting to house him a bit more outdoors this summer but I'm worried I'll never be able to let him be outside if all he's going to do is eat the DG all over my yard???
Thanks in advance for any guidance,
Kristin
Current Enclosure
Orchid bark substrate, Arcadia UV, basking spot, LEDs, temperature and humidity all regulated by thermostats & humidistats (basking, relaxing, humidity --> 100°, 80°, 80%)
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