A couple of questions..

[JMB]

I have lots of conflicting input on this...

How often should you feed your tortoise? Edna is 4 and I feed her every other day as I was told. Is this ok or is it better to feed small meals every day? I hate seeing her looking at her food bowl! But she also doesn't gorge herself when she is fed, she usually just eats what she needs.

I also have an infestation of fruit flies (gnats). Does anyone have an organic, healthy option to get rid of them? It's only happened in the past few months and I can see them in the substrate in her enclosure and would like to get rid of them.
Thanks!!

 

[Candy]

I feed Dale everyday. They say that when they're out in the wild they might not eat everyday because (of course) they have to find their own food, but Dale's not in the wild. I give him vegetables and fruits and Elk meat (he really likes that). Although I gave him some fresh blueberries two nights ago and he devoured them. As for him substrate we use moss and after about 3 months he did get little flys so I changed everything. He's good now.

 

[tortoisenerd]

Most owners feed everyday. I have heard of some doing every other day or every few days though. Also depends on food type and if anything is available free range (like grasses or hay). I personally would rather feed a smaller amount daily though. I think it would seem like the tort would graze at it a little more vs. gorging, although gorging is their instinct.

Some guidelines such as a loose handful the size of the shell, or only as much as the tort eats in 20 minutes are thrown around. These vary though. I think it's best to weight and measure Straight Carapace Length regularly and see if you need to adjust food from that.

 

[Yvonne G]

This recipe looks like it wouldn't be harmful to a little tortoise:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Fruit-FlyGnat-Trap-187531

Yvonne

 

[Madkins007]

If you want to get all scientific, the approximate daily calorie need of a tortoise is "body weight (in kilograms) to the 0.75th power, times 32" (C=(Wkg)^0.75x32). This, a 1lb (1/2kg) tortoise would need about 0.5^0.75 = 0.6. 0.6 x 32 = 19 calories a day. This works out to about 2 ounces of turnip greens a day, or 1 ounce of Romaine lettuce.

(By the way, boost the number by about 50% for active tortoises, drop it 50% for inactive tortoises.)

Here is the problem:
- Tortoises tend to eat too much, exercise too little, and grow too quickly in captivity.
- Wild tortoises rarely graze daily- in fact, many wild tortoises hide for days at a time. They also tend to gorge when they find good food, then sleep for longer- a Red-foot is known to have stayed in a den for over a month without eating.
- Wild foods generally have more nutrients (especially fiber and calcium) and less water, sugar, and calories than grocery store food does.

Our solutions:
- Offer SMALL meals (we RARELY offer small enough meals!), OR
- Remove uneaten food after about 15 minutes (which encourages gorging and domination)
- Skip days, based on a good guess of how their calorie level is doing.
- Carefully calculate the caloric intake of every meal.

Different keepers argue different things, and I think the bottom line is that all of these techniques work out about the same in the long run.

 

[tortoisenerd]

hehehe I love formulas (I'm an engineer). That was an awesome post!