ckidd_15
New Member
Where can I get some cactus shipped to me and they are reasonably priced? Anybody On here willing to sell any to me??
Cactus
- Thread starter ckidd_15
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I got a decent deal on some spineless prickly pear on ebay. My bid was $7 including shipping for 4 pads. They sent me 6 instead of 4 and the shipping was super fast.
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Go to a spanish market by your house . They sell them for a dollar a pound or each can't remember .
We have a member who sells opuntia - @coastal . It might be a seasonal thing, though.
At my store it's $1 a pound. GREAT deal. Almost all of them have it, too. They use it in a lot of their meals. My family is Hispanic so we have loads from the markets.
I found them on Amazon a while back.
I also get mine at the grocery store. They have it you're around and it is cheap. they also have aloe vera but I haven't tried that yet, they are huge and way too big for my tortoise. But if I had a sulcata it would be perfect. I scrape the thorns off, I've been told I don't need to but it makes me feel better.
Whole foods usually has them, not sure of price, they will also order them for you if they don't have them on hand. I have a couple markets the sells them. Also, look on ebay, there are a lot of people selling them.
Hermes
Active Member
Any Spanish or Mexican store in your area will have it for very cheap, also some Asian stores have it.
ckidd_15
New Member
Alright cool I will have to go by my Spanish market down the street and grab some 
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I guess everyone is talking about cactus for tortoises just to straight up eat. When i ordered from e-bay I was looking specifically for a spine-less variety of prickly pair. My tortoise is way to small to eat much of it on its own right now, so I wanted it to plant in my back yard to grow for the future.
Hermes
Active Member
Most times those stores sell the whole pad too and that's is how you plant them
Spineless prickly pear, or Opuntia, seems like the way to go.
Luther Burbank cross bred Opuntia, selecting for the smoothest variants. He sold the seeds all over the world for use as cattle feed or animal feed. They were planted in much of North Africa, Spain, and Italy, and at rail heads where American cattle drives would end. The hungry cattle would eat these after the long drives before they were loaded onto trains. In other parts of the world they were a good food source for goats, but the goats would eat the whole plant and even its roots.
Unfortunately, many of these hybrids did not remain spineless after a few generations. But the goats will eat them anyway!
Luther Burbank cross bred Opuntia, selecting for the smoothest variants. He sold the seeds all over the world for use as cattle feed or animal feed. They were planted in much of North Africa, Spain, and Italy, and at rail heads where American cattle drives would end. The hungry cattle would eat these after the long drives before they were loaded onto trains. In other parts of the world they were a good food source for goats, but the goats would eat the whole plant and even its roots.
Unfortunately, many of these hybrids did not remain spineless after a few generations. But the goats will eat them anyway!
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I had heard that the store sold varieties weren't always the best for planting, that you didn't know for sure what type it was, and that they aren't always naturally as smooth as what you find in the store. Being overly cautious I went with cuttings of a "Texas spineless prickly pear" because it has no spines, and has almost no "glochids". Even some of the spineless varieties that have no big spines can have glochids, or little tiny prickly fibers, on all the little bumps. So far my cactus pads have absolutly nothing pokey on them. .. but they also have no new growth yet. My tortoise needs to share the backyard landscaping with my 5 children, the youngest of which is only 2, so we have even more reasons to be cautious about what we plant.
Sad/funny story: I was letting my kids play outside of the car while waiting for my husband to get done at work. My littlest was about a year old. Everyone was being super careful to avoid touching the cactus(gotta love desert lanscaping). My little one year old stumbles and puts her hand onto a cactus to steady herself. Before the tears started she got angry. She put on her best mad face and before I could stop her she hit the cactus as hard as she could with an open hand. And then I grabbed her and she started bawling while i pulled out all the spikes. We don't like cactus at our house.
My tortoise needs to share the backyard landscaping with my 5 children, the youngest of which is only 2, so we have even more reasons to be cautious about what we plant. Sad/funny story: I was letting my kids play outside of the car while waiting for my husband to get done at work. My littlest was about a year old. Everyone was being super careful to avoid touching the cactus(gotta love desert lanscaping). My little one year old stumbles and puts her hand onto a cactus to steady herself. Before the tears started she got angry. She put on her best mad face and before I could stop her she hit the cactus as hard as she could with an open hand.
And then I grabbed her and she started bawling while i pulled out all the spikes. We don't like cactus at our house.
