Dangerous Food?!?!?

[Tort1419]

I am starting to incorporate more natural things into my torts diet. He is a Russian. He doesn't always like the weeds so I generally mix a little bit of store bought food with it so that he gets at least a few mouth fulls. Right now tons of the plants and weeds are in bloom. After identifying if they are safe I'm going to try out each one and see which ones he will mostly eat and comprise a list in order to increase variety.

Right now I'm trying thistle. Not exactly sure which kind but it has little spines. I've heard that they can eat them, but they even hurt me and I don't want to risk anything especially because it is a new food and I want him to like it. Is it ok to remove the spines as best as possible?

Thanks

 

[dmmj]

there's no problem removing the spines if you choose to do so

 

[RosemaryDW]

That's smart to try a little bit of one weed at a time.

It's okay to remove spines from thistles but necessarily required; tortoises can handle spines much better than you and me!

I wouldn't worry about small spines but if you have a picture of your thistle, that would help us better answer your question.

 

[Tom]

I feed sow thistle, regular thistle, and milk thistle regularly. I never remove spines. Not for any species or age.

Wild tortoises eat fully spined opuntia cactus and other cactus species. Spines are not a problem for tortoises, even though it hurts our hands.

 

[Tort1419]

Alright everyone, thanks so much!!! My mom and I were scared that they might pierce him and start an infection.