Diet confusion and Animal Grass?

MeganAZ

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Apr 14, 2016
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I have been struggling with finding the ideal diet for our (yearling?) leopard tortoise. When we got her, the breeder said romain lettuce and kale are good things to feed her.. however, I have learned that is not the case. We have since changed to things like turnip greens, collard greens, mustard greens etc.. but I am trying to work on establishing a diet based on grass/hay. I have some dried Bermuda that I have been cutting into small pieces and mixing with her food but I have no idea if she is eating any of it. I have two main questions/concerns.

1) I read that people use spring mix on the forum all the time, however EVERY singe bag of spring mix I have looked at contains spinach, which is not good for them, is that correct? What am I missing about spring mix? Can someone show me a bag of the kind they use and/or explain this?

2) Today I found (see included picture) Animal Grass (Organic) at my local sprouts! It appears to be a local company. I was going to wheatgrass, which I have seen some people talking about, but I found grown animal grass and seeds to plant our own! I am very excited, but I also want to make sure it is safe/adequate. It contains barley, wheat, oats, rye and alfalfa. It says it is safe and good for cats, dogs, reptiles, turtles, etc... I assume this would be good, but I don't want to make an assumption. So far I have been unable to find anything about this particular grass or even what kinds of grass are safe/good. I would really appreciate some input on this!
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I'm headed out of town and preparing a food mix for the person taking care of her. I'm a little afraid to try something new right before I leave.

Thank you for any input/advice!
 

jaizei

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Spinach is fine as part of a varied diet. So is kale. If you fed nothing but either of those items, forever, you might have a problem. But you shouldn't if the diet is well rounded.
 

MeganAZ

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Thanks jaizei! I've been seeing so many different things. I saw something that said spinach was bad and took it to heart I guess. It's a relief to be able to buy a spring mix! I still see a lot of people claim that 70% of their diet should be grass/hay/weeds. Is this common practice? For a young (yearling) tortoise, what's a good way to achieve this balance?
 

Sara G.

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Usually chopping up all the food and mixing in a small amount of grass and then increasing the portion of grass over time is the best way to accomplish this.
I think @Tom has written a care sheet on Leopards.
 

Careym13

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I'm not familiar with "animal" grass...but the seeds look like wheat grass seeds to me which are safe. Most Leopards won't eat much grass until they are older, so for a yearling I wouldn't worry about the grass content too much. You can offer it, but he or she may not eat it. My Leopards are 18 months and both like grass...but I think that is an exception to the rule. Like Sara said, chopping it up very finely can help. Plain old yard grass is fine, like fescue, as long as you can confirm there are no pesticides/chemicals. I use spring mix once in a while but tend to pick out most of the spinach. Ideally, you would want to feed your Leopard lots of weeds. Where I live, I have all sorts growing in my yard...dandelion, plantain, broadleaf plantain, purple deadnettle, grape leaves, wild strawberry leaves, wild geranium and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting. I go out every morning with scissors fill up a colander with weeds. When weeds are scarce, like over the winter, I plant tortoise seed mixes in trays and grow them indoors. I also use a lot of endive and escarole (which can be found at most grocery stores) because they have good calcium to phosphorous ratios and the torts seem to do better on that rather than less nutritious lettuces. I also use a lot of herbal tortoise hay, mazuri and/or zoomed grassland tortoise food. Here is a link to Tom's Leopard care sheet...lots of good info in case you haven't come across it yet:http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.79895/

I hope this helps!
 

Yvonne G

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Here's a nice list of food for tortoises:

Mulberry leaves
Grape vine leaves
Hibiscus leaves
African hibiscus leaves
Blue hibiscus leaves
Rose of Sharon leaves
Rose leaves
Geraniums
Gazanias
Lavatera
Pansies
Petunias
Hostas
Honeysuckle
Cape honeysuckle
Leaves and blooms from any squash plant, like pumpkin, cucumber, summer squash, etc...
Young spineless opuntia cactus pads

Weeds:
There are soooooooo many...
Dandelion
Mallow
Filaree
Smooth Sow thistle
Prickly Sow thistle
Milk thistle
Goat head weed
Cats ear
Nettles
Trefoil
Wild onion
Wild mustard
Wild Garlic
Clovers
Broadleaf plantain
Narrow leaf plantain
Chick weed
Hawksbit
Henbit
Hawksbeard
 

MeganAZ

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Thank you Yvonne! I saved the list. Luckily I have some of the listed items in my yard. I'll have to research the weeds some more though.

Thank you for all the replies!
 

Tom

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Regular leopards often refuse grass. It is not as big a competent of the wild diet as some people once thought it was. They eat a lot of succulents in the wild. Look for ice plant, red apple, jade plant, and there are many varieties of spineless opuntia that are easy to grow. Organ pipe cactus is good too, but I cut off all the spines.

All of the things you mentioned from the grocery store are fine for variety once in a while, but try to favor endive and escarole if you must use store bought foods.

If the greens are wet, and the grass hay is finely chopped and thoroughly mixed in, then your tortoise is eating at least some of it.
 
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Here's a nice list of food for tortoises:

Mulberry leaves
Grape vine leaves
Hibiscus leaves
African hibiscus leaves
Blue hibiscus leaves
Rose of Sharon leaves
Rose leaves
Geraniums
Gazanias
Lavatera
Pansies
Petunias
Hostas
Honeysuckle
Cape honeysuckle
Leaves and blooms from any squash plant, like pumpkin, cucumber, summer squash, etc...
Young spineless opuntia cactus pads

Weeds:
There are soooooooo many...
Dandelion
Mallow
Filaree
Smooth Sow thistle
Prickly Sow thistle
Milk thistle
Goat head weed
Cats ear
Nettles
Trefoil
Wild onion
Wild mustard
Wild Garlic
Clovers
Broadleaf plantain
Narrow leaf plantain
Chick weed
Hawksbit
Henbit
Hawksbeard
This a huge efforts of list,.. i be would happy if choose particular for my start tortoise, if i can give some these to my star tortoise babies/juveniles which is available in my country and area...
 

Lyn W

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My leopard won't eat grass in any form unless he is grazing outside and then I'm pretty sure it's the clover he's after rather than the grass.
Overwinter here in the UK he has to have a shop bought diet, so to add fibre, I do as Tom recommends. I use a product called Readigrass and grind it up quite finely in a blender so that when I sprinkle it on wet leaves it sticks.
 
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