My Rowan seems to have an aversion to anything green except okra, nopales, and the rare weed. His vet says he needs more greens. While I will continue to offer him leafy items, will the nopales help to make up for his not eating greens?
Do nopales (cactus) count as greens?
- Thread starter Aunt Caffy
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A hungry tort will eat.
They are extremely stubborn and you have to be tough.
Chop up things he likes to eat so that they're in tiny bits and wet them.
Do the same with a tony amount of stuff he should eat and mix the two together.
If he refuses to eat it after a few hours, just soak him and then offer the same mix next day.
He will give in as long as you don't. Gradually increase the amount of good stuff over time and reduce the amount of bad stuff.
It will take weeks but you will wean him onto a good diet.
They are extremely stubborn and you have to be tough.
Chop up things he likes to eat so that they're in tiny bits and wet them.
Do the same with a tony amount of stuff he should eat and mix the two together.
If he refuses to eat it after a few hours, just soak him and then offer the same mix next day.
He will give in as long as you don't. Gradually increase the amount of good stuff over time and reduce the amount of bad stuff.
It will take weeks but you will wean him onto a good diet.
Wetting the bits so they all stick together is important - he can't pick out the best bits that way.
Sorry, they do not replace greens. My experience with feeding the torts too much nopale pads is runny poop. Give them a good variety of spring mix, red and green leaf lettuce and other greens, throw in a small amount of chopped strawberry, nopale or melon, and let them go at it. You can slowly remove the extras and just get to the greens.
Since he likes okra or nopales, you can grind either one of those up into mush then mix in the leafy greens, mixing it all up until all the greens are coated with the smelly mush. Hopefully you can fool him into eating it.
Nopales or any opuntia pad and fruit is one of the best vRieties you can offer. HOWEVER, this varies greatly on the species. Let's say for instance the main species focus is leopards. Leopards typically are not anywhere near having a high variety of edible succulents like opuntia variety we feed here. Yes they Willa fm can consume it and it's quite good, but having it the main staple isn't the best. Variety is always key. But with picky eaters cactus bein. Consumed is a good thing. Have you tried dandelion or any mallow or thistle yet? Perhaps getting some broadleaf seed mix and putting it in his outdoor enclosure to take off and graze from.
The studies I've see show that leopards eat more succulents than any other species. The areas where they come from have higher concentrations and higher numbers of succulents than anywhere else in the world. A wide variety of succulents makes up a large percentage of a wild leopard tortoise's diet.
My Rowan is a little Cherryhead Redfoot. I've chopped everything up and mixed it together. He wasn't too keen on the mealworms however.
Right but without going entirely too detailed into, the succulents they consume is vastly different than what we have available. I actually have made a very incredible botanist fiend in south Texas that has given me numerous succulents and plants from Natal, Bergers, Cspe and various other areas in South Africa plants. They're more bush like hibiscus with succulents leaves. Very cool plants, but vastly different than our typical "prickly pear" variety of succulents. I won't be back until a couple more weeks, but I certainly will take some photos and share the Latin names of these plants. So far the kinixys go crazy for them as they're (not the Cape or Bergers variety of plants) native to there range. The leopards like them too, but will obviously consume anything.
Same goes with Pyxis ssp, pssamobates, homopus, c.nigra, c.chilensis, g.berlandieri, Polyphemus, aggassazii, and flavomarginata. They all consume a huge variety of succulents that vastly resemble nothing in relation to our opuntia without the North American gopher us of course. But being down south and working with bolsens(flavomarginata&berlandieri) the broad spectrum of gut content appears mostly succulents but the digestion is slower for this for some reason than grasses and broadleaf weeds. So perhaps the studies in all these species is somewhat inconclusiv based off scat analysis and not physical or witnessed consumption of said species in situ.
Just my thoughts on it.
I would love to get the latin names of the ones you've found, and a source for them too.
Roger breaker niner. I'll see if my mom can go ahead and call Alvin our Botonist friend and see if I can get the names tonight.
I mixed greens in with the nopales, and I think he ate some.
I caught Rowan chowing down on some red leaf lettuce a few days ago. I've been chopping up his food pretty small and mixing it all together. Edible flowers, nopales, sweet bell pepper, okra, spring mix, some grasses, squash, and okra. He's been eating pretty well. Yesterday, I set him in his feeding dish, and he just lay down, little back legs sprawled out, and ate continuously for a good ten minutes.
If you want to be technical, "greens" refers to leafy plants like endive, escarole, turnip tops, etc. Your nopales would be considered a vegetable.
The little dude is getting more greens now. Here's a picture of his meal for tomorrow. I will slice the okra in the morning.
