Ugh! Just caught Daisy eating a pebble! I forgot to put calcium on her food for about 3 weeks, I don’t know why I forgot! So should I sprinkle some on her food everyday for a week or just do the 2 to 3 times a week?
Eating rocks
- Thread starter Kristy1970
- Start date
Oh and Daisy only got bok Choi 2 times from the store, I pick her fresh weeds and grass and flowers everyday.
Pooped in soak, 2 rocks. Some how an empty tiny bird egg shell was in her enclosure and I found her eating that. Is it ok to give her chicken egg shells that have been boiled/steamed? If so, how much and how often?
It’s fine that she ate an eggshell. You can certainly give her a clean eggshell or grind one into her food; most people find it easier to give the tortoise access to a cuttle bone.
If she’s mostly outside and eating weeds, her mineral needs may already be met without anything extra.
Eating rocks is somewhere different than eating eggshell. Shells are calcium and our tortoises would occasionally eat an egg shell or a snail shell in the wild, in addition to the calcium rich plants they would eat. Rocks can also contain necessary minerals but it is less common for them for a tortoise to eat them.
Three weeks without supplements isn’t going to be problematic. As over supplementing is more common than under supplementing, don’t throw it on every day. Stay at your normal rate of a couple of times a week.
Eating rocks can be a cause for concern but not always. My outdoor tortoise stopped eating cuttlebone or eggshell when she found a better source, which just happened to be limestone naturally occuring in her enclosure. I made this post about it: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/good-grief-tortoise-eating-ancient-seabed.158829/#post-1499704 and got some good feedback from very experienced owners. It might help you. It still weirds me out to see her chewing on some grotty looking chunk but I know her diet is fine. She still has a cuttlebone (ignored) and I occasionally throw out an eggshell (also ignored).
If the diet seems varied and healthy, you can add the Miner All ,as Tom suggested, for a bit while you keep an eye on her; see if there are any patterns as to when she’s eating these things.
After all that, if you are really concerned, you can take her to the vet for an X-ray to ensure she’s not got any impaction from swallowing stones. My tortoise swallowed a stone before I got her but the vet was able to show me that it was small and stuck in an area where it was not likely to do any harm.
If she’s mostly outside and eating weeds, her mineral needs may already be met without anything extra.
Eating rocks is somewhere different than eating eggshell. Shells are calcium and our tortoises would occasionally eat an egg shell or a snail shell in the wild, in addition to the calcium rich plants they would eat. Rocks can also contain necessary minerals but it is less common for them for a tortoise to eat them.
Three weeks without supplements isn’t going to be problematic. As over supplementing is more common than under supplementing, don’t throw it on every day. Stay at your normal rate of a couple of times a week.
Eating rocks can be a cause for concern but not always. My outdoor tortoise stopped eating cuttlebone or eggshell when she found a better source, which just happened to be limestone naturally occuring in her enclosure. I made this post about it: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/good-grief-tortoise-eating-ancient-seabed.158829/#post-1499704 and got some good feedback from very experienced owners. It might help you. It still weirds me out to see her chewing on some grotty looking chunk but I know her diet is fine. She still has a cuttlebone (ignored) and I occasionally throw out an eggshell (also ignored).
If the diet seems varied and healthy, you can add the Miner All ,as Tom suggested, for a bit while you keep an eye on her; see if there are any patterns as to when she’s eating these things.
After all that, if you are really concerned, you can take her to the vet for an X-ray to ensure she’s not got any impaction from swallowing stones. My tortoise swallowed a stone before I got her but the vet was able to show me that it was small and stuck in an area where it was not likely to do any harm.
Miner-al is a product people use for rock eaters. Eating one rock here or one rock there is not a huge concern. the rule of thumb is what they swallow they can usually pass. Problems usually occur when impaction problems happen
