Feeding squash and pumpkin and the like

[tianasaur]

Hello everyone! I just took my Greek tort, Dave, to the vet for a check up.

The vet told me I should feed Dave some squash type foods to increase his vitamin A. I'm definitely going to do this, but it occurred to me on the way home that I don't know how to serve it!

Is it okay to give him raw squash? Or should I bake it / microwave it? Should I mush it up or can I just give him some chunks?

I would love to be able to give Dave a new, healthy food but I want to make sure I'm doing it right. Thanks for the help!

 

[lismar79]

I give mine raw pumpkin but nook the squash a little since its so hard. I also freeze chunks of both to add everyother week or so.

 

[tianasaur]

Awesome, good to know!! Thanks

 

[tortdad]

I just cut up small chunks of squash and zucchini for mine and serve it raw. They like the leaves and flowers from these plants if you are growing your own.

I'll be feeding pumpkin this year but it's a first for me.


0.0.1 Redfoot (Spike)
0.0.1 Cherryhead Redfoot (Bruce Wayne)
1.0 Sulcata (Hal Jordan)

 

[Turtlepete]

The soft squashes, like yellow "crookneck" and green "zucchini", I just shred them. Pumpkin can be shredded as well. You could possibly boil it down, like you would do for pumpkin pie, just not quite as much….
Try baked sweet potatoes. They pack a powerful punch of Vit. A.

 

[tianasaur]

Thank you everyone for the wonderful advice! I'll definitely be trying all these ideas out over the coming weeks, and maybe I'll be able to plant my own squashes as well once I see what Dave likes. Hopefully Dave likes all of them! I'll try one at a time and see how he does.

 

[Tom]

Just use a cheese grater and mix in small amounts with the regular greens once in a while.

 

[Jacqui]

You can do raw, baked, boiled, or microwaved. You can feed as is, scraped/grated, cut into chunks,, or blend it in a blender. I also freeze it for future use.

 

[Tyanna]

Just use a cheese grater and mix in small amounts with the regular greens once in a while.

I took Tom's suggestion and used a cheese grater last night for some squash. Worked perfectly awesome and easy!

 

[nickpanzee]

If you get some of the winter squashes (spaghetti, acorn, butternut and even pumpkin) you can scrape out the seeds (before cooking, if you're going to cook it) and dry them and plant them in the spring to get lots of squash vines. I do this and I have spaghetti squash vines all over the place. I really just tossed the seeds all over. Some that I put into the cinder block walls grew pretty well, and the tortoises eat what they want.





When they couldn't reach it anymore, I cut it off for them. This was done by my Greeks.