How can I convince my husband to stop mincing up the tortoise food?

[momvetkat]

My husband loves Mr. T and insists more often than not on providing his daily "salad". I make sure he has a varied diet and am now growing a lot of my own greens for him. Barry cuts the pieces with scissors into teeny shreds. He also gives him shredded carrots every day (because "he loves them"). I feel like he needs to be treated like the wild forager he is and when I feed him I give him big leaves to work at eating. I have read that it is best not to give carrots too often and to feed them whole. If I get advice on his feed from experts, maybe B will listen (I know he wants the best for him). BTW Mr T is an adult male Russian. I sprinkle TNT vitamin powder on his food several times a week.

 

[wellington]

The tearing of larger food items will help to keep his beak healthy. I would not and do not feed carrots often, but when I do, I peel it and feed the strips of peel. I think a whole carrot could be too hard for the beak and could possibly chip or break it. I'm no expert, just what I do with my own.

 

[Yvonne G]

I chop the greens and veggies up into very small pieces for babies, but after they're a bit bigger, and they go outside to live, they have to bite off their food from the plants/grass/weeds.

When they're babies, you can get a whole lot more food into them if you chop it up small. But a bigger tortoise, and Mr. T qualifies here, should be outside and biting/grazing, not having his food cut up for him.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

There you go, momvetkat, two of Tortoise forum's wise old moderators are siding with you!
Show these messages to hubbie.
For what it's worth I feed carrot as a treat once every couple of months and let Tidgy eat mostly by herself as close to nature as possible.
But I can't resist hand feeding her tidbits of food sometimes though I still offer larger pieces for her to fight with.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

I agree...

I only chopped food into tiny bites for the babies.

Larger ones grazed in their outdoor pens to feed themselves. I did occasionally offer an extra "salad" meal but left things unchopped.

I don't think I've ever fed carrots.....ever. But if I did it'd be shredded. Whole carrots are tough enough for my juicer! Can't imagine a smaller mouthed tortoise trying to tear through that!

 

[Tom]

Tell him Tom The Dog Trainer said, "NO! Leave it!"



I don't chop up food for brand new tiny hatchlings. Easier for them to eat it if they have the weight of the leaf to pull against.

 

[momvetkat]

That cracks me up. I have a one-year old Jack Russell and "Leave it!" is the mainstay of my vocabulary!

 

[peasinapod]

My hermann's tortoise Peter has no problems with whole carrots. He needs something to push it against though, as otherwise he can't manage to bite into it properly. I only give him a bit of carrot every few months or so.

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Well chop up my food for my torts so I can mix in stuff they would not eat ( like grass ) and I have been doing it for 15 years now . Some mothers choose to cut up food for their teens . But when I mix it up they (the torts eat it all. But when my wife feeds she don't . I'm just happy she helps ( the wife )

 

[ZEROPILOT]

I also chop up a lot of my greens and stuff in a food processor and ad it to my Mazuri so that I know that my torts eat everything that they should. Otherwise, they are masters at only eating certain things and will very often eat nothing if Mazuri isn't part of the offering.
I ad whole leaves, flowers and small branches of Hibiscus, also. (On the side)

 

[johnsonnboswell]

Depends how passive aggressive you want to get. You could serve him his own dinner chopped up or puréed, and quote him on the topic.

 

[puffy137]

I 've never chopped for my herd. I have on odd occasions used a potato peeler to whittle down a carrot , as a treat. Grandpa has a sneaky way to feed them grass , which is something mine turn their noses up at. Maybe I should try that,it would save some cash & they might get to like it .