I had my first problem and im kinda freaked out.

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SILVERSTAR

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my eight month old star tortoise passed a kidney stone jus now it was the size of a lemonhead(candy lemon balls) i understand that this happens,i read about it in jerry fifes star tortoise book but i didnt realize that it would happen so soon,is it sumthing that im feeding him or the amount of food ive been giving him cuz he eats alot,ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED.......also is there sum sort of preventative for this,i mean i could tell he was straining i jus thought he was pooping so i picked him up and i could see it lodged so immediatley warmed up water and placed him back in to soak and i guess that helped cuz when i looked there was a white ball.
 

egyptiandan

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What EXACTLY are you feeding and how often for each one? This can happen fairly quickly.
Kelly (stells) has found with her stars (which were getting very gritty urates) that feeding them pellets once a week helped greatly with the urates. She is now getting perfectly normal creamy urates.

Danny
 

SILVERSTAR

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i feed alot of cactus i have it growing in an indoor greenhouse and i cut a sprout off everyday there for awhile,i also was feeding the cactus fruit alot,and i give in alot to squash and pumpkin he jus doesnt like grass but i grew sum pumpkin sprouts and he loved those ive offered many store bought greens but honestly the only one hes taken more than a few bites of is organicly grown romaine lettuce i also feed mazuri to but lately hes had a thing jus for cactus,oh yeah i feed mature alflfa that at first he refused until one day when it was mature enuff he started eatn it,i aldo have a california variety hibiscus that he will eat a leave off it about once every two weeks honestly no more. I will say aldo that he is gettn very pudgy i was thinkn about only waking him up once a day on some day from now on,as of rite now i wake him up to feed and soak twice daily but if i didnt wake him up in the morning he will usually stay sleep til his later meal.
 

egyptiandan

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Not really a lot of variety in the diet. Can't point to one thing, but not liking the sprouts or the alfalfa. I'd try to up the variety, each thing no more than once a week and the mazuri at least once a week (though Kelly was using Pretty Pet pellets until she couldn't get them any more).

Danny
 

SILVERSTAR

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hes completely healthy otherwise,he sleeps alot becuz hes under a year and jus from wut ive asked it seems to be normal for stars to be kinda reserved,i wake him up twice a day wether hes up or not sumtimes hes up jus not usually for his first meal i wake him up and i feed and soak him and let him have kinda recreation in my indoor green house twice daily for bout an hour to an hour and a half....i will say hes very alert and aware of his surroundings,he isnt even afraid of me anymore at all he waits for me to pick him up and he eats out my hand.

also i do bring weeds in and i was actually buying dandelion weeds for a minute but i mean i named off about ten different things ive been offering him i thought i was doing good variety wise but maybe not i mean hes only under a year how many other thing should i be adding,other than the fact that i know he should be gettn more leafy greens and grasses but he jus wont accept them very often,should i jus be strict and only offer those item such as grass or weeds?

well lemme rephrase the pumpkin sprouts they are more like baby plants that he was eatn at.
 

egyptiandan

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But you said you were feeding cactus everyday ;) There we go :p found one thing, the Dandelions (or if it's the same in the stores here it's Chicory). They both shouldn't be fed more than once a week. Grass and weeds are fine, just depends on what weeds you are feeding. Plantains are great (broad and narrow leaf) as are hostas. Pansys and Petunias can be grown from seed and are great. As are Nasturtiums (flowers and leaves).
Sprouts and young plants have a high protein contant.

Danny
 

SILVERSTAR

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yeah i was thinking the cactus that ive been feeding alot of may have sumthing to do with the high levels of white stuff becuz its suppose to be one of the high calcium sources maybe its too much cactus,ill cut that back and offer more weeds but he is not gonna be happy everytime i try to offer it exclusively he will walk to it and look up like hes still waitn for the good stuff,it gets me everytime.
 

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I've said it before and I'll say it again, "A confined tortoise can only eat the food you give it. If you don't offer one type of food any more he'll eventually have to eat what you DO offer him." They won't starve themselves to death.
 

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egyptiandan said:
But you said you were feeding cactus everyday ;) There we go :p found one thing, the Dandelions (or if it's the same in the stores here it's Chicory). They both shouldn't be fed more than once a week. Grass and weeds are fine, just depends on what weeds you are feeding. Plantains are great (broad and narrow leaf) as are hostas. Pansys and Petunias can be grown from seed and are great. As are Nasturtiums (flowers and leaves).
Sprouts and young plants have a high protein contant.

Danny

When it comes to feeding store bought greens, I have always fed a lot of Dandelions or what I thought was Dandelions. After doing an image search, I have been buying Chicory. I have not had that big of an issue with urates, but I have always felt that my tortoises did not respond the best with a large amounts of Dandelion/Chicory. And of course, knowing that weeds are high on the list of good stuff for tortoises and no 'major' issues, I kept feeding this.

So, what is in Chicory that is not so good that in large amounts can cause issues?
 

SILVERSTAR

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i have no idea,wut it is all i know is at one point it was recommended,i jus feel like i keep gettn mixed information not on this thread particularly but the whole time ive owned him,i realize he can only eat wut i offer him as a confined tortoise but isnt that the idea to keep a tortoise under a year inside,i mean its not really the rite wheather for me to jus let him find wut he preffers outside,if the wheather allowed im sure i would have took him outside,like i said i offer alot of different things,alotta weeds but i cant convince him to eat it,everytime jus about he walks past most things.
 

Yvonne G

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Then you just have to be consistent. Get a good idea of what he is supposed to eat and only offer that to him. If he walks right through it then, oh well.. I guess he doesn't eat today. Tonight clean it all up and toss it. Tomorrow offer the good food again. If he doesn't eat it, then oh well...looks like he doesn't eat tomorrow either. I promise you...if you stop feeding him the things he's not supposed to have and only offer the things he's supposed to have, he will eventually start to eat the good stuff.
 

SILVERSTAR

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k, i will stick to it,i jus feel bad when he looks up at me,i havent fed him anything i wasnt advised to i think im jus lettn him have to much of one particular thing thats suppose to be fed more as a treat like the squash and cactus,i will admitt ive been jus trying to please him,so grass and weeds it is..........i guess.
 

egyptiandan

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Dandelions and Chicory both have a medium level of oxalic acid. Oxalic acid binds with calcium forming calcium oxalates. Calcium oxalates are the main ingredient of bladder stones. So the more often you feed foods containing oxalic acid the more the body produces calcium oxalates. These build up and if not flushed from the system will be put down in the form of a stone. If the stone stays in the bladder, the body will keep adding calcium oxalates to the stone making it bigger and bigger.
The way to prevent this is to not feed foods with a medium to high level of oxalic acid on an every day basis or a most every day basis. This way the body is able to pass the calcium oxalates without them building up to form stones.

Danny
 

Torty Mom

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Silverstar, are you sure it was a kidney stone and not a urate stone, like my Daisy Lou had? We thought is was a kidney stone, but the vet was the one that looked at it and said it was urates as well as they xray, Daisy's bladder was clear, but her insides are covered with urate stones.

You may want to have an xray done to be sure, I am really glad I did. I had a better idea on what I needed to do to help her.

Just a thought..... :D Mary Anne
 

Balboa

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Dang Danny,
That is the first time I've heard of dandelions having high oxalates. I was always under the impression that dandelions were one of the top choices to feed torts.

The list of "suitable" greens with high calcium and low oxalates is ever shrinking.
 

egyptiandan

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They are actually about a medium level of oxalic acid. :) But even a medium level can cause problems if feed to often. It's not that you shouldn't feed them, it's just that you shouldn't feed them very often.

Actually urates and stones are 2 totally different things. Urates can get gritty but can't make stones. Urates aren't calcium. Urates are the by product of protein breakdown in the body. So your stone was from calcium oxacalates and had nothing to do with urates. Tortoises with stones almost always pass normal urates.

Danny
 

SILVERSTAR

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THANK YOU BALBOA,i get this same situation with almost everything i feed, AND yeah thanks torty mom an xray sounds like a good idea,i knew id need to have a vet sooner or later i jus didnt think it would be so soon to encounter a problem,now that you mention it,it was a urate stone and not a kidney stone i jus didnt know the difference it came out lookn like the white stuff he usually despenses. I m still kinda worried about the size of it and the fact that was stuck for a second till i put him in warm water.
 

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I have been putting mineral oil in Daisy Lou's food. She does not even know it's there. I usually mix it with the mazuri. The last stone she passed was totally covered in the mineral oil, so I know it helped her pass it, she didn't make any noise when it came out. The first stone she made a squeaking sound which made me look to see what was going on. I bought the mineral oil at a drug store.

How big was it?
 

SILVERSTAR

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thank you very much,i will get some definitly jus to keep around if nothn else but i defintley wanna give him some soon bcuz i could tell he was having trouble passing it cuz i noticed he kept baring down like he was pooping but nothing then he kept wagging his tail back and forth and thats when i noticed it lodged and ran as fast as i could to warm up water,as soon as he was in the water for a few secs i saw the white ball.

the fact that you said second stone has me worried that mine may have more also.
 
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