New baby not eating!

[HighlanderLC]

Hey there, we just received our first hermann's tort this last Saturday and he is a little active and sleeping/burrowing a lot but he is not eating much at all. We are offering him collard greens, ridiccio, baby kale, and chard. He's taken some small bites of a succulent in his terrarium (they are all safe for torts). Please help me figure out what's going on!

 

[Yvonne G]

Contact the previous owner and find out what they fed the tortoise. Collards, kale and chard are all foods that should be fed sparingly. They are in the brassica family:

"The brassicas contain glucosinolates, in particular the goitrogens, so if it is
overused and iodine is not replaced in some way, there could be health issues
over many years, such as the growth of a goiter. Providing cuttlebone, or other
source of trace iodine (for instance, seaweed), solves the problem and allows
the tortoise to eat these excellent foods.

The "good foods / bad foods" paradigm for feeding tortoises is a highly flawed
concept that eliminates far too many excellent souces of high quality nutrition
and ignores how tortoises eat in the wild. Use all types of plants, always in
moderation, and provide calcium in a separate form so that the animals can
self-regulate. Cuttlebone is a very good choice for this, as it also provides
trace iodine."

Variety is key

The most common cause of "not eating" is due to living conditions, mainly not warm enough. Double check the parameters shown in our care sheet and make any necessary adjustments

 

[SarahChelonoidis]

Yvonne gave good advice - just a tiny addition to that: Chard is not a member of the Brassicaceae family. It is still recommended to not use chard as a staple, because, like most other members of the Amaranthaceae (formerly called Chenopodiaceae) family, chard has a lot of oxalic acid, which makes calcium less accessible. Good nutrition information can be found here: http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/nutrientanalysis.htm

 

[HighlanderLC]

Ok that clears stuff up. Thanks. We do have a cuttlebone in there and he took a bit of it the other day. Also, he finally ate today! We got our shipment of Mazuri pellets and the TortoiseSupply.com herbal hay in today and we soaked and mix it all and he started eating it! He really went for the mashed Mazuri pellet. I'm going to contact the breeder and see what they have been feeding him.

It he is deffinetly warm enough. And Thankyou, it is good to know that variety is the key.