RedWingsFan
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2014
- Messages
- 2
Just got my first Russian tortoise yesterday. Actually, my first tortoise ever. I joined because it is impossible to get rid of all the weeds in my yard and I want to make sure I keep her as safe as possible. Both neighbors have oleanders (we don't) which blow leaves and flowers into our yard. Yesterday, we yard vacuumed but more just blew in today :/ I have tortoise food and some collard greens (that I grew) out for her to eat. She is not too interested. She was a stray (found wandering) that was turned in to the local pound and I adopted her yesterday. She's about 4-4.5 inches in diameter. I've gotten some advice from friends who do tortoise rescues but I don't want to always bug them and this site looks really good and informative. She's ignored her burrow so far that we dug and seems to prefer munching on the spurge (which I read is toxic) and digging into the soil under our lemon tree. I've seen her eat about 2 spurge leaves today and two yesterday. I've seen some post on here that some tortoises eat spurge without issues. I've blocked off areas for her and she will be an outdoor tortoise until hibernation time. Any suggestions on how to get her interested in tortoise food/her burrow? Do tortoises know to avoid oleander/toxic plants or are they little vacuums???
