Pebbles' Food

[calialli]

Hi all,
I'm very very new to the whole tortoise keeping deal, and I've had my little Pebbles about two months now(she's a red foot). I've read SO many different things about what to feed her, and I've been to a few different reptile stores that are all telling me different things. I'm confused, and really just want to give Pebbles the best food.

So I feed her:
3-4 Mazuri pellets per day (sometimes she eats them all, sometimes she only eats 2)
4-5 "protein" pellets (I bought them at a reptile store called The Serpentarium, and they feed it to their red foots, although I'm not sure what brand it is)
Leafy green vegetables: Green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, collard greens, mustard greens, kale
Dandelions
She only gets vegetables with the greens mix and Mazuri and protein pellets every other day (I haven't experimented much with the veggies):
Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Cactus pads, Carrots, Red bell pepper
Fruit I give her very sparingly and haven't tried much:
Apple, blueberries, banana

I calcium dust her food (with D3) once a week.
I used to give her a boiled egg each week until The Serpentarium told me that I could just give her the protein pellets everyday instead, so she hasn't had a boiled egg in about 3 weeks.


Is this an ok diet for her? What else can I give her?
I try to keep her fruits and veggies seasonal and organic, which is proving to be quite the challenge!

 

[ascott]

I only see that there may be too much protein being offered...and I think this based on you offering mazuri every day along with what you are referring to as protein pellets every day....that just seems like alot of protein every day....maybe some of the others will offer up their opinion on this as well...

Does your Tortoise get any outside time in the natural sun? How often? And the rest of your food offerings sound good to me...

 

[Yvonne G]

Read through all the articles in Mark's Tortoise library:

Tortoise Library

 

[Madkins007]

Hi all,
I'm very very new to the whole tortoise keeping deal, and I've had my little Pebbles about two months now(she's a red foot). I've read SO many different things about what to feed her, and I've been to a few different reptile stores that are all telling me different things. I'm confused, and really just want to give Pebbles the best food.

So I feed her:
3-4 Mazuri pellets per day (sometimes she eats them all, sometimes she only eats 2)
4-5 "protein" pellets (I bought them at a reptile store called The Serpentarium, and they feed it to their red foots, although I'm not sure what brand it is)
Leafy green vegetables: Green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, collard greens, mustard greens, kale
Dandelions
She only gets vegetables with the greens mix and Mazuri and protein pellets every other day (I haven't experimented much with the veggies):
Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Cactus pads, Carrots, Red bell pepper
Fruit I give her very sparingly and haven't tried much:
Apple, blueberries, banana

I calcium dust her food (with D3) once a week.
I used to give her a boiled egg each week until The Serpentarium told me that I could just give her the protein pellets everyday instead, so she hasn't had a boiled egg in about 3 weeks.


Is this an ok diet for her? What else can I give her?
I try to keep her fruits and veggies seasonal and organic, which is proving to be quite the challenge!

Confusion is natural- these guys can tolerate a LOT of stuff and do perfectly OK with it, so every writer (including me) comes up with a plan that works great... for them.

The basic idea here is to offer a lot of food that is filling but not fattening- that would be most greens, lettuces, edible plant leaves, stalks, flowers, mushrooms, and the more bland vegetables. Ideally, these foods are high in calcium and fiber, but not so much on protein and carbohydrates.

Then we offer a lot less of things that are high in calories, proteins, etc. Things like most fruits, 'sweeter' or tastier veggies, and various forms of meat.

HOW we do that is what most of the debate and articles and sites are all about, as well as what the best or worst foods are. (Nowadays, I don't worry about this part so much, I just try to offer something different every time I go to the store.)

As for your diet- A for effort and variety. You don't need the protein pellets either- that all is in the Mazuri. You should only offer them 2-4% of their weight in Mazuri, and each pellet is a bit over a gram. So, if your tort weighs about 100 grams, it should only get 2-4 grams of diet- about 2-4 pellets!

Egg is not bad as a weekly meat item, as long as it is proportional to her size, but there are lots of other options as well if you are interested. However, as we've said- the Mazuri has all the protein (and most of the other vitamins) she needs already.

 

[calialli]

Awesome! Thank you a so much! She does spend a little time outdoors, otherwise she has a 100W Powersun that I run for about 12 hours a day. I'd say she spends about an hour a day outside!
I'm so happy to hear that her diet sounds great, and I did read the articles on the Tortoise Library (thank you for that link)!
I'm so happy that I finally have knowledgable people to share information with and work out y confusion from the different information from all the sources I've checked out!