Prickly Radish Greens

[Wvill009]

Hello!

I’m currently trying to rescue a Russian tortoise from the office I work in and want to start correcting it’s diet of one romaine lettuce leaf every few days. I have a garden on campus where I have TONS of radish greens (I eat the radishes) and have seen many people recommend this. However, the radish greens have lots of prickles and I’m afraid it could hurt the tortoise’s tongue or digestive system. Do people that feed radish greens to their Russian tortoises, do you scrape off the prickles? Or leave them on?

Thank you all for your help!

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Hi

I have many torts not just Russians and I do feed radish tips and weeds and cactus! And I don’t remove the thorns from any of them . Who removes that stuff in the wild for the torts ?

 

[Wvill009]

So true, I just wanted to make sure just in case. Thank you so much!

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi and welcome! The radish greens are perfectly fine as PART OF A VARIED DIET! Just make sure you offer other things too.

 

[Wvill009]

Hi and welcome! The radish greens are perfectly fine as PART OF A VARIED DIET! Just make sure you offer other things too.

For sure! My goal is to have the following in variations, please let me know if I should add or remove anything from my list:

- Kale ( once a week)
- Radish greens ( two large leaves a day?)
- endive
- chicory
- mustard greens
- turnip greens
- dandelion greens and flowers
- romaine lettuce
- escarole

I was also planning on buying this seed mix to have in the future outdoor enclosure for occasional grazing ( https://www.tortoisesupply.com/TestudoMix)

Any help to improve this animals life would be much appreciated. She’s currently in a 15-20 gallon tank with no shelter or burrowing material and is fed one romaine lettuce leaf every few days. She looks so sad every time I walk by and I want to start improving her life little by little until I’m able to take her with me to Colorado. She’s been in this office for about 10 years.

I’ve never had a reptile, but I’m willing to learn and give her a great home!

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]