Protein

[THEELEG]

What all protien do y'all feed rf/ch and how often??

 

[Big Ol Tortoise]

I don't have one yet but I'd feed pinky, worms (any kind),crickets,chicken, roaches, and you can feed them certain types of dog food but I wouldn't. I'd do it once a week

 

[THEELEG]

I don't have one yet but I'd feed pinky, worms (any kind),crickets,chicken, roaches, and you can feed them certain types of dog food but I wouldn't. I'd do it once a week

Gave him a pinky today he ate it up, I've seen him get earthworms, snails out in the outside enclosure. Just curious how often don't want to give to much

 

[Big Ol Tortoise]

Gave him a pinky today he ate it up, I've seen him get earthworms, snails out in the outside enclosure. Just curious how often don't want to give to much

Once a week is what I've been seeing and what I'm going to do.

 

[THEELEG]

Once a week is what I've been seeing and what I'm going to do.

My sulcata and ch both get mazuri often but stepping up the protein with the ch

 

[HI Tortoise Rescue]

You're right to wory about too much animal protein. Dog food is a no-no for ANY Chelonian! Think about what a Redfoot would find in nature, & that's what you should feed it. Sure they'll eat beetles & worms, but probably don't find them all that often, so they'll mainly eat greens & fruits/veggies that they run into. So Mazuri, hibiscus flowers, weeds, & similar things should be most of its diet, with an occasional strawberry & dark greens. I simply don't agree with the above member's recommendations for these reasons.

Ken

 

[cmacusa3]

My sulcata and ch both get mazuri often but stepping up the protein with the ch

I've tagged a few that should be able to help.

@cdmay. @Redstrike @ZEROPILOT

 

[THEELEG]

You're right to wory about too much animal protein. Dog food is a no-no for ANY Chelonian! Think about what a Redfoot would find in nature, & that's what you should feed it. Sure they'll eat beetles & worms, but probably don't find them all that often, so they'll mainly eat greens & fruits/veggies that they run into. So Mazuri, hibiscus flowers, weeds, & similar things should be most of its diet, with an occasional strawberry & dark greens. I simply don't agree with the above member's recommendations for these reasons.

Ken

I'd never give him dog food, I've read enough how that's a no. I have hibiscus in the yard they get, I grow Burmuda grass, and different seeds that I've ordered. Also always grabbing weeds and whatever grows in they're outdoor enclosure

 

[Big Ol Tortoise]

You're right to wory about too much animal protein. Dog food is a no-no for ANY Chelonian! Think about what a Redfoot would find in nature, & that's what you should feed it. Sure they'll eat beetles & worms, but probably don't find them all that often, so they'll mainly eat greens & fruits/veggies that they run into. So Mazuri, hibiscus flowers, weeds, & similar things should be most of its diet, with an occasional strawberry & dark greens. I simply don't agree with the above member's recommendations for these reasons.

Ken

I never said he should do dog food. I don't even feed dog food to my box turtle and I wouldn't feed a RF dog food.

 

[cmacusa3]

You're right to wory about too much animal protein. Dog food is a no-no for ANY Chelonian! Think about what a Redfoot would find in nature, & that's what you should feed it. Sure they'll eat beetles & worms, but probably don't find them all that often, so they'll mainly eat greens & fruits/veggies that they run into. So Mazuri, hibiscus flowers, weeds, & similar things should be most of its diet, with an occasional strawberry & dark greens. I simply don't agree with the above member's recommendations for these reasons.

Ken

But you advocate Mazuri made by purina. I'm not going to argue with you but I can tell you that there are some dog foods that Are exceptable and I know of test that have been done.

 

[cmacusa3]

But you advocate Mazuri made by purina. I'm not going to argue with you but I can tell you that there are some dog foods that Are exceptable and I know of test that have been done.

We could probably pick apart more things on the Mazuri than this dog food if we want to get technical. We have a lab at my work and we did have some of our interns conduct some field tests.

I will let this thread get back to the original question I just had to point this out. Sorry @THEELEG I don't have a red or Cherry and that's why I tagged those others earlier.

 

[DutchieAmanda]

As far as I know redfoots are omnivorous scavengers and would eat all sort of animal protein in the wild, both live animals (bugs, worms) and dead animals.

I feed mine some animal protein once a week, a pile about twice the size of his head. Mostly soaked cat food (we also have cats, so it's easy for me), but also sometimes shrimps or egg.

 

[MPRC]

We use chicken, shrimp, egg, worms, superworms, roaches, cat kibble (because we have a cat).

My reds are very opportunistic. I have found them digging for snails and worms, raiding the cat dish and even munching on a dead snake.

 

[dmmj]

I've tried many many many different types of protein my red foot seems to like shrimp and snails and slugs once a week

 

[Anyfoot]

What all protien do y'all feed rf/ch and how often??

I've fed in the past, raw liver, scrambled egg, boiled chicken, worms, slugs, snails, shrimp, mackerel, cat meat, pinkies. Fuzzies and chicks.
I've settled on worms, pinkies and chicks in that order as they grow. Once a week. On the odd occasions I have fed cat meat(due to laziness) but IMO why feed that if worms and slugs are at hand.
My plan with hatchlings is a worm per week when over 3 months old.
My juveniles up to about 5 to 6" got 1 pinkie a week occasionally 2 as they got bigger and was swallowing the pinkies whole.
My adults get to tare up chicks once every week or 2 weeks, so about half a chick each, obviously it don't work like that but that's the theory.
When my adults are outside they rummage amongst the moist grass roots picking up slugs quite often.
Just what I do.

 

[Anyfoot]

I've fed in the past, raw liver, scrambled egg, boiled chicken, worms, slugs, snails, shrimp, mackerel, cat meat, pinkies. Fuzzies and chicks.
I've settled on worms, pinkies and chicks in that order as they grow. Once a week. On the odd occasions I have fed cat meat(due to laziness) but IMO why feed that if worms and slugs are at hand.
My plan with hatchlings is a worm per week when over 3 months old.
My juveniles up to about 5 to 6" got 1 pinkie a week occasionally 2 as they got bigger and was swallowing the pinkies whole.
My adults get to tare up chicks once every week or 2 weeks, so about half a chick each, obviously it don't work like that but that's the theory.
When my adults are outside they rummage amongst the moist grass roots picking up slugs quite often.
Just what I do.

I should add, I don't feed mazuri or any other commercial pellets. Not sure if the mazuri has animal protein in it or not, but if it does you need to account for that.

 

[cdmay]

My tortoises absolutely crunch up and consume any snail they encounter in their enclosures but it's not exactly as if the landscape is crawling with them. Same goes for slugs although we have even fewer of them. The snails are not native to Florida BTW, instead we have the introduced Cuban land snail which are about the size of the European snails, but with a much thinner shell.

After seeing some of the rather imaginative diets mentioned above I would recommend this: try to locate this study, "The Behavior and Ecology of the two Amazonian Tortoises, carbonaria and Geochelone denticulata, in Northwestern Brazil"
1985 by Debra K. Moskovits.
This is without question the most in depth long term study of these animals in a natural environment. One thing that you will learn is that these tortoises are indeed opportunistic omnivores that will consume a variety of 'animal' matter, but it isn't as if the ground is littered with dead animals.
The animals most commonly ingested by the wild tortoises in Moskovits' study were termites and ants, with snails ranking right up there in the frequency. Based on her scoring methods Moskovits gave the above a 3 which is her highest ranking. Beetle parts, lizard (shed?) skins and butterfly wings were found but not commonly, she gives them a 1, meaning infrequent--although the lizard skin was a 2.
Mammal parts found being consumed, or in feces were a peccary tooth, and parts of an agouti. Bird parts found were one bird (an oropendula, how cool!) leg and some bird claws. That's it. These items were listed as the least frequently found and they received a 1 score.
And something else, even though the ants, termites and snails were listed as frequently encountered in the tortoise diet, the actual percentage that these things made up in the diet was still quite low.
So what does this mean? It means that the tortoises did consume the above when they encountered them, but they didn't get a lot of it and it made up a small portion of the overall diet.

I would give some thought to this info before before whipping up gourmet carnivorous meals for my tortoises.

 

[JIm Albert]

Does anyone feed Dubia roaches? I feed other critters gutloaded Dubia. Would you just allow them to roam in the enclosure and be consumed at will?

 

[THEELEG]

Does anyone feed Dubia roaches? I feed other critters gutloaded Dubia. Would you just allow them to roam in the enclosure and be consumed at will?

Lol that's awesome

 

[Yvonne G]

Does anyone feed Dubia roaches? I feed other critters gutloaded Dubia. Would you just allow them to roam in the enclosure and be consumed at will?

I have a bad infestation of large brown roaches outside. Yesterday morning when I turned on the lights over the baby Manouria habitat in the Manouria shed outside, I caught one of the babies with a large roach in his mouth. Ugh!