RedFoot weird appetite

[Rosie's Mom]

Hi Everyone!
I'm an unexpected mother of a beautiful 5 year old (ish) redfoot tort. We took her in after her family abandoned her at the beach . Things have been going well, she is happy in her enclosure and gets a lot of time outside of it to really stretch her legs. The other day, I came into the room to find Rosie "playing" with one of my dogs stuffed toys. It looked like she was chewing on the foot. When I went to pull it away from her it turned out she was ingesting the tail. I slowly pulled about 6 inches of soft fabric out of her that she had swallowed. Has anyone heard of a tortoise doing this? Does it indicate a lacking in her diet? I feel like we've provided her with good variety of mostly vegetables and some fruits as well as a calcium supplement. I don't know if we're doing something wrong or if she's just a couple sandwiches shy of a picnic. Any insight would be much appreciated. I'll be calling her vet Monday but was hoping to hear back from some experienced keepers.

 

[dmmj]

they will try to eat anything they can get hold of. it's not a lack of anything in her diet she was just curious to see whether it's good or not

 

[Stitchpunk]

My impression is that torts are bit like dogs or goats in that they will try to eat pretty much anything with no thought for the consequences! I believe this is why the most experienced owners here frown on letting tortoises roam around indoors. Outdoors is obviously better because UV and tasty weeds, but not everyone has that option. For indoor roaming I think close supervision is required, or maybe a playpen.

 

[DutchieAmanda]

Please don't let your tort walk around your house. The floor is cold and dangerous. I've already read too many stories on torts getting sick or injured or even being killed because they ate something or were accidently hurt.

Any pictures of your tort?

 

[Rosie's Mom]

they will try to eat anything they can get hold of. it's not a lack of anything in her diet she was just curious to see whether it's good or not

Thanks for the input! Apparently the giraffe tail was SUPER yummy! I'm just glad I got it before it became an issue.

 

[Rosie's Mom]

My impression is that torts are bit like dogs or goats in that they will try to eat pretty much anything with no thought for the consequences! I believe this is why the most experienced owners here frown on letting tortoises roam around indoors. Outdoors is obviously better because UV and tasty weeds, but not everyone has that option. For indoor roaming I think close supervision is required, or maybe a playpen.

Thanks for the advice.....we definitely almost learned that the hard way. We've been keeping a much closer eye on her when she's out and about. She stomps around her enclosure and tries climbing the walls so we like to let her out to stretch once a day. We've got the room she exercises in protected from drafts. We're really looking forward to warm weather so she can head outside. I think she'll really like that. Now that the dog toys are gone she's begun climbing on our shoes and just hanging out. I guess it's true, we girls love shoes!!

 

[Rosie's Mom]

Please don't let your tort walk around your house. The floor is cold and dangerous. I've already read too many stories on torts getting sick or injured or even being killed because they ate something or were accidently hurt.

Any pictures of your tort?

I'm at work....shhhh don't tell anyone ....and stumbled across the forum so I don't have handy pictures just yet but I'll be sure to post. She's very beautiful....in a mom's unbiased and humble opinion of course!

 

[MPRC]

My Redfoot plays with shoes, but when I say "play" I mean something more along the lines of "he humps people's feet"

 

[Gillian M]

Please post pics of your tort as well as its enclosure asap. This will enable the experienced to give you more advice on what to do.

And a very warm welcome to the forum.