Sudden food preference changes. Sigh!

RussianRuby

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Feb 29, 2020
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Mansfield
My little rescued Russian is causing me grief with what I call "vegetable of the month".

She will not eat any of her dinner (a mix of wild weeds and flowers plus mazuri, only shop bought veg during deep winter when weeds are scarce) if it does not contain the preferred plant. The problem is "vegetable of the month" changes suddenly and without warning so I have about 1-2 weeks of completely wasted food and a hungry tortoise until I guess the new "vegetable of the month".

I had a decent run of ribwort plantain, then dandilion leaves but now "vegetable of the month has been swapped again to something I haven't found.

Anyone else experience this nonsense?
 

wellington

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I'm not quite sure what you mean by "vegetable of the month".
When they get stuck on wanting only one type of food then you need fo trick them.
Chop up small the favorite with the other foods and spritz with water. Slowly eliminate the fave and adding more of the others. Where eventually they are eating only the other stuff that you can get all the time. Then when you do feed the fave make it very little in mix it in like I stated above, so they don't go thru this again, hopefully.
 

RosemaryDW

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Feb 17, 2016
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Welcome to owning a tortoise lol. This is how they roll.

You need to get used to either eating more vegetables yourself or be prepared for some waste; perhaps both. Fortunately a Russian won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

I’m not sure what vegetable of the month means either but your tortoise won’t starve herself, I promise. They can go off and on a particular food and back again—for years. Mine is that way about cactus and grape leaves and well… quite a few things; and she is a good eater.
 
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