What am I doing wrong now?!

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Stephanie Logan

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I can't stand to read any more posts about all the different foods every tortoise eats.

I can't get Taco to eat and I don't know why! I even followed her around today with endive, mushrooms and Mazuri on a little plate and kept putting it down in front of her, but she wouldn't touch it!

The only thing she will eat are grapes and watermelon, so I sprinkle TNT and calcium on those and feed her a little at the end of the day when I know she is not going to eat anything else for the day.

I just weighed her and she is still 18.6 oz, but WHY does she have no appetite? WHY won't she eat zuchinni, butternut squash, pumpkin, spring mix, dandelion greens, or even endive? She has always eaten just a tiny amount of food (maybe the equivalent of two or three spring mix leaves a day), but for the past week she has all but stopped eating entirely!
 

egyptiandan

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Your probably going to have to do a grape puree and a watermelon puree. Make a salad with some good things and use one of the purees as salad dressing. :D That should work as everything should smell like grapes or watermelon. You can than slowly cut back on the amount of "salad dressing". By than she should be eating all her greens. :D

Danny
 

tortoisenerd

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What temperature range and enclosure type is she in? Have you ruled out health issues by taking her to the vet for a check up including a fecal test for parasites? For a tort her size, a couple spring mix leaves is not enough to live off of. My tort eats a pile of greens his size for example. From what I remember she is malnourished and should have food available at all times. I have always heard that a tort not eating is likely something with the husbandry. The sweets may be too good for her to pass up though. If all the husbandry is correct, then I like Danny's ideas. I wouldn't ignore that it could be a health or care issue though. Best wishes.
 

Yvonne G

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If I'm remembering correctly, Taco wasn't given the best of care while he was growing up. So now he has developed some bad eating habits. Its going to take you a while to get him on the good eating road. If Danny's suggestion doesn't work, then may I suggest feeding the grapes and watermelon with a tiny bit of leafy greens, assorted weeds and grasses cut up very small and mixed in to disguise them. Start out with a very small amount of the good food. Once a week increase the amount slightly. It takes some time, but it works. I had a Manouria tortoise that was only fed Pretty Pets Tortoise food. She didn't recognize any other foods as edible and wouldn't try them. By using the above method, I was able to get her off the Pretty Pets and onto fruits and veggies, but it took over a year. If I tried to put too much, she wouldn't eat.

Yvonne
 
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Maggie Cummings

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Hey Stephanie...Isn't Taco a Chaco tortoise? So she/he shouldn't be eating fruit at all. I think you need to settle in for some tough love. Can you stop offering food for a few days? It's a matter of you being stronger then the tortoise. He can't eat grapes and watermelon if you didn't offer grapes and watermelon. I would make a tort salad of all the good greens and add dandelions and other weeds to it and mix it all around...then everyday put a handful of that tort salad in wherever it is you put the food, and don't offer anything else. If it's still there the next morning take it out and put in a fresh handful. Maybe we need to look at your husbandry...is Taco warm enough? On a good substrate? Enough humidity? It sounds to me like Taco isn't even eating much of the grapes and watermelon. If you are offering mushrooms kinda tells me maybe Taco is a Redfoot? So I am kinda confused, fruit and mushrooms is not anything I would offer a tortoise...unless it's a Redfoot. So, my suggestion is that we start from the beginning and look at your husbandry and how you are keeping Taco. Especially the temperature... and tell me and my feeble mind what species Taco is...OK I just did some research and a Chaco tortoise should eat the same diet or close to that of Sulcata or leopard. That means dark leafy greens, grass, plaintain etc. No fruit and no mushrooms. So possibly he is not eating well because you are not offering a diet that he recognizes as food. I would start by making sure he is warm enough, 90 degrees. I'd put a paint roller pan in his habitat so he has something he can soak in and I would try some tuff love as far as feeding goes. Offer plantain, that seems to be close to the diet he would have in the wild. I hope this helps some...I have been in that same spot you are in and I know that his diet can't change unless YOU change it...
 

Laura

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Make sure the Light is on long enough during the day as well..
And dont 'pester' her with food. I know its hard, but place the food and leave her alone.
watch from a distance.
 

Stephanie Logan

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Thanks so much, guys, lots of good suggestions here.

I have the MVB over her indoor house and the temp. is about 95 in the hot spot, 80-85 elsewhere in the main room and 70-75 in her hide, which has peat moss for humidity and timothy hay for burrowing. Substrate is cyprus mixed with coconut.

Will try the "salad dressing" solution; I will try anything to get her to eat and be healthy. What's weird is that her energy level was way up yesterday--she tried to crawl out of her pen so I just let her out to roam the yard since I was home and could monitor, and ROAM she did! Happy little torty on adventures far from home! So I was sure she'd be hungry at some point but she wouldn't eat a bite. Maybe I am overstimulating her, so I will back off and just leave good food (and I do change it out at least twice a day) and hope that works.

Also, how does one find a reptile vet? Maybe I'll just call my cat vet and ask if she knows of one.

THANK YOU ALL so much for trying to help me :)
 

Crazy1

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I don't know of a reptile vet in Denver Colorado but here is a a listing of one http://indiantreeanimalhospital.us.com/ Hope it helps. I'd call around if no one in your area posts a Reptile vet. I'd then ask them if they specialize or deal with Tortoises and your tort species. Then I would ask them when the last time they dealt with a tort was. I asked all the above with the excption of when they last worked with a tortoise and found later after $400.00 that they last worked with one in Vet School. And really did not know much about them at all. Just for your Info.
 

turtlemom

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Hi Stephanie, we live north of Denver (in Berthoud). Our first tort vet (for our golden greek that would not eat) was @ Louisville's Centennial Valley Hospital and they did not seem to be very knowledgable about tortoises and I don't think we received good care. I would not recommend them. Our tort was still not eating and declining rapidly so I called the CSU vet teaching hospital in Ft. Collins and they were excellent. It was like talking to several of the 'experts' on this forum :D Their phone number is 970-221-4535 and they provide routine care and emergency care for tortoises (and all exotics). The only downside with CSU is that they can be expensive. We will use CSU for all of our greeks vet care from now on.

On a recent visit to our guinea pigs and dog vet, Dr. Muench in Longmont, she said she provided tortoise care also, but we have no experience with her and our torts. She's wonderful with dogs and gpigs and very reasonable. Her phone number is 303-651-9400.

Hope this helps!
Donna
 

tortoisenerd

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Vets: You can look at listings online of tortoise vets, or ask and one of our members will look it up. Maggie is starting a list for us soon. :) The best way however is word of mouth.
 
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