Hermann help please

[Reggie]

Thank you.Believe it or not his so busy and active in his new home I think his forgotten to eat.He hasn’t eaten for 3days and lost a bit of weight?.I suppose he will when he settles down more.

[Nina]

As long as he's well hydrated he can go for quite a while without food, but at his size you don't want that to be too long. Given that he's active I don't think there is anything to worry about, but you could try offering him something that you know he likes, and also offer him a bit by hand (it's not a good idea to do too much hand feeding, as they love it and get too used to and and then don't want to eat on their own, but sometimes it's very useful). If he continues to not eat, let us know as there are some little tricks you can try to get him eating again.

Nina

Reggie wrote:
> Thank you.Believe it or not his so busy and active in his new home I think
> his forgotten to eat.He hasn’t eaten for 3days and lost a bit of weight?.I
> suppose he will when he settles down more.

[Reggie]

Nina wrote:
> As long as he's well hydrated he can go for quite a while without food, but at his
> size you don't want that to be too long. Given that he's active I don't think there
> is anything to worry about, but you could try offering him something that you know he
> likes, and also offer him a bit by hand (it's not a good idea to do too much hand
> feeding, as they love it and get too used to and and then don't want to eat on their
> own, but sometimes it's very useful). If he continues to not eat, let us know as
> there are some little tricks you can try to get him eating again.
>
> Nina

Hi,I appreciate any ideas for getting him to eat.He seems quite content it exploring his new enclosure that he seems to forget to eat.I think he was feed a lot of pellets prior to me getting him.Ive all types of food but his not interested.Sometimes the only thing he might nibble on is kale.Iam trying to get him on a better diet.
Thks

[Nina]

How long as it been now since he has eaten? And has he lost weight? Could he possibly be eating on the sly and you haven't noticed? You are right in thinking that being fed pellets has made him turn up his nose at good food. There are some better pellets on the market now, but in general most of the pellets have traditionally had things added that would tempt a tortoise to eat them but weren't actually very good for them (think adding chocolate to a toddler's porridge to get him to eat it).

Here's a link to our article on introducing a healthier diet. https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/tor ... -new-diet/ Tortoises are stubborn creatures and you sometimes need to be hard hearted or to trick them into getting used to a new diet. Although I wouldn't recommend hand feeding, tortoises do like it and in a case like this it might be a good idea to offer him some food held in your hand, just until he gets eating again.

Also, they do like the smell of cucumber, so squeezing a bit of cucumber juice onto a leaf, etc. can sometimes tempt them. In a real emergency you could squeeze a bit of strawberry juice, but he shouldn't really be fed fruit, so I would only do this as a last resort. If he likes Kale then I would chop the kale up into small pieces and wet them. Then I would take a very small bit of another food that you want him to have, cut it up into even smaller pieces and sprinkle it on the wet kale. It will stick to the kale so when he goes to nibble some of that he will also get the other food. Gradually increase the other food and decrease the kale (do this very slowly and over time, so that he doesn't cotton on to what you're doing ). In this way you can gradually introduce other foods and get him used to them.

If he's active and exploring and drinking then he is probably fine, but of course you don't want him to go without eating for a long time, so do let us know if any of this works.

Nina