Food pellets

[sam Waters]

My Horsfield is a very fussy eater. We rely probably too much on courgette and pak choi, a bit of kale, radicchio, and frisee. She turns her nose up at dandelion etc. However she loves the fruit and flowers pellets that I soak in warm water. I sometimes wonder if she finds them easier to eat as she has scissor beak that the vet cannot file yet. I notice that I can get other pellets, ie a salad mix. What proportion of her diet is it ok to make up with these processed pellets?

[Nina]

Hi Sam and welcome to The Tortoise Table.

A bit of kale, radicchio, frisee and pak choi are OK in moderation, but taken together they shouldn't form the major part of your tortoise's diet. Do you have access to a garden or the countryside? The best food for tortoise is edible weeds and flowers, and too much salad-type food or supermarket food will not provide them with the high fibre diet that they need. Many salad leaves are what we call 'wet' food and they go through the tortoise's system too quickly (tortoises are designed to digest food slowly) and they don't get enough nourishment from them. There is nothing wrong with supplementing a good weed diet with the foods you are using, but just use them sparingly, to provide variety.

If you do have access to an area outdoors, you can use the filter tool on our website to produce lists of plants that are edible for your Horsfield, and of course you can always look up any plant to see if it is edible. Just go to this page and scroll down to the section called 'How to Use the Traffic Light Filters' and go from there. https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/pla ... -database/
For example, here are our entries for
Radicchio https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/pla ... nt=126&c=8
Frisee https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/pla ... ant=90&c=8
and Courgette: https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/pla ... nt=637&c=8

Regarding pellets. In general we don't recommend them as they tend to be too high in protein (tortoises need a high fibre/low protein diet) and often have things added to them that aren't great for tortoises (corn, molasses, etc.). Some pellets nowadays are better though. Can you tell me the brand and variety of pellets you'd like to use?

In general the only commercial food that we would recommend is Pre Alpin Testudo, which comes in pellets or loose and you soak it to rehydrate. It's made completely of natural grasses and alpine plants and is also the only commercial food recomended by The Tortoise Trust. You can buy it in several places but here are a few:
https://tinyurl.com/4tkdre52
https://tinyurl.com/3u74y9cm
https://www.tortoisehut.co.uk/product-p ... toise-diet

It can be difficult to move a tortoise to a healthier diet, and they can be very stubborn. Here is our article on that subject https://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/pla ... -database/ . If you have any problems getting her to eat the new food the easiest thing is to chop up food she likes into small pieces and wet them. Take a very small amount of the new food in even tinier pieces and mix that up with the favourite food and the two will stick together a bit. When she goes for some of her favourite food she will get some of the new food that is stuck to it. Gradually increase the new food and decrease the favourite food and eventually she will be eating all of the new food. If she doesn't like dandelions, try this method with them first and see how it goes.

Sorry for such a long answer, Sam, but it's a question we get frequently and I always think it best to give as much information as possible. If you need a good care sheet for Horsfields, let me know and I'll post a link to one here.

Nina

[sam Waters]

https://amzn.eu/d/fdZTlmm
Hi these are the komodo pellets that she loves, I will try the other ones and hopefully spring will bring more weed options which I will chop up.
Thank you for the advice.