Which Dried Tortoise Diet Should I Use?
Tortoises are a brilliant choice of pet for people who want a reptile but don’t want to have to worry about live food. There are many many species of tortoise that will live happily on a herbivorous diet as long as they have a good choice of vegetation, plenty of fibre and good supplements. The vegetation part is pretty easy and can be picked up from most supermarkets and greengrocers but it can be a little difficult to which dried foods (if any) should be included in the diet. Here are some of our recommendations:
To make the salad more interesting for a tortoise:
Some tortoises can be a little fussy with their salad and over time you may need to add some new colours or textures to get the tortoise interested again. Luckily, there are a wide range of dried flower and plant products that could be great for this purpose. To list a few the ZooMed Flower Food Topper, ProRep Botanical Flower Mix, Lucky Reptile Flower Mix and Arcadia’s EarthPro Flower-Boost. All of these contain tasty and colourful treats that can be added to the top of the tortoise’s normal salad for a bit of a treat.
For additional fibre:
In the wild, there are many plants that the tortoise would eat predominantly for additional fibre. It is a good idea to provide these once or twice a week and more frequently in the run-up to your tortoise going into hibernation. While there are live grass and foliage that can be purchased for the tortoise there are dry diets that can provide the same fibre much easier. To name a few the best high fibre diets: Lucky Reptile Herb Cobs, ProRep Tortoise Food and ZooMed Grassland Tortoise Food. With each of these, we would just add a little to the top of the tortoise’s salad once or twice a week depending on the age and species.
Fancy growing something?
Dry diets are often used as a back-up when fresh food isn’t as easily available. If you would like to add less common herbs, weeds and flowers to your tortoises diet the dry seed mixes are a great way to grow and harvest these at home. The ProRep Tortoise Feed Growing Kit includes everything you would need including the soil, seeds and propagator. If you are able to source these separately there are specific species of seed available from Lucky Reptile to see them all click here.
Whenever adding a dried element to a tortoises diet you should consider how much this might dehydrate the tortoise. If you are worried that the tortoise will not be getting enough hydration from the salad when these are introduced you could hydrate the dry food a little bit first or add a small amount of water-rich vegetation such as iceberg lettuce or cucumber. In-store we tend to use these diets sparingly preferring a live option whenever possible. We have a wide range of edible live plants that can be grown on the windowsill and added to their diet a couple of times per week. If you would like any help picking the best diet for your tortoise please contact us at sales@reptilecentre.com or call us on 01604753823
