Baby Sulcata diet

[MDC_Ophiuchus]

Okay, my little squirt is starting to get picky.

He used to eat kale and pre-mixed Spring Mix salad fairly well, along with grated/sliced veggies (zucchini, squash, carrots, and apple).

In addition to those, he occasionally will eat the Exo-Terra tortoise pellets and the Nature Zone Tortoise Bites (orange, gelatinized cubes). I'm typically not a huge advocate of commercial diets, but I also believe in variety, so I only offer these infrequently.

My major concern is that he rarely if ever nibbles at his hay. Right now, I offered orchard grass, since I've heard/read that it is easier for juvenile tortoises to chomp on compared to the other hays. But I think in the 2 months I've had him, I've seen him nibble a hay stalk twice.

Now...he has begun to avoid the kale or salad. I decided to try bok choy. He kinda liked that at first, but has since is like, "meh" about it.

I have also tried other commercial diets, such as ZooMed Grassland tortoise diet and Rep-Cal Tortoise diet (looks like mini Trix cereal). Absolutely refuses ZooMed, and will occasionally nibble at the Rep-Cal stuff.

I really would like to get him back on leafy greens and hay. Any suggestions?

 

[chairman]

I wouldn't be worried that your baby sulcata isn't eating any hay. It is very difficult to get a sulcata smaller than an adult to eat hay. Leafy greens are a great diet for a baby/juvenile sulcata. If you must have the tortoise eat hay, chop it finely and dust food that your tortoise will eat with the hay "dust."
Your tortoise probably isn't interested in his greens because most commercially available diets contain appetite stimulants... i.e. sugar of some variety. Let's face it, your asking your tortoise to switch from donuts to broccoli; you're going to butt heads on this one. My recommendation is to soak the pellets into a mush and mix it with greens. Special note, you're probably going to want to avoid kale during this process as it isn't the tastiest stuff in the world. Eventually you'll be able to reduce the amount of mush until you're not using any at all. At that point I would quit using most of the pellets you have listed. I would throw away (or feed to an appropriate insect colony) those gel cubes right now.
To get your tortoise to eat the zoomed grassland food, just rehydrate it. My tortoise loves the stuff when I offer it.
Once you've gone through your current pellet stock and are looking to replace it, I would look into Mazuri tortoise food or the zoomed grassland food in bulk. I use mazuri because it is well-established in the tortoise community and I can buy 20# bags of it locally. I would use the grassland as well if I could buy the bulk bags as it just isn't economical to blow $8 on a tiny bin of food that might last my sulcata a couple weeks.
Aside from that, keep him hot and humid and he should be just fine.

 

[MDC_Ophiuchus]

Thanks for the tips.

He is starting to munch down the bok choy more, along with his grated veggies.

I'll definitely try mushing up the ZooMed stuff. Acquiring the Mazuri diet has been on my agenda. Just no local stores carry it and I'll admit, I've been procrastinating on ordering it online (mostly from lack of sufficient funds).

The orange cubes I stop feeding, but I may keep them around for the very rare treat. I honestly I've been cutting back those already since he's started going after veggies more. (I think its been at least over a week since he's had any!)

My normal feeding regiment is typically a generous helping of greens and veggies in the morning. If I catch him roaming around his enclosure a lot when I get home from work, I may throw a few more veggies and some pellets.

Here's a pic of his habitat. An old 36"x42" tank with a infrared bulb and a MVB Solar Glo.

 

[chairman]

Any place that sells purina can get you mazuri. However, how they're willing to do that varies widely. I have a tractor supply near my house that offered to order mazuri for me if I was willing to purchase an entire pallet of 25# bags. I have a feeder's supply that orders for me by the bag, but it takes a solid month or two to arrive.
Enclosure looks good. I would add a shallow water dish, though. Clay plant saucers work great.

 

[MDC_Ophiuchus]

Well, I was going off Tyler Stewart's site, he prefers not to offer a water dish daily and only soaks his babies weekly.

 

[chairman]

I am familiar with Tyler from another forum. He has a lot of great experience. If you're not going to offer a water dish then make sure to check your tortoise's weight frequently. If he starts to feel a little "hollow," I'd change approaches and provide the water dish. If he always feels pretty solid, the soaking routine is working just fine.

 

[MDC_Ophiuchus]

Thanks for the tip!

I've kept terrestrial chelonians before, and the constant defecation on water bowls is a pain. I figured it makes enough sense that these high-heat tolerating, grassland tortoises get a lot of moisture from their diet and only occasionally soak in nature anyway.

 

[bigalosu]

Baby sulcatas spend the majority of their time in burrows in the wild. There is a significant amount of moisture in these burrows and recent research indicates that moisture helps prevent pyramiding.
My little guy had the perfect diet and I soaked him every 5 days or so in the beginning. He still started pyramiding and I decided to change the substrate and keep a water dish in his enclosure full-time. After 6 months he has leveled out and stopped pyramiding. I understand the concern about changing the water, but my guy rarely (once a week maybe) defecates in his dish. Even when he does, it is not a messy or a loose consistency and it doesn't smell at all. He loves timothy hay though and I think that has a lot to do with it.