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What you feed your sulcata is critical to its health and development
G. sulcata tortoises evolved to deal with life in a semi-arid environment, where the only food available for much of the year is dry grasses and weeds. Be aware that your sulcata tortoise requires a very high-fiber, grass-based diet to stay healthy. If you feed the wrong foods to your tortoise, it will grow too quickly, develop a bumpy, pyramided shell, and may develop other health problems that could drastically shorten its lifespan.
Common Dietary Problems with sulcata Tortoises
There are five common dietary problems that owners of sulcata tortoises typically encounter when feeding their tortoises:
1. Not providing enough fiber
2. Providing too much protein
3. Giving fruit or other sugary foods to grazing tortoises like sulcata and leopard torts
4. Not providing enough calcium, or the right calcium/phosphorus balance
5. Generally overfeeding the tortoise
How to Avoid These Common Dietary Problems
You are responsible for the health and well-being of your tortoise, so you must make the effort to feed the right foods, and in the right quantities. Here are a few suggestions to help you avoid the typical dietary pitfalls:
1. Provide enough fiber by feeding your tortoise a diet that is based predominantly on grasses with some edible weeds, leaves, and flowers, as described in more detail below.
2. AVOID giving your tortoise foods that contain high levels of protein. This means that you should NEVER give your sulcata tortoise the following foods:
- Cheese or dairy products of any kind
- Cat or dog food of any kind
- Legumes (peas, beans, green beans, soybeans or soy-based products like tofu)
- Commercially-available "tortoise diets" (such as Pretty Pets, Mazuri, Zoo Med, etc.)
- Grains and Grain products (corn [maize], wheat, barley, rye, etc.)
You should not feed your tortoise vegetables in large quantities -- all types of produce grown for human consumption -- even dark leafy greens -- are too high in protein for sulcata tortoises to thrive on. However, SMALL quantities, given ONCE IN A WHILE as a treat, don't seem to be harmful.
3. AVOID giving your sulcata tortoise fruit! Even though sulcata love fruit, it's best NOT to give them any, if possible. Grazing tortoise species such as leopard and sulcata rely on beneficial bacteria in their intestines to help them digest and extract nourishment from the grasses that they eat. If you give your tortoise large amounts of fruit, the acids and sugars in the fruit can actually change the pH of the tortoise's digestive tract, and this pH change can cause the beneficial bacteria in the tortoise's gut to die off. When large quantities of gut bacteria die, they release toxins that can cross the gut wall and enter the tortoise's bloodstream, causing the tortoise to experience a form of Toxic Shock Syndrome that can be fatal.
4. Provide the right amounts of calcium and avoid or reduce giving foods that prevent calcium absorption. Sulcata tortoises require a great deal of calcium in their diet to help them grow healthy bones and shell. The Sahel area of Africa where sulcata naturally occur is a semi-arid region that has calcium-rich soils. Wild sulcata tortoises therefore get sufficient calcium by eating the grasses that grow in these calcium-laden soils.
Think about where you live and how you feed your tortoise. If you live in a semi-arid or arid area with little rainfall, the calcium levels in your local soil will be relatively high. Any grasses grown in such a calcium-rich soil will also be high in calcium, so if you allow your tortoise to graze at will on grasses grown in this soil, you might not have to give your tortoise as much in the way of calcium supplements.
However, if you live in a rainy, humid area, then the calcium levels in your soil will be very low because it is dissolved and removed from the soil by the frequent rainfall. Any grasses grown in your local soil will be calcium-poor. Therefore, you should provide your tortoise with calcium supplements on a regular basis.
In choosing a calcium supplement, make sure you choose one that does NOT contain Phosphorus. Calcium (Ca) and Phosphorus (P) are both necessary to build healthy bone tissue. However, the phosphorus available in most food items is used much more readily by the tortoise's body than calcium, so you really don't need to supply any additional phosphorus to your tortoise.
Rep-Cal is a good calcium supplement, and it's available at many pet stores. However, a large bag of plain, powdered limestone (calcium carbonate) will probably cost you a lot less. You can find 50-pound bags of calcium carbonate at livestock supply stores or feed stores that sell poultry supplies. The best way to use Rep-Cal or powdered calcium carbonate is to sprinkle a small amount lightly over the tortoise's food on a regular basis.
Certain foods contain oxalic acid compounds that prevent the body from absorbing calcium from food. You should AVOID feeding large quantities of the following foods on a regular basis because of the oxalic acids in them:
- Spinach
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Kale
- Mustard Greens
[Many people have emailed us that they were confused about this recommendation. Basically, a couple of Kale leaves given to your tortoise once in a while is probably fine, if the rest of the time the tortoise is eating grasses and weeds. On the other hand, feeding your tortoise only mustard greens and spinach will lead to it having health problems. The key concepts here are small quantities and infrequently.]
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5. AVOID over-feeding your tortoise. Sulcata tortoises can experience a variety of health problems when they are fed the wrong foods -- but they can also have problems when they are fed too much of the right foods. Overfeeding is the single biggest mistake that most tortoise keepers make. Reptiles have slower metabolisms than mammals like dogs or cats, so they really do not need to take in as much food as you might think.
You should also consider the activity level of your tortoise. Can he go outdoors and walk around a secure yard every day? Or does he stay indoors on a small tortoise table? If your tortoise is mostly sedentary, he doesn't need to be fed every day -- really! Every other day is fine, even though he may look up at you with pleading eyes in between feedings. A certain amount of "tough love" is required on your part to not give in.
Consider this analogy: A sedentary tortoise on a tortoise table is like an office worker stuck in a cubicle all day long. If the office worker eats a lot of fast food all the time and never gets any exercise, the chances are pretty good that he or she is going to be overweight, flabby, and have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other health problems. Tortoises who live indoors on a tortoise table and who are fed lots of vegetables (which are their equivalent of fast food!) on a daily basis are ALSO going to experience health problems. They will develop pyramided shells, they may be more susceptible to upper respiratory infections, and they may develop damage to their kidneys and livers.
Recommended Diet Items
Now, after reading about all the things that you shouldn't feed your tortoise, you may be thinking, "What on earth am I supposed to feed this little guy/gal?"
The goal in feeding your sulcata tortoise should be to imitate Mother Nature. You should try to provide those items that the tortoise would encounter in its natural range, and in roughly the same proportions that it would encounter. If you can do this, you will find that your tortoise has few, if any, health problems and will grow slowly and steadily, with little to no pyramiding. Below is a list of items that SHOULD make up the diet of your sulcata tortoise:
1. Grasses
Grasses should make up at least 75% of your sulcata tortoise's diet. You should try to supply as many different grasses as you can from the following list:
- Buffalo grass (Buchloe dactyloides)
- Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon -- which actually originated in Africa!)
- Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata)
- Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)
- Little Bluestem (Andropogon scoparious)
- Western wheatgrass (Agropyron smithii)
- Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis)
- Arizona Fescue (Festuca arizonica)
- Lawn Fescue (Festuca arundinacea)
- Sheep Fescue (Festuca ovina)
- Creeping Red Fescue (Festuca rubra)
The best way to provide the grass-based diet that a sulcata requires is to have a large, safely-enclosed outdoor yard in which you can plant various types of grasses for your sulcata to graze on. This will allow your tortoise to graze at will, while he gets exercise and exposure to sunlight. Owners who can provide a tortoise yard don't have to worry about overfeeding, or whether the tortoise is getting enough UV exposure.
2. Edible Weeds, Leaves, and Flowers
These items should make up the remaining 25% of the diet, if possible. Make sure that any plants you feed to your tortoise have not been treated with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. If you buy a plant from a large chain store like Lowe's, Home Depot, Do-It-All, etc., re-pot the plant in organic potting soil and wait a couple of months to feed the plant to your tortoises -- it will take a while for all the fertilizers and/or pesticides used by the store to leach out of the plant. Here are some recommended plants for sulcata tortoises:
- Dandelion -- both the yellow flowers and the leaves
- Prickly Pear Cactus pads (Opuntia species) -- You can scrape off the needles with a sharp knife or burn them off by holding the pad over the flame of a gas or propane camp stove.
- Broadleaf Plaintain or Buckhorn Plantain (Plantago major or Plantago lanceola)
- Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea grossulariaefolia) -- flowers and leaves
- London Rocket or Tumble Mustard -- leaves only; they tend to reject the flowers
- Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) -- flowers and leaves
- Hollyhock (Alcea rosea) -- flowers and leaves
- Roses (Rosa species) -- flowers only
- Sowthistle
- Chickweed
- Hibiscus (Hibiscus species) -- flowers and leaves
- Mulberry (Morus species) -- leaves only; give the mulberry fruit to box turtles.
- Geranium (Pelargonium species) -- leaves and flowers
- Grape -- leaves only; give the fruit to box turtles or make wine!
3. (OPTIONAL) Vegetables
Use these only as special treats for your tortoise. This means you can feed these items in SMALL quantities, and only once per week at most. These items are NOT necessary, but they can serve as a nice treat for your tortoise, or a way to get them to eat calcium and vitamin supplements:
Dark leafy greens such as:
- Romaine Lettuce
- Arugula
- Mustard Greens
- Collard Greens
- Turnip Greens
- Dandelion Greens
- Chicory
As discussed above, many dark leafy greens do contain significant levels of oxalic acid that can inhibit calcium absorption. This is why these items are listed as OPTIONAL, and why they should only be given in small quantities as treats.
Pumpkin -- Used occasionally, this is a beneficial food since pumpkin contains mannitol, a natural deworming compound. We use canned pumpkin puree as a way to get calcium supplements into our tortoises. Each tortoise receives a couple of spoonfuls of canned pumpkin mixed with a heaping spoonful of calcium carbonate once a week as a treat.
Whole pumpkins are a good seasonal food. When the pumpkins ripen in the fall, purchase a small one for your tortoise. You don't need to cook it or peel off the rind before giving to your sulcata, but you should remove the seeds beforehand. Cut the pumpkin into small chunks, and give a few to your tortoise. Freeze what you don't use immediately; even though the chunks tend to get stringy after being thawed, your tortoise will still love them as an occasional treat, rind and all.
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