i could watch your torts for hours man... great job with them!

Hey. Great video. I was woundering if you could make a video on how you feed your Russian tortoise, maybe over a week or so. I am here in Sweden and trying to come up with the best food for my little buddie.

Just great videos of your torts.

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

Robert , thank you!

I like all your videos.

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you Shirley

I have a star that has a diet of lollo lettuce and french beans.. I recently got a bunny so I am glad u put here that tortoise can eat hay. I will try that.

@TheArcticReptileRanch

4 жыл бұрын

Joanna, a diet of just lettuce and french beans is less than ideal for any tortoise species. Your tortoise would benefit from a wide variety of green vegetables, squashes, broad leafed weeds, the occasional fruit, occasional worm or bug, and also as mentioned fresh grasses and dried hays. Offering all of those with powdered vitamin and mineral supplements helps guarantee healthy, robust tortoise.

Great video very informative will try n our 15 p.p. tortoises

@TheArcticReptileRanch

4 жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

How often do you rotate between greens, pellets and hays?

What is the red food? I've got a VERY picky baby sulcata that will not eat anything but fresh grocery store greens, she hates the grassland zoo med and I'm waiting on the mazuri and mazuri Ls to come in as well as nature zone melon bites

What are your thoughts on solely feeding mazuri(5m21) as the primary staple diet? i have an adult russian who would only eat 3-5 pellets at a time but wont eat anything else. I may try your technique to get him to like hay since i have it laying around inside his enclosure for him but would not touch it

@TheArcticReptileRanch

4 жыл бұрын

Pam, I am not a huge fan of any single food being a staple. Even though they are billed as "complete diets" and maybe actually come close to having all of the vitamins, minerals, & nutrients needed, I just like to present variety to my charges. Mazuri is a bit low in fiber (a very important macronutrient for tortoises) compared to ZooMed's forest and grassland diets. Instead of just hay, try mixing in some more leafy vegetables or weeds from a safe source outside. And as you saw, try mixing it like I did or smearing it on other foods as if it were peanut butter or nutella.

Hi.sorry very late comment here but where is this canned food for tortoises from! I’ve never seen it in uk before. Love your tortoises by the way..we have just got a 6 year old Russian tort 😊

@TheArcticReptileRanch

4 жыл бұрын

Mrs. Red, the food is made by zoomed, zoomed.com/zoo-menu-tortoise-omnivorous-lizard-food/ . Even though I like to order in bulk, the cheapest price online that I have found is through LLLReptile. Here is the link to their list of foods in case you are interested in looking for even more feeding options to add variety, www.lllreptile.com/catalog/126-tortoise-and-turtle-dry-and-canned-foods. The tortoise canned food is about 1/3 of the way down the web page.

What is the name of the red product ?

My sulcata will be a yr old in July. I tried mixing grasses and hays in mazuri often won't touch it. So I have 4 bags of stuff it won't eat. All it wants is fresh greens and pellets. I'm now trying the grass/hay being the only option. Was told a healthy tortoise won't allow its self to starve. It makes me feel bad. Poor thing goes and checks the food bowl every few minutes.

How did you get your galaps?

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

A fellow tortoise keeper moved up to Alaska with them and the rest of his collection a few years back with the intention of returning to the lower 48. Like many things in life well laid plans often go awry. Like so many people that come up here temporarily, he decided to stay up here permanently. After we met, he realized I would be a suitable keeper to sell them to, especially since I am moving back this summer. So even though he really hated to part with them he knew sending them and a few other tortoises back to the southern US with me was what would be best for them.

My Greek wouldn’t touch zoo med I started mixing it with mazuri and calcium because he won’t eat food sprinkled with it. At first he tried to pick it out but now he just gave up eats the whole thing. What hay do you recommend?

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

Orchard grass hay seems to be accepted by nearly all of my tortoises. My favorite part is that is is exceptionally inexpensive, even up here in AK.

@1313tish

6 жыл бұрын

The Arctic Reptile Ranch my pet store has like six different kinds from just Alf Alfa to mixed ones, sorry I’m just very paranoid when introducing something new. I gave pea shoots to my other tortoise last year and over night he passed.

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

Pea shoots in and of themselves are not toxic or acutely harmful to tortoises. They can contain high levels of phosphorus, which, as many tortoise keepers learn, binds to calcium but damage from this occurs over time. Was there something else involved, a pesticide on the shoots, maybe a bacteria in the fertilizer or soil?

@1313tish

6 жыл бұрын

The Arctic Reptile Ranch not that I know of I bought it at a grocery store it said it was organic I washed it that’s about it. I’m in Canada so during the winter it’s hard to find things except spring mix.

Can leopard tortoises be housed together?

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

Generally speaking, as long as they have adequate space and are both free of sickness, yes they can. It is better if they start out together as a group from hatchling age. Leopards tend to be a bit more mellow and less combative than their sulcata cousins but, every tortoise is an individual and they should be monitored to make sure one is being over dominated... Dominating behaviors are things like chasing around an enclosure( they aren’t friends playing tag), sitting on the food in the food bowl to keep the other from getting as much, ramming is more obvious but just constant shoving is less obvious and people often interpret that as “snuggling because they like each other.” In the wild tortoises often inhabit very resource-restricted environments. Their natural tendency towards self preservation causes them to be territorial by nature. Adequate space, plenty of food & water, and multiple hiding places help curb those natural tendencies. Sometimes though, two tortoises of the same species just will never get along. Of note, when the tortoises are sexually mature and both sexes are present, this situation adds an entirely new dynamic.

3 of mine won’t eat any pellets. They were raised on dandelion greens by their breeder

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

Unicorn Indy , you could use the reverse of this method for them. Make sure your pellets are super moistened then paste it over the broader dandelion leaves. I’m working on that to get my russian torts to accept the or-fab diets instead of just fresh.

@unicornindy4282

6 жыл бұрын

The Arctic Reptile Ranch were working on it. It’d be so helpful if they’d of fed a more varied diet.

Why do you not fed them fresh weeds, grasses and flowers? I understand mixing the hay with the softened pellets, but they need fresh foods, too. Looks like everything they eat is mush. That’s not how they eat in the wild.

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

As the name of this KZread channel suggests, I live in where it is very cold, Alaska; all of the weeds, grasses, & flowers are under 2 feet of snow. Since snow is a factor for 6-8 months a year, most enclosures do have grasses and weeds growing in them for the tortoises to browse at their leisure. The store-bought diets are fed a few times a week. On different days, they get wide varieties of fresh foods. A portion of the fresh variety can be seen in one of my older videos. In this climate where the tortoises have to be housed indoors year-round, nothing can be as it is in the wild. Very few things can be replicated up here so things are simulated like temps, light cycles, humidity, substrate, food items, etc. If you take climate out of the picture, unless you set up a tortoise in a greenhouse with only plants native to its natural habitat, never augment their diet, and throw in a few predators to keep them on their toes, nothing is the same as the wild. When we choose to keep exotic animals(even captive born and bred), decisions have to be made on the best options to keep them healthy, growing, and in shape to make little tortoises because their is nothing natural about captivity. In the six years that I've been in AK, the chelonians that I care for have thrived; even a few sick new arrivals have regained their health and now also thrive. My procedures & methods aren't the only way, but they are effective techniques.

My Russian tortoise don’t like any kind of grasses. I tried to feed my young Russian tortoise zoomed diet he had none of it . He trough a huge tantrum because he didn’t get his greens

@amanitagardens3969

6 жыл бұрын

In captivity, Russians will reject grass at all costs, until hunger becomes overwhelming and they give in.... There seems to be a balance that has been established in nature where Russians will not eat greens usually eaten by livestock and vice versa. This allows zero competition for food and they coexist without any problems. I've noticed every time i fed grasses to my Russian, it will have a hard time pooping it out and I would sometimes have to pull long pieces of grass so it wouldnt drag its poop around. There must be a reason we're not seeing as to why Russians refuse to eat grass in the wild even when theres an abundant supply of it. During the mating and post mating seasons they rather eat plants known to be toxic to livestock and even other tortoises and were never seen eating grasses. Their diet is completely different from other tortoises, Which is why I rarely give them any grass and just stick to weeds and flowers.

@umaryusuf537

5 жыл бұрын

I agree with you my Russian don’t even like weeds I try to feed them any native weed that grow in my region but they rather eat lettuce and greens. But when I keep them outside in there outdoor enclosure they are forced to eat grasses since they don’t have lettuce growing outdoors. But I still give them lettuces and other greens twice a week when there outside.

Hi, are you breeding and selling?

@TheArcticReptileRanch

4 жыл бұрын

I've been married for 15 years, I am doing very little breeding these days ;-P But for real, some of my tortoises are actively mating. Should I have an over abundance of hatchlings I may consider selling them in the future. But, until there is a baby tortoise staring back at me from an egg, I'd make no assumptions.

mazuri dont sell the 1lb pack any more ?

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

They haven't sold the original diet in small quantities for a few years now.

@sdqsdq6274

6 жыл бұрын

i bought a pack tortoise diet LS ,suitable for sulcata ?

@ShirleyFraserTX

6 жыл бұрын

You can get it in smaller quantities from Amazon US.

@sdqsdq6274

6 жыл бұрын

updated i gotten diet LS , he doesnt even wants to eat it , i am thinking of force feeding mazuri thru syringe , any idea how to feed per day for a hatchling ?

@ShirleyFraserTX

6 жыл бұрын

LS is often rejected by torts. The original is usually eaten enthusiastically. Force feeding ?

My tortoise doesn’t like eating zoo med diet

@TheArcticReptileRanch

6 жыл бұрын

Khalifa Don’t sweat it. A lot of tortoises do not enjoy a lot of things. Some of mine fluctuate on what they like from time to time. In a year or two your tortoise may decide it loves the stuff. I’ve had some tortoises not touch one item for four years then suddenly decide to eat it with gusto.

MAYBE they are lacking the gut flora to digest the tough and fibrous grass. That’s probably the problem? I know nothing about torts:/

@thomas261989

5 жыл бұрын

Gut microbiome, not flora (no plants live in animals' guts). Also, if their natural diet is high in fiber, they must have gut microbiome that helps break down fibrous materials

My torts will not eat hay. No way. It’lI sit there for weeks. Even when there’s nothing else to eat. They get a large variety of fresh greens so I’m not too concerned but still.