Tortoise Diet

(Taken from Mader’s Reptile Medicine)

Adults should be fed three times per week and hatchlings fed daily. For every feeding, dust food with calcium lactate, carbonate, or gluconate. Every 1 to 2 weeks dust food with multivitamins ( If vitamin-fortified foods are not available).

85% Vegetables. Majority of vegetables should be dark leafy greens (mustard, collard, radish and turnip greens or tops, kale, cabbage, dandelions (leaves, stems and flowers), bok-choy (pak-choi), broccoli, rape, backyard grasses, clovers, legumes, and weeds (freshly cut or as browse). Feed less of spinach, Swiss chard, beet greens, red leaf or romaine lettuce. Mulberry and grape leaves, roses, nasturtiums, hibiscus, carnation flowers, cured alfalfa or timothy hay, soaked alfalfa pellets, thawed frozen mixed vegetables (peas, corn, carrots, green and lima beans), peas in the pod, cauliflower, green beans are good; as are alfalfa, clover, radish, or soy bean sprouts; and jicama, green peppers, radishes, summer and winter squashes, prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp) pads (shave off spines).

10% Fruits. Grapes, apples, oranges, pears, prickly pear fruit, peaches, plums, nectarines, dates, all types of melons, strawberries, raspberries, bananas, mangos, and tomatoes. Increase to 20% for red- and yellow-footed tortoises.

< 5% High-Protein Content Foods. Dry maintenance dog food, primate chow, pelleted parrot chows, tofu, various cereals (crisped rice, corn flakes, grape nuts, bran flakes, etc), sardines with bones, whole mice, baby mice, large carnivore diets, and scrambled or hard boiled eggs (with shells). Increase to 10% for hinged-back, angulate, brown and impressed tortoises.