Jacqui's Captive Bred Tortoises

Article based  on The Tortoise Trust Winter Diets (By Andy Highfield).

The question of what to feed in winter is a problem that perplexes many keepers. Some resort to buying lettuces and cabbage, and hoping for the best. Unfortunately, this is far from the best solution and organising a much healthier diet is relatively easy, but far more interesting for your tortoise too and can help avoid "faddy" tortoises in the spring when the weeds re emerge.

Obviously, the fewer tortoises you have to feed the easier it gets and with some careful planning in spring and summer, a healthy diet can still be achieved, even in the depths of winter.
Start with some of the more interesting bagged salad mixes available at your local supermarket or greengrocer, for example, herb salads, wild rocket salads, baby leaf salads, and Mediterranean salads. These typically comprise a fairly good range of green and red-leaf salad ingredients and make up a good general base. The typical ingredients include escarole, radicchio, tatsoi, rocket, endive, lambs lettuce, red chard, mizuna, coriander, apollo lettuce, lollo rosso, lollo verde, baby red oak lettuce, green batavia lettuce baby lollo biondi, tango lettuce and romaine etc.

 
The key to using these successfully is to constantly rotate and mix them, and to supplement them with other fresh, high fibre items. Do not rely for extended periods upon one type alone. Variety is extremely important. If you only have one or two tortoises, buy different bags on different days. If you have more, then buy several different varieties and mix them.
Avoid mixes containing root vegetables (carrot, beetroot, etc.) or fruits (bell peppers, tomato, etc.) as these are not suitable for Mediterranean tortoises. A small amount of dark green leaf vegetables can be safely added from time to time, such as, curly kale or collard greens, but avoid regular reliance on these.

This general green, leafy base can then be supplemented with a surprising range of interesting and highly nutritious ingredients that you can grow for yourself, either in a mini-greenhouse or indoors, and use as available.

Examples such as:

Hibiscus flowers and leaves
Petunia flowers
Rose petals
Nasturtium flowers and leaves
Violet flowers
Pansy flowers
Gazania flowers and leaves
Bellis daisy flowers
Osteospermum flowers
Honeysuckle flowers
Chrysanthemum flowers
Buddleia leaves and flowers
Pineapple sage flowers
Rose geranium flowers
Cornflowers
Campanula flowers
Dandelion leaves and flowers
Carnation flowers
Fuschia flowers
Snapdragon flowers
Marigold and Calendula flowers

Many of these will grow even in winter in sheltered spots, in greenhouses, or in pots or trays in the house.

You can often still find food growing naturally throughout the winter, especially in more sheltered areas such as dandelion, Buddleia leaves, clover and sow-thistle. Even after a hard frost and snows it doesn’t take long before some of the hardy flowering weeds begin to reappear.

It is absolutely critical that you do not buy flowers for winter feeding from garden centres or florists and feed immediately as these will almost certainly have been treated with highly toxic pesticides. Once washed off well, and grown on a bit however, new growth can be safely harvested from garden centre plants. Flowers from florists (or supermarkets) tend to have much heavier concentrations of toxic pesticides and we would recommend avoiding these completely.

Other things that you can grow include Opuntia cacti (which do well in pots or greenhouses). These can be quite slow to get started, but once established, can easily attain really impressive dimensions! Pads can be detached from the main plant, allowed to dry until ready to root, and then placed in a pot with sandy compost. You can find a detailed article about growing Opuntia cactus on the Tortoise Trust website.

All food for Mediterranean tortoises requires a sprinkling of  Nutrobal daily.

This highly varied mixed leafy salad base, with the addition of the “weeds” and flowers mentioned makes a very satisfactory indoor maintenance diet. I have used variations on this for many years with excellent results. I, as does Andy Highfield, therefore feel entirely confident in recommending it as safe and effective.