when you said Tomato the fruit or the plant or both.I have just got a baby sulcata today and i don't have a printer is there a way you can send me a care sheet by mail? I want to do the right things with him.or her? I was told not to feed him mealworm at all or dog food, or any friut.

Stephanie,
I would definatly not feed him/her dogfood, mealworms, or anything relating to meat products. To much protein in a tortoises diet causes faster growth of the exosceletal bones, which in turn causes pyramiding in the tortoise. The best food source for sulcatas, especially babies is chopped up collard, mustard, turnip greens, yellow squash and lots of succulents i.e cactus flowers, and cactus pear(prickly pear with spines taken out). Fruit is ok in a sparingly manner, 1 to 2 times a week. If you can give them roses the whole flower make sure they are not fertilized flowers though wash them thouroughly to be sure. I stay away from tomatoes in the entirety, because of there acidity. Straweberries are great for them.

were can i get a tortois for my own

Hi there, I got a pair of Bowsprit tortoises today and I need to know how to supplement their diet. At the moment they really only have khikuyu grass to feed on...

Hello , first time checking out the site. I am a Mother of a beautiful healthy girl Africain spur and I was just wondering of what you thought of the food you can buy made from ZOO med company, they claim to have a great diet in a can or container, I have never tried her on anything but, fruits and veggies and some hay. I was told don't start bad habbits. What do you think?

Hey Harriett,

Glad to see you have such in interest in my web-site and tortoises. If you live in the States you can find a list of reptiles shows all over the United States. You can find this list on kingsnake.com. There should be alot of savy people at local pet stores and petsmarts, or petcos. If you have never had a tortoise before I would recommend a relativly easy species like a russian tortoise. They are very cold and heat hardy do not get very big at all (not over 10 inches) and eat almost anything.

Samantha,

I am glad to see you came accross a rare species of tortoise. In the states we do not come accross bowsprits veyr often, Given there locality I would try lots of succulents, cactus flowers, cactus pads(spinless pads) mustard greens, They should like rose flowers naturally grown not store bought they will have chemicals in them(lots of fertalizers).

I-lynn,

I always only feed my tortoises naturally grown fruits and veggies. Sulcatas do best (at least mine do) on constant mustard or turinip greens daily with squash bell peppers, bananas, cactus pads. They have never grown any sort of pyramids on there carapace at all. I have fed manufactered foods to babies before and fed only natural diet to other babies before and seen the difference. Natural they grow a little slower but there shells grow smoothly and harden faster than manufactered. The Mazuri or zoo med gave some pretty bad pyramiding but grew them alot faster which some people like I however think growing too fast gives longevity of getting impacted colons which usually leads to death without emergency surgery. Perhaps every ounce in a while I would say its not bad but daily I would feed all natural. And don't be sparing with there food, mine will eat a box of 2 dozen greens in one day if I offered it.