Russian Tortoise Feeding: Fiber, Calcium, and Growing Slowly

In the wild this animal spends its active hours moving through low vegetation, taking a bite here and a bite there. The diet is soft-stemmed, water-rich plant growth, grasses, flowers and leaves, high in fiber and low in concentrated energy. Almost every feeding mistake made in captivity comes from replacing that with something richer and faster.

Graze First, Bowl Second

The best version of this diet is one the tortoise harvests itself. Where the enclosure allows it, safe growing plants beat anything chopped into a dish, because grazing spreads intake across the day and keeps the fiber high. Fiber is not filler here: microbial fermentation of it in the gut is a major nutrient source for a tortoise.

There is a practical catch to planting an enclosure: tortoises will often eat a plant down to the roots and finish it. The workaround is to grow forage somewhere else, in a pesticide-free spot, and bring it in.

Grass hay belongs in front of the tortoise all the time, unlimited, as the background the weeds and greens sit against. It is the fiber source that never runs out and the one thing that should never be rationed.

For which plants are safe to pick and which are not, the safe weeds and wild plants guide covers the list, where to avoid collecting, and how the calcium to phosphorus balance differs between one weed and another. Wild weeds beat cultivated grocery greens, and fruit is best left off the menu entirely for this species.

Two presentation details are easy to miss. Mix the food together rather than laying items out separately, because a tortoise given the choice will eat selectively and leave the fiber. And put the food on a tile or in a dish, so the animal is not swallowing substrate with every bite.

No Animal Protein

This is a herbivore, and that is not a soft preference. Animal protein does not belong in the diet at all.

It is also linked to a second problem that takes longer to show up. Protein-rich food pushes fast growth, and rapid growth on a high-protein diet is one suspected driver of shell deformity. The condition is not completely understood, and it turns up most often in young tortoises kept at the wrong temperature or humidity, or fed an imbalance of calcium, phosphorus or protein. Growth that is too slow does damage as well, so a young tortoise is worth weighing regularly and watching for steady, unhurried gain instead of being pushed along or starved.

Pyramiding, where the scutes rise into raised humps instead of staying flat, is the visible result. It is not purely a feeding fault, but protein and overfeeding are the parts a keeper controls at the dish.

Calcium, and the Ceiling on It

Calcium runs the shell and the skeleton, and a deficiency here is one of the serious problems in the species: soft shells, shell and bone deformities, kidney damage, and worse if it goes far enough.

The usual delivery is calcium carbonate sprinkled lightly onto food, with a cuttlebone left in the enclosure to gnaw. Calcium citrate works too. A reptile multivitamin, sprinkled lightly on food, rounds out the rest. Skip anything with added phosphorus, which is the whole point of the ratio below, and skip anything with added vitamin D unless a vet has asked for it.

There is also a ceiling. Wild diets for these tortoises can run a calcium to phosphorus ratio at or above 4:1, but the target in captivity sits nearer 2:1, because too much calcium causes medical problems of its own. This is a nutrient to supply reliably, not maximally.

Alongside calcium, the diet wants carotenoids, the vitamin A precursors that come from dark leafy greens and from orange and yellow vegetables like squash, carrot and sweet potato.

How Much

A growing tortoise gets as much as it will eat every day. As it nears adult size that drops to a limited daily portion, roughly a pile the size of its own shell. Treat that as a starting point rather than a measure, because the right amount depends on the animal in front of you. The check is the tortoise itself.

Russian tortoises tend toward overweight in captivity, and the test is what happens when one withdraws: a tortoise that looks chubby pulling back into its shell, with flesh crowding the openings, is being fed too much. Cut the amount back.

That is the direction of error to expect. Underfeeding a tortoise that grazes is unusual; overfeeding one that would happily eat all day is the default.

Water

Tortoises drink, and the belief that they do not is a persistent one that causes real harm. Without water, urates accumulate, and they can reach dangerous levels.

Provide water in a shallow bowl, something like a plant saucer, sunk so its lip sits level with the surrounding surface. It doubles as the soaking dish. An indoor adult also gets a weekly soak of 10 to 20 minutes in lukewarm water no deeper than its elbows, and a juvenile 10 to 15 minutes twice a week, never left unattended.

Sources & Further Reading

Printable Guide

The Russian Tortoise Care Package puts the feeding section, an owner log and a pet-sitter sheet on paper, in a 51-page PDF you can keep by the enclosure, $8.99.

Read the first 5 pages free