Personally I don't think Redfoots should be given fruits any more than any other tortoise.

I also suggest staying away from overly ripenend fruit and fruits high in moisture content.

All of the fiberous fruits and berries are fair game.

Hi

I do feed the adults satsuma type oranges every now and again. A bit time consuming as they like to be fed the individual segments. Means I can dip them in nutrobal though. Little ones also like it but don't give it to them very often. None of them are too keen on apples.

Favourites are pear, kiwi, plums, melon (the denser types rather than watermelon, but I don't see any problems with watermelon as long as he is still eating lots of green stuff too.), peaches, strawberries, mushrooms. What I feed depends on what is in season and what is reduced at the local co-op! Any berry type things I think are good too. At the moment kiwis, plums, mushrooms and pears seem to be what I end up with.

I'd suggest a slice of ripe pear. The nutrobal sticks well to the wet sides.

Generally fruit is better good and ripe (obviously not rotten). This means even if I get reduced stuff I sometimes have to keep it for a couple of days before its ripe enough. They will just ignore hard slices of pear for example.

I don't give them banana as a rule. The big uns might get one between them once a year if I happen to have bought one and not eaten it - but I rarely eat bananas!

Chicken breast, prawns, meal worms all ok. Adults can have pinkies. I use diet cat biscuits as well as I happen to have a fat cat on a permanent diet. In fact, if they are out for a wander, two of the adults in particular head stright for the cat bowl to see if she has left any. (not likely - fat cat remember). I have recently heard that they go mad for a bit of fresh salmon. Haven't tried it myself, anyone else?

Anyway, enough from me.

BT

Ed I totally disagree and I would advise reading this to the OP

Feeding Red-foot and Yellow-foot tortoises Geochelone carbonaria and G. denticulata

Hi blazing torts,I just gave my little ones 3 wax worms each they love em the little one ran over and took one out the other ones mouth LOL

Yes, the tastiest bits of food are always the bits another tortoise is eating!

Once again I would suggest the OP reading some of the references cited directly.

There are two main references that most writers cite when reporting on Red Foots... Peter Prichards, Turtles of Venezuela and a Thesis by D. Moskovits, The Behavior and Ecology of the Two Amazonian Tortoises... The problem with the thesis is that the author set out to prove that fruit is a major source of the tortoises diet... What caught my attention was when she listed the plants she listed Genera... not specific... when she listed fruit she listed species... This gives me an indication of bias. It makes no sense that fruit is going to be available except for seasonally.

I spoke with a few people in the range countries... fruit is not commonly available in most of the range countries of the RF.

P. Prichards reference is probably the best natural history account available right now.

H. Vetter is comming out with a book similar to the Leopard and Hermann's book. I would trust what he might have to say on the topic.

So... You can disagree but it would be nice for you to provide a little information as to why you disagree.

It's amazing how much effect dogma has on the hobby of tortoise keeping.

IMO this is not a topic worth aruments in the wild a tortoise would eat fruit if it was available so why not give it them? as long as they are balanced between fruit and the herbs and greens they need the tortoise will be healthy so why argue about it?

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2.3 bearded dragons, 1.0 red foot tortoise, 1.1 ferrets, 0.1 labrador, 0.1 pomeranian, 0.1 cat,
0.1 royal python, 0.1 bunny, 1.0 yemen chameleon.

No argument here.

I'm just trying to stress the point that Red Foots do not 'need' any more fruit... or protein... than any other tortoise.

The majority of their diet is plant material (not fruit) and the other stuff should be as proportional as for any other tortoise.

This swings both ways... other tortoises probably encounter as much fruits and berries as most of the RF population.

My preference for ripe fruit is based on what a redfoot might encounter on his travels. The fruit he may find will have had to fall to the ground if it was on a bush or tree. As fruit doesn't fall from trees till it is very ripe (or windy) then they will encounter fully ripe fruits. The fruit may have also been sitting around for a bit before the tortoise gets to it.

They also seem attracted by smell and ripe fruit smells more so is easier to find and also easier to get your beak into!

In the UK, due to transport issues and spoilage, the supermarkets like to sell us under ripe fruit so we have the luxury to 'ripen at home' as it says on the packet. Most of the fruit we can buy is really rather hard and you'd want to keep it a few days before eating it yourself!

That is very true.

How often do you think RFs will encounter any fruit in the wild if you consider how many wild trees fruit... how often they fruit?

As a provider... how often do you offer fruit and how much?

Chances are they are fed fruit way too often in captivity so if you are going to offer fruit I would think it would make sense to offer low sugar, low moisture content to be safe... to much of any one item is not really good... imho.