Now that I've got over my ignorance, I've started to become interested in this pellet diet.

You say it meet your tortoise's nutrition needs..how do you know?

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At first I thought it wasn't worth having this discussion with you because it would seem that you have no point other than to get a rise.

Then... I thought about it... and maybe my point is a little confusing for the novice so I thought I would try to clarify my point.

I don't have a problem if my post looks silly. Some of the stuff people post on the net... well... you know.

I came to this conclusion by first researching the formula and asking the people who developed it how they came up with the particular formula for tortoises.

I then looked into all the bad alligations of the 'bad' ingredients... you know soy, wheat... that kind of stuff.

Then I decided to try it on some tortoises on a trial basis. During this whole process I hunted down all the keepers I know who have either heard of the diet or who use the diet. I spoke with many zoos and nutritionists in general.

Over time... as I saw the results I obtained with my animals I became more comfortable with the use of this diet... which leads us to today.

I am now comfortable recommending the diet because the last thing I want to do is kill someone elses animal.

I really don't 'know' that it meets my tortoises nutritional needs. I do have strong evidence that it does.

That's part of my argument... who really 'knows' what a tortoises nutritional needs are... I'm still looking. If I find a list I'll let you know.

Ok..But how can you know it's 'better' than weeds?

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Easily... I've killed a few tortoise on a strictly plant based diet where I tried to provide that plant base diet.

Mortality rate dramatically decreased when I started using this diet on a larger scale. This is not proof but it is evidence from my perspective and, again, I'm satisfied with it.

One more time... a weed based diet is definately the best diet you can provide but not everyone can properly provide that diet unless they can offer their tortoise free range of a well planted yard.

All I know is that you said that uvb is essential in your book but now you are changing it to VIT D is essential.No wonder some owners don't know what to believe.

Reptiles need u.v.b in my opinion and I shall provide it for mine no matter what.

FAIR ENOUGH. I MIGHT USE IT (T-REX) ONCE OF TWICE A WEEK.

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I have to ask you... how old are you... or are you drawing off of a 3 Stooges routine?

In his book, Ed said that UVB is essential for natural calcium metabolism because it is required to produce vitamin D3. Supplementing with vitamin D3 is unnatural, but if the correct doseage of D3 can be given, then there is no need for UVB.

Reptiles need vitamin D3 - either that which they produce themselves from UVB exposure, or that is unnaturally added to their diets.



With regard to the nutritional content of pellet-based vs weed-based diets, there is an obvious advantage to feeding weeds in that they are free. However, a natural weed-based diet may consist of huge numbers of different weed species. Captivity is unnatural, and many people find it hard to provide 30+ species of weed daily for their table-dwelling tortoise. In such cases, it is likely that the weeds being offered do not exactly meet the requirements of a tortoise, because some species of weed that would be eaten in the wild are not present in the captive diet.

It is important to be aware that one species of weed is not nutritionally identical to another species - some are higher in some minerals, and lower in others, for example. In the wild, a tortoise would be able to actively seek out a range of weeds, in order that it gets the right balance of vitamins and minerals. In captivity it is limited to picking through what it's keeper provides for it, so it doesn't get the same level of choice, unless you can give it a hugely varied daiet, each day.

In formulating the good pellet diets (and as Ed has pointed out many times, some are better than others), nutritionists will examine the vitamin and mineral contents of plants that tortoises would naturally seek out, and attempt to make up a pelleted food with the same ratios of vitamins and minerals. If you did a breakdown of the average weed-based diet in the UK, compared to a good-quality pellet diet, the pellet diet would probably be closer in ratios to what a wild tortoise would eat. As I said in the previous paragraph, a weed does not equal a weed, which does not equal another weed in terms of their nutritional content. This is why a complete, artificial pelleted diet can often be superior to a limited but superficially "natural" weed-based diet. When you are being honest with yourselves, how many keepers provide 20+ different weed species per feeding?? Have a think about the huge range of plants that a wild tortoise would have access to during it's daily roaming. That could never be replicated in captivity by a keeper picking weeds, but the nutritional ratios can be replicated by one of the top pelleted foods.

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