09/30/2026
A customer inquiry on the Kapidolo Farms webpage and my response.
What do I recommend for a Russian tortoise that has a strong, perhaps stubborn preference, for Romaine and bell peppers. My response:
It's good to realize that a varied diet is healthier. No matter what I recommend it won't matter if your tortoise is fixated on romaine and bell peppers. Therefore, to provide a more varied diet, no matter what that variation consist of, the tortoise needs to accept a wider range of foods.
I accomplish food introduction by taking what they do eat, and presenting it in finely chopped pieces (not a blender, not a mush). The pieces should be slightly smaller than their usual bite size. Mix the two foods your tortoise will eat so that it takes a bite containing some of both, do this for several days to a week, until the tortoise shows no sign of objection to the new presentation. Step 2 , feed smaller total portion so all food is eaten in about 15 minutes. Do this until it becomes the routine, which takes several days to a week. Now introduce a new food, mixed with the romaine and bell pepper, but in such a small amount it's barely visible to you. Tortoises have great vision for food just a fraction of an inch from their face. The new food should not be too contrasted with what is already consumed. Maybe green leaf or red leaf lettuce. Then introduce another item like arugula or dandelion greens - they are more bitter and look different at the tortoise's food viewing distance.
This may seem complicated or tedious, but I find it worth getting the tortoise to eat better and more varied. When there is another romaine recall or price spike it ends up being worth the effort.
Use the full range of grocery greens. Romaine as a base is okay, but other lettuces are good to include: red leaf, green leaf, butter etc. Some stores have packs of four of oak leaf, and other more unusual leaf lettuces. Then there are the domesticated chicories like escarole, frisée, endive, and raddicio. These are not as common across all the grocery stores as to make them the primary grocery greens; however, escarole is the single best base green. Consider other domesticated weeds like arugula (sometimes called rocket), and dandelion. Then there are the domesticated mustards like kale, mustard, collards etc. These are good to include up to 20% of total greens spaced out over a week, not necessarily per meal. Lastly, root crop greens like beet greens, radish greens, and turnip greens are pretty common in stores. Rotate root crop greens in at the same amount as the domesticated mustards. I call them domesticated because all these greens are based on wild-type plants that might otherwise be considered weeds. To make them more palatable and easier to chew much of the nutrients and fiber have been selected out.
Drumroll now: Testudo Munch (variety pack) is meant to level up the grocery greens we feed Russian tortoises. As a dried organic selection of botanicals they are roughly ten times the amount as fresh. Most dried plant materials lose about 90% of their weight as water when dried. So an ounce of dried stuff is like ten ounces of fresh. It does not take much to bring some of the lost nutrients and fiber back into the grocery greens. I don't measure their use, you don't need to break out the lab coat; I chop freshly washed and spun greens. The moisture released during chopping, plus any water remaining after spinning, is enough to make the dried ingredients stick. I use a dedicated dish pan, so whatever does not stick today is ready for tomorrow's chopped greens.
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