Hello and gratitude

[Jabuti]

I'm writing to express my gratitude to the Tortoise Table as an excellent resource for a new tortoise owner. I live in Florida, USA and an acquaintance found a red-footed tortoise wandering in her cow pasture. Unfortunately, many reptile pets are released to "the wild" here because it is warm. My acquaintance is a wildlife rehabilitator and was having trouble re-homing him. I have had him for a few months and deeply appreciate the Tortoise Table's guidance in terms of diet. There is a surprising lack of information about tortoise care, even from his exotic pet veterinarian. So, meet Mort the Tort, 23 pounds and estimated age of 30-40 years. He lives in an enclosure in my backyard.
Cheers!

[Nina]

Gosh, you've really made our day -- first for the wonderful compliments and secondly with the photo of the very handsome Mort the Tort! Congratulations on rescuing him and giving him such a good home.

I'm so glad that you are finding our website useful. Our database has over 1,000 entries, but of course there are still thousands of plants that aren't on there, so if you can't find a particular plant on the website, please write to us at contact@thetortoisetable.org.uk and we will be very happy to research it and let you know if it's edible.

Regarding the diet of Redfoots, it is a bit different from the Mediterranean and African tortoises that many people keep, because Redfoots can eat fruit and also require some animal protein. This is because their digestive systems work a bit faster than some other species of tortoise and therefore they don't extract quite as many nutrients from fibrous weeds as the Med tortoises do.

It sounds to me like you have everything in hand, and you probably already have a care sheet for Redfoots, but in case you don't, here is one. https://www.tortoise-protection-group.o ... il2018.pdf . It was written with the British tortoise keeper in mind, so some of the information won't be as relevant to you because you live in a far better climate than we do, but there might be some things of interest in it.

And please feel free to post more photos of Mort -- we never tire of looking at pictures of lovely tortoises, and we don't have many members who keep Redfooted tortoises, so it's a real treat for us to see them.

Nina

[lin]

I must echo Nina’s comments and thanks for caring for Mort and your lovely words about our website.
Mort is a very handsome young man and as his age is only a guess he looks amazing. Well done for taking him on and we are here if you need to ask anything.

Lin