The most difficult aspect of feeding a redfoot tortoise is that redfoot tortoises are nearly always hungry!
As long as your redfoot is warm enough and otherwise healthy, you can bet that your tortoise will be keen to eat.
So it will definitely be up to you to moderate both dietary variety and portion sizes….not an easy task, I can tell you.
As you already know, the second most difficult aspect of feeding a redfoot tortoise is managing calcium to phosphorus and oxalate levels in their diet.
This redfoot diet “cheat sheet” should help with this. I still consult this sheet every week and especially when I want to add a new food and I’m not sure it meets Malti’s nutritional needs.
You can also do a search online for “[food name] Calcium to Phosphorus ratio” and that should pull up the information you need about the item’s nutritional profile. At the end of this course, I have included some links to give you more detailed information about different foods.
NOTE: It won’t take you very long to notice that different websites often give very different Ca:Ph and oxalates ratios for the same foods. For example, this website says that strawberries have a 1:0.8 Ca:Ph ratio and this website says that strawberries have a 0.7:1 Ca:Ph ratio. Which one is right? Perhaps neither! As this scientific paper highlights, researchers have been arguing about the nutrient content in strawberries as far back as 1966. As for the rest of us – food charts can be a good guideline but it is equally important not to get work yourself up into a panic about it (the way I used to do).
So without further ado, here is a partial list I’ve compiled that will at least get you started.
And remember, just because a food may be high in oxalates doesn’t necessarily mean you never ever want to feed it. That food may have other beneficial properties that justify adding it in occasionally. Ca:Ph to oxalates is just one of many ways to analyze the nutrient values of your redfoot tortoise’s diet.
Redfoot Tortoise Care 