longleat

[Pussygalore]

if feeding salads is the only problem doesnt the tortoise garden or whatever its called in cornwall feed salads as well they also keep them on straw etc but if thats right why are they approved and not the others, I would imagine picking weeds enough for a number of torts when you also have lots of other animals to feed as well would be near impossible as the only feed, surely salad supplemented with weeds would be ok.

[sandy]

Unfortuantely not many supplement weeds with salad foods. They take what seems the easy way and buy at the supermarket. Which in the longtime is not good for a tortoises health. They do need a varied diet.

[Pussygalore]

I wouldn,t think that zoos of such a large size buy at the supermarket surely there food would be delivered in bulk exspecially as most animals kept in zoos need veg/sald and fruit in such vast quantities I know they need a varied diet my point was that some places which feed the same diet are accepted and others not, only a few years ago the diet of cooked veg, mash of some sort all mannerof veg etc was on the TT diet sheets, I have their earlier ones they came with Sid my rehomer and although they have now changed much for the better sids onwner didn,t know that and had been feeding the earlier advice which she thought to be correct, right or wrong there must still be hundreds of tortoises out there who had only ever been fed that kind of diet and are now well into their older years, I doubt that many if any zoo animals are fed the diet they would get in their natural surroundings we can do so because we only keep a few and can keep up with the latest changes but zoos have such a wide variety of animals to keep that they must have to generalize to a certain extent and feed the best that they can manage, all the feed I,ve ever seen is good quality food not rotten or seconds, if the alternative is not to have zoos or parks at all which is what Peta are after well I think it would be wrong as in the present climate where we are responsible for the extinction of many species we owe it to them to try to recoup and preserve and if zoos are the only places that this can be done then surely that is better than just leaving those species to die out.

longleat is fab, i would recommend everyone to go there... brilliant day out!

here are some piccys of the tortys (and the one with the wheel) hehe...... they all looked really well, but i think there were two different species mixed together though i cant be 100% sure, see the piccys to see and let me know?!?









aint he cute!! xx

[Lyn]

Someone gave me the leaflet for this place yesterday. Thinking of going with the kids and staying somewhere overnight.

[Pussygalore]

I,ve only ever seen it on the tv but would love to go there, if the tv is anything to go by they do a lot of good conservation work.

[piglet]

In the picture of the group feeding there are 3 hermans and 2 iberas

D

[kaz9t9]

would you ever comment a zoo if their husbandry was poor? it would hurt would it? im off to colchester zoo on thursday and i know they have a lot of torts and im wondering what i will find . i will take lots of piccies for you all

[shelley]

I have been to Longleat a couple of times and have to admit I like the place. I can't get enough of the lions and tigers

Having said that they do have mixed species of torts together, I'm sure the food in with the torts when I was there was what looked like iceberg lettuce, and if I remember rightly the floor of the inside tort house was just concrete. It has been a couple of years since I last went!

[Ajay]

Originally Posted by kaz9t9

would you ever comment a zoo if their husbandry was poor? it would hurt would it? im off to colchester zoo on thursday and i know they have a lot of torts and im wondering what i will find . i will take lots of piccies for you all

Oh yes. Andrew practically had to restrain me from assaulting the woman at Twycross - I asked where a particular tort was from and she hadn't realised they had one of that species???!!!!