Me rambling on!!

[Suze65]

Originally Posted by sandy

The same works over here for weeds, I always sort of feed up my tortoises from May until around the beginning of August. I sow my seeds in October all over the garden. So they germinate and grow for when my tortoises come out of hibernation. They are sort of over fed, or make pigs of themselves on the weeds. Then in August I have lots of hibiscus flowers and lavvy flowers along with any weeds that are still around. This tends to be less amounts of food. Then at the beginning of September my tortoises have already began to slow down ( you can hardly notice this, but they have) so can come out and graze as they wish, with the odd top up of food now and again. Then as the days get really short, they will be ready for hibernation.

I completely agree with this, I think we should be trying to follow their natural feeding habits, mine do this, and as Sandy has said they start to very slowly , slow down from September onwards, mine do a natural outdoor wind down, all by themselves. So back to natural feeding habits, rather than restricting food.
I'm going to throw a spanner in the works now I think hibernation is part of their natural feeding cycle, ok if know that's going to open a huge can of worms. Yes I know hibernation is a survival strategy, but over thousands of years their natural growth has evolved to fit in with that down time. Hope that makes sense. That's just my theory, I don't mind if people disagree