Tortoise Feeding Guide

Feeding a tortoise well is mostly a matter of routine rather than recipes. What you offer matters, but how often, how much, and under what conditions matter just as much, and they are where most keepers go wrong.

This is the hub for the practical side. If you want to know which foods are suitable, start at what do tortoises eat or the food checker instead.

Feeding principles

Six rules cover most of it.

1. Weeds and flowers first. They supply eleven of the fourteen foods rated for regular feeding in our records. Vegetables supply none.
2. Variety over any single item. Wild tortoises sample around 200 plant species a year. Every problem compound in a tortoise diet causes harm through repetition, so variety protects against all of them at once.
3. Fibre before everything. Coarse, slow-fermenting plant material is what the gut is built for.
4. Underfeed rather than overfeed. In the wild food is scarce and has to be walked for. In a garden it arrives daily. Overfeeding is far more common in captivity than underfeeding.
5. Match the species. Grass is a staple for a Sulcata and a poor food for a Hermann’s. Fruit is normal for a red-foot and a risk for everyone else. See tortoise diets by species.
6. Warmth is part of feeding. Digestion depends on body temperature. A cold tortoise cannot ferment what it eats, so food offered to an animal that is not warm enough does nothing useful.

The reasoning behind all six is in tortoise diet.

How much and how often

Those frequencies come from British Chelonia Group guidance. Note what is missing: grams. Portion depends on species, age, size, season and the individual animal, and any site giving you a universal weight is guessing.

Judge by growth rather than by appetite. Weigh and measure growing tortoises regularly. A wide pale band of new growth around the scutes means the animal is growing faster than it should. Appetite tells you nothing useful, because tortoises are adapted to gorge when food appears.

Full detail in how often to feed a tortoise.

Hatchlings

Young tortoises carry the risk, because bone and shell problems established during growth cannot be reversed later.

• Feed once a day, portioned to clear in roughly twenty minutes
• Build the diet on weeds from the start, rather than starting with supermarket salad and intending to improve later
• Softer material for grazing species, whose jaws cannot manage coarse hay early on
• Weigh regularly, and treat rapid growth as a warning rather than a success
• Hydration matters more than most keepers expect, including in arid species

See baby tortoise food.

Winter and hibernation

Britain gives you two distinct feeding problems.

If your tortoise hibernates, feeding stops several weeks before it goes under so the gut can empty completely. Four to six weeks is the usual figure. Food left in the gut during hibernation is dangerous. See feeding before hibernation.

If it does not hibernate, whether because of species, age or health, winter is a long stretch of indoor feeding. Forage disappears from November, the diet leans on supermarket greens, and fibre is the first thing to slip without anyone noticing. Dried herbs, flowers and grasses are what close that gap. See winter feeding.

Either way, do not compensate for a poor winter diet by feeding more of it.

Supplements

Calcium and vitamin D3 sit behind most serious tortoise health problems.

• Calcium must outweigh phosphorus in the diet, with UK veterinary guidance setting a minimum around 2:1
• Vitamin D3 is required to use that calcium, and tortoises synthesise it from UVB rather than eating it
• UVB does not pass through glass, so a sunny windowsill contributes nothing at all
• Supplementation matters most in winter, when the diet leans on greens with a weaker mineral profile
• A cuttlebone left in the enclosure lets the animal self-regulate to some extent

See calcium and supplements.

Water and hydration

The idea that tortoises rarely drink is wrong, and it does real harm.

• Water available at all times, in a shallow dish the animal can get into and out of
• Regular baths, particularly for juveniles and for any species kept in dry conditions
• Dehydration compounds most of the other problems on this page, including renal strain from an over-rich diet

See water and hydration.

When appetite changes need attention

Some appetite change is normal. Some is not, and telling them apart matters.

The British Chelonia Group advises seeking advice within a week for a tortoise that is not eating. A tortoise that stops eating outside the run-up to hibernation has a health problem rather than a menu problem, and no change of food will fix it.

Find a reptile-experienced vet before you need one. A general small animal practice may not have the relevant experience. See tortoise not eating.

The rest of this section

• How often to feed a tortoise, on portions and growth monitoring
• Baby tortoise food, for hatchlings and juveniles
• Winter feeding, for November to March
• Feeding before hibernation, on timing and gut clearance
• Calcium and supplements
• Water and hydration
• Tortoise not eating, on appetite loss

Guidance here draws on the British Chelonia Group, the Tortoise Trust and published veterinary sources, checked as described in our sources and review policy. This is husbandry information and not a substitute for veterinary care. See our veterinary disclaimer.

Last reviewed: September 2026.