Tortoise Food Chart: The Complete UK Food List

Four categories, 105 foods, and a separate answer for each of the three species groups. Print it or save the image, and check anything unfamiliar before it goes in the bowl.

The chart below is written for Mediterranean tortoises, which is what most British keepers own. Two groups of foods work differently for grazing and forest species, and those exceptions are set out further down.

How to use this chart

Read the four bands as frequency guidance rather than as safe against dangerous. Most feeding mistakes come from treating everything in the first three bands as interchangeable.

Feed regularly means it can appear most days as part of a varied diet. Feed in moderation means a few times a week at most, rotated with other things. Feed sparingly means small amounts, occasionally, not as a routine. Never feed means keep it away from the animal entirely.

Botanical names are given where a common name could point at more than one plant. If you are not certain what you have picked, do not feed it.

Species key

Group	Species	What changes
Mediterranean (Testudo)	Hermann’s, Horsfield’s (Russian), spur-thighed (Greek), marginated	The chart below applies as written
Grazing / savannah	Sulcata, leopard	Grasses and hays move up to feed regularly
Tropical forest	Red-footed, yellow-footed	Fruit and soft vegetables move up to moderation

Feed regularly

Fourteen foods carry this rating, and every one of them grows in Britain.

Food	Botanical name	Type
Plantain (weed)	Plantago spp.	Weed
Sow thistle	Sonchus spp.	Weed
Mallow	Malva spp.	Weed
Bristly oxtongue	Picris echioides	Weed
Hawkbit	Leontodon spp.	Weed
Nipplewort	Lapsana communis	Weed
Hibiscus	Hibiscus spp.	Flower
Viola / pansy	Viola spp.	Flower
Violet	Viola spp.	Flower
Marigold (calendula)	Calendula spp.	Flower
Campanula	Campanula spp.	Flower
Corn salad (lamb’s lettuce)	Valerianella locusta	Leafy green
Mint	Mentha spp.	Herb
Thyme	Thymus spp.	Herb

Notice what is missing. Dandelion is not here, and neither is clover. Both are good plants that most sites treat as staples, and both sit one band lower on this chart for reasons explained in the next section.

Feed in moderation

Weeds and wild plants: dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), clover (Trifolium spp.), chickweed (Stellaria and Cerastium spp.), nettle (Urtica spp.), bramble (Rubus spp.).

Shrubs and leaves: blackberry leaves, buddleia, grape vine.

Leafy greens: kale, spring greens, collard greens, turnip greens, pak choi, Brussels sprouts, chicory, radicchio, endive, escarole, rocket, watercress, romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce.

Grasses and hay: grass, timothy, couch grass, barley grass, wheat grass.

Flowers: rose, cornflower, nasturtium.

Herbs: basil, coriander, lemon balm.

Other: cucumber, radish, aloe vera, prickly pear pads.

Dandelion sits here rather than in the band above because it acts as a diuretic and carries oxalates. Kale and spring greens are here because they are brassicas containing goitrogens, offset in kale’s case by a useful iodine content. The lettuces are here because they are mostly water and contribute little fibre, which makes them filler rather than food.

Feed sparingly

Almost everything in this band is either fruit or a soft, starchy vegetable.

Fruit: apple, apricot, banana, blackberry, blueberry, cantaloupe, grape, mango, pineapple, plantain fruit, prickly pear fruit, raspberry, strawberry, watermelon.

Vegetables: carrot, courgette, marrow, pumpkin, squash, bell pepper, asparagus.

Other: vetch, chamomile, fennel.

Root vegetables like carrot are here because they are high in readily digestible carbohydrate and poor in calcium relative to phosphorus. Fruit is here because of sugar, and because Mediterranean and grazing species did not evolve eating it.

Never feed

Food	Why
Dog food, cat food, meat, mealworms	Animal protein causes excessive growth, shell deformity, liver and kidney damage
Peas, green beans, lentils, kidney beans	Far too high in protein and phytic acid
Bread, dairy	Processed human food with no place in a tortoise diet
Potato, sweet potato, sweetcorn	Starch load with a poor mineral profile
Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower	Heavily goitrogenic brassicas
Spinach, rhubarb, celery, parsley	High oxalate content that blocks calcium absorption
Tomato, lemon, orange	Acidic and unsuitable for herbivorous species
Onion, garlic	Contain compounds toxic to many animals
Avocado	Toxic
Buttercup (Ranunculus spp.)	Toxic garden weed
Daisy (Bellis perennis)	Listed as avoid on our records despite frequent recommendations elsewhere

Rhubarb leaves in particular are dangerous rather than merely unsuitable. Daffodil, foxglove, lily of the valley and other bulb plants are toxic too, and are worth fencing off rather than relying on a tortoise to avoid.

The full avoid list with the reasoning behind each entry goes into more detail.

Where the species groups differ

Twenty-five foods carry a different verdict depending on which tortoise you have. They fall into two clean patterns.

Grasses move up for grazing species. Grass, timothy, couch grass, barley grass, wheat grass and prickly pear pads are all feed regularly for a Sulcata or leopard tortoise, against moderation for everyone else. Grass and hay should be the bulk of what those two species eat. See grass and hay for tortoises.

Fruit and soft vegetables move up for forest species. Every fruit on the sparingly list, plus courgette, marrow, pumpkin, squash and bell pepper, becomes feed in moderation for a Red-footed or Yellow-footed tortoise. Fruit is genuine dietary material for them rather than a treat. See red-footed tortoise diet.

Nothing moves in the other direction. A food that is never fed to a Testudo is never fed to any of them.

Printing this chart

The page is laid out to print cleanly from any browser, with the tables kept narrow enough to fit portrait A4. Use your browser’s print function. There is no sign-up, no email capture and no download gate.

If you would rather look things up than print them, the tortoise food checker searches the same 105 records and returns the reasoning, preparation notes and sources behind each one. You can also generate a chart filtered to one species with the chart tool below.

Why a chart cannot replace species-specific advice

A chart flattens things that matter.

It cannot account for age. Hatchlings and growing juveniles have less margin for error than a thirty-year-old adult, and the same diet does not serve both equally. Baby tortoise food covers that difference.

It cannot account for season. British forage in May and British shopping in January are different feeding problems, dealt with in winter feeding.

It cannot account for the individual animal. A tortoise recovering from illness, one that has been kept badly for years, or one that simply refuses half the list needs judgement rather than a table.

And it cannot account for portion size, which is why no quantities appear above. Frequency is the honest thing to publish. Anyone giving you grams per kilogram for a species with a fifty-year lifespan and a seasonal appetite is guessing. How often to feed a tortoise explains the approach we recommend instead.

Use this chart as a filter, then read the guide for your species and the principles behind the diet.

Verdicts here follow our own food records, which are built from the Tortoise Trust, the British Chelonia Group, The Tortoise Table plant database and published veterinary guidance. Our sources and review policy explains how they are checked and revised. This is husbandry guidance and not a substitute for veterinary care, as set out in our veterinary disclaimer.

Last reviewed: September 12, 2026.