What Do Tortoises Eat?

Tortoises eat plants. Specifically leaves, weeds and flowers, with the exact mix depending on which species you have. Weeds should make up the bulk of it, shop-bought greens fill gaps, and fruit is either an occasional extra or something to skip entirely.

That is the whole answer for most British keepers. What follows is the detail: which plants, how much variety, what to buy in February, and the handful of foods that do real damage.

What tortoises eat every day

These are the plants a Mediterranean tortoise can have in regular rotation without worrying about frequency.

Weeds: plantain (the Plantago weed, not the fruit), sow thistle, mallow, hawkbit, bristly oxtongue and nipplewort. These are the backbone of a good diet in Britain and they grow almost everywhere.

Flowers: hibiscus, viola and pansy, violet, calendula and campanula. Tortoises go for them enthusiastically and they are genuinely good rather than merely harmless.

From a shop: corn salad, sold in supermarkets as lamb’s lettuce, is the one bagged green that holds up to regular feeding.

One name that people expect on this list and will not find is dandelion. It is a good plant and worth picking, but it acts as a diuretic and carries oxalates, so it belongs in rotation rather than as a daily staple. Most websites will tell you otherwise. The guide to dandelions explains the reasoning.

Foods to rotate rather than repeat

Plenty of foods are perfectly fine a couple of times a week and a problem every day. This middle band is where most feeding mistakes happen, because “safe” gets read as “unlimited”.

The vegetables guide and can tortoises eat fruit go further on those two rows, which are the ones people most often get wrong.

Foods by tortoise type

The species you own changes several of the answers above, so it is worth knowing which group yours belongs to before you settle into a routine.

Mediterranean tortoises are Hermann’s, Horsfield’s (also sold as Russian or Horsefield), spur-thighed and marginated. These are the overwhelming majority of pet tortoises in Britain. Weeds, leaves and flowers, with the Royal Veterinary College putting weeds at over 70% of the diet. Almost no fruit. No grass to speak of. See the Hermann’s and Horsfield’s guides.

Savannah grazers are the Sulcata and the leopard tortoise. Grass and meadow hay do most of the work here, at roughly 70 to 75% of the diet according to the Tortoise Trust, with weeds and flowers making up the rest. If you own one of these and are feeding salad, you are feeding the wrong animal. See Sulcata and leopard.

Forest tortoises are the Red-footed and Yellow-footed. Fruit is normal food for them, in quantity, alongside leaves and flowers and a small amount of animal protein. Everything on this page about limiting fruit applies to the other two groups and not to these. See red-footed tortoise diet.

If you are not certain which you have, the species overview covers identification.

What not to feed

Some of these will surprise beginners, because they are ordinary vegetables.

Never: dog food, cat food, meat, mealworms, bread, dairy, peas, beans, pulses, tomato, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, avocado, rhubarb, buttercup, daffodil.

Rarely, and in small amounts only: carrots and other root vegetables.

Animal protein is the one that does the most harm. It causes rapid growth, shell deformity and kidney damage in a herbivorous tortoise, and the animal will eat it willingly right up until the damage is done. Peas and beans cause similar problems through their protein content. Tomato, spinach and parsley are on the list for oxalates and other compounds rather than for protein.

Two myths worth correcting while we are here.

Tortoises are not omnivores as a group. Some sites say so on the basis that a Testudo will occasionally take a snail in the wild. Opportunistic scavenging is not the same as an omnivorous diet, and it is not a reason to put protein in the bowl.

Tortoises also do not reliably avoid plants that are bad for them. You will read that they self-select in a garden and leave the toxic ones alone. Some do, some do not, and a hungry tortoise in a small run has fewer options than one on a Greek hillside. Fence off what you do not want eaten rather than trusting instinct.

The full list with reasoning sits at foods tortoises should not eat.

How much variety to offer

Wild tortoises sample around 200 different plants over the course of a year. You cannot match that, but the direction of travel matters more than the number.

The practical test is simple. If you could write down everything your tortoise ate last week on one line, the diet is too narrow. Aim to have several weeds available at once, change what is on offer as the seasons change, and resist settling into a reliable three items because they are easy to get.

Variety also protects against the slow accumulation of any one problem compound. Oxalates, goitrogens and excess protein all cause harm through repetition rather than through single meals.

On quantity: hatchlings are usually fed once a day, portioned so it is cleared in about twenty minutes, and adults are fed daily or with one day a week skipped. How often to feed a tortoise covers portioning properly, and baby tortoise food deals with hatchlings, where mistakes cost the most.

Feeding through the British year

Britain gives you two very different feeding problems depending on the month.

April to September is easy. Weeds are everywhere. A planted, securely fenced outdoor run lets a tortoise graze for itself, which is better than anything you can put in a bowl. Wash what you pick, and never gather from verges, sprayed lawns or anywhere slug pellets have been used.

October to March is where most keepers struggle. Forage disappears and the shopping list takes over. Bagged greens, kale, spring greens and watercress do a serviceable job, and dried herbs and flowers keep the fibre up. Some people grow salad leaves and weeds in a greenhouse or on a windowsill to bridge the gap, which is what growing your own tortoise food is about. Winter feeding has the full cold-weather approach.

A word on garden centre plants. Anything bought as a plant rather than as food has almost certainly been treated with pesticides. Grow it on for several weeks and harvest the new growth instead of feeding it the day you get home.

If your tortoise hibernates, feeding stops several weeks before it goes under so the gut can empty. See feeding before hibernation.

Checking a specific food

For anything not covered above, the tortoise food checker holds 105 foods with a separate verdict for each species group, plus the reasoning and sources. It handles the plants people most often ask about and tells you plainly when a food is not in the database rather than guessing.

If you would rather have something on paper, the tortoise food chart is printable. For the reasoning behind all of this, meaning why fibre and calcium matter and what protein actually does, read tortoise diet.

This is husbandry guidance, not veterinary advice. A tortoise that stops eating outside the run-up to hibernation, or that is losing weight, needs a reptile-experienced vet. Our veterinary disclaimer sets out where the line is, and the sources and review policy explains how this page is checked.

Last reviewed: September 2026.