PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Steingar on August 24, 2021, 05:47:38 AM
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This story (https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/world/giant-tortoise-eats-chick-intl-scli-scn/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/world/giant-tortoise-eats-chick-intl-scli-scn/index.html)) appeared in the news today. I'll summarize, so you don't have to expose yourselves to what you consider a noxious news source. A Seychelles giant tortoise ate a bird. This observation has been published in Current Biology, a big time science journal.
Why I think this is abysmally stupid. I have pet tortoises. I could have told them the giant tortoises would happily eat meat if they could get it. Tortoises love savory food most of all. My guys get savory stuff once a week. Sunday I gave them some dog food (crushed, soaked, and mixed with greens). They love it. Most "vegetarian" animals will happily eat meat if they can get it, they need protein too.
There is a limit to how many animals a slow moving tortoise can hunt down, so they don't eat meat often. Indeed if they do they get a condition called metabolic bone disease. It doesn't hurt them much unless it gets really bad, but it is unsightly and very common in captive born tortoises. All my guys right now have at least a touch of it. My big female Ruby has it bad.
(https://www.petsulcata.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/reverse-sulcata-tortoise-pyramiding.jpg)
Not one of mine, this is an African spur-thighed tortoise with bad MBD, or pyramiding. By the way, these things live over 100 years, get to be 150 pounds and are commonly sold in pet stores.
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There's a joke in here about tortoises stalking their prey, but I'm having a hard time coming up with it.
I know in high school we had some kind of turtle/tortoise and they were fed worms for a protein source and seemed to like them.
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Wonder how much our taxes paid for this?
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“Horrifying”. ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!!!! I guess they’d have heart failure if they watched a pack of hyenas eat a wildebeest alive from the legs and abdomen up.
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I know in high school we had some kind of turtle/tortoise and they were fed worms for a protein source and seemed to like them.
The turtles that frequent our waterways have a much higher tolerance for protein intake than the great tortoises of the world. Most of them can ferment vegetable matter just like a cow.
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Wonder how much our taxes paid for this?
Mostly the publication fees for the journal. The salient observation was made in the middle of long-term research being carried out for conservation purposes, since the animals are (or at least were last time I checked) threatened.
You can purchase young Aldabra Island tortoises, I've seen them for sale on Facebook. Thousands of dollars each. Of course, they weigh up to 500 pounds and live for over a century. The longest living land animal is Jonathan the tortoise, who's at least 188 years old and going strong.
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This story (https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/world/giant-tortoise-eats-chick-intl-scli-scn/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/world/giant-tortoise-eats-chick-intl-scli-scn/index.html)) appeared in the news today. I'll summarize, so you don't have to expose yourselves to what you consider a noxious news source. A Seychelles giant tortoise ate a bird. This observation has been published in Current Biology, a big time science journal.
Why I think this is abysmally stupid. I have pet tortoises. I could have told them the giant tortoises would happily eat meat if they could get it. Tortoises love savory food most of all. My guys get savory stuff once a week. Sunday I gave them some dog food (crushed, soaked, and mixed with greens). They love it. Most "vegetarian" animals will happily eat meat if they can get it, they need protein too.
There is a limit to how many animals a slow moving tortoise can hunt down, so they don't eat meat often. Indeed if they do they get a condition called metabolic bone disease. It doesn't hurt them much unless it gets really bad, but it is unsightly and very common in captive born tortoises. All my guys right now have at least a touch of it. My big female Ruby has it bad.
(https://www.petsulcata.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/reverse-sulcata-tortoise-pyramiding.jpg)
Not one of mine, this is an African spur-thighed tortoise with bad MBD, or pyramiding. By the way, these things live over 100 years, get to be 150 pounds and are commonly sold in pet stores.
Wow, I never heard of Metabolic Bone Disease. Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I’ll have to talk to my daughter about that. She has worked on some exotics so I’ll ask her if she’s seen this.
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“Horrifying”. ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!!!! I guess they’d have heart failure if they watched a pack of hyenas eat a wildebeest alive from the legs and abdomen up.
Lol. They don’t show THAT on NatGeo.
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Lol. They don’t show THAT on NatGeo.
I saw it on YouTube a few months ago but I wouldn’t be surprised if YouTube starts banning that kind of stuff as “too sensitive” or at least age restricting it. I hate the age restriction stuff because I refuse to sign in to YouTube.
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Wow, I never heard of Metabolic Bone Disease. Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I’ll have to talk to my daughter about that. She has worked on some exotics so I’ll ask her if she’s seen this.
If you daughter works on very many exotics she will have seen it. You can also see it on common domestic animals if they are fed a diet that is unnatural for them.
My wife says it is very common in exotic animals, when people don't feed them properly. It is due to a lack of calcium in the diet.
She has had several people with rare breed cats, like Savannahs or Cervils. People think they are meat eaters and feed them pure raw meat, which may be fine for an animal in the wild. By pure meat, I mean muscle, off the bone. When these animals eat a mouse or a rabbit or a deer, they eat meat, guts, bones and all. They essentially eat the rabbit or deer and everything that animal has eaten.
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If you daughter works on very many exotics she will have seen it. You can also see it on common domestic animals if they are fed a diet that is unnatural for them.
My wife says it is very common in exotic animals, when people don't feed them properly. It is due to a lack of calcium in the diet.
She has had several people with rare breed cats, like Savannahs or Cervils. People think they are meat eaters and feed them pure raw meat, which may be fine for an animal in the wild. By pure meat, I mean muscle, off the bone. When these animals eat a mouse or a rabbit or a deer, they eat meat, guts, bones and all. They essentially eat the rabbit or deer and everything that animal has eaten.
We should probably eat that stuff too. Chewing on cartilage is good for us, maybe the lack of it is why we have so much arthritis. I know organ meats are good. If you eat the whole animal you get everything you need, don’t need to supplement anything. At least that’s true of the animal isn’t fed the wrong diet. That’s the idea behind pastured beef and free range chicken.
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If you daughter works on very many exotics she will have seen it. You can also see it on common domestic animals if they are fed a diet that is unnatural for them.
My wife says it is very common in exotic animals, when people don't feed them properly. It is due to a lack of calcium in the diet.
She has had several people with rare breed cats, like Savannahs or Cervils. People think they are meat eaters and feed them pure raw meat, which may be fine for an animal in the wild. By pure meat, I mean muscle, off the bone. When these animals eat a mouse or a rabbit or a deer, they eat meat, guts, bones and all. They essentially eat the rabbit or deer and everything that animal has eaten.
I asked her about this. She doesn’t do much in exotics, just one-off stuff. She recently had to remove a growth off a tortoise. When I showed her the picture she of course said “oh, cool.”
We seem to get a lot of snapping turtles in our neighborhood. Lots of lakes and wetlands. Nasty suckers - their mouth can reach to the side of the shell. We’ve relocated so many snappers (most are pizza-sized) into one lake that there’s no way I would walk barefoot into it!
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I asked her about this. She doesn’t do much in exotics, just one-off stuff. She recently had to remove a growth off a tortoise. When I showed her the picture she of course said “oh, cool.”
Very few would take their tortoise in for this condition alone. Vets might even think it normal, since they see it on lots of animals. Tortoises in the wild have perfectly smooth shells.
We seem to get a lot of snapping turtles in our neighborhood. Lots of lakes and wetlands. Nasty suckers - their mouth can reach to the side of the shell. We’ve relocated so many snappers (most are pizza-sized) into one lake that there’s no way I would walk barefoot into it!
Snapping turtles are cool, and can live without breathing all winter under the ice here.
My boy tortoise got a trip to the vet not long ago. His business is stuck out, it's supposed to be tucked inside his tail.
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Very few would take their tortoise in for this condition alone. Vets might even think it normal, since they see it on lots of animals. Tortoises in the wild have perfectly smooth shells.
Snapping turtles are cool, and can live without breathing all winter under the ice here.
My boy tortoise got a trip to the vet not long ago. His business is stuck out, it's supposed to be tucked inside his tail.
I’ve heard they can have that problem, poor guy.
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I’ve heard they can have that problem, poor guy.
I was worried about it, but I'm not now. It is a condition caused by having too much sex. Poor guy indeed. I figure before this happened he had 5 holes into which microbes could enter and cause disease. Now he has six, though admittedly the new one is dragging on the ground. That said he has a robust immune system and the same cellular immune system we do. He can fight off infection.
The cure for this condition is amputation. No how no way, we're not going there.
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I was worried about it, but I'm not now. It is a condition caused by having too much sex. Poor guy indeed. I figure before this happened he had 5 holes into which microbes could enter and cause disease. Now he has six, though admittedly the new one is dragging on the ground. That said he has a robust immune system and the same cellular immune system we do. He can fight off infection.
The cure for this condition is amputation. No how no way, we're not going there.
LMAO! No, I agree with you there. I guess I don't need to feel sorry for him either. ;D