Tortoise trouble (messing up her food all the time!)

[sicily1921]

Hi, anyone else got a messy tortoise? Ours seems to enjoy clambering all over her food so that it gets completely messed up and covered in the sandy soily floor covering. Is this just normal for tortoises? It would be nice if she had clean food to eat plus I'm fed up of all the clearing up!

Completely normal

ok thanks!

Completely normal. Best you can do is have a larger sand/soil free area for her to feed on (large flooring tile or piece of slate, for example) and only feed her as much as she will consume in one go, rather than leaving food in there to get soiled. If nothing else, tortoises are pre-programmed to pee/poo whenever they eat as many species of torts originate from arid areas (with few plants to graze on and poor soil) so fertilizing and watering their food source, while they eat (i.e. while they're replenishing their own food and water stores!) makes perfect evolutional sense... Not so desirable in a tortoise-table environment