Hi Carly and Hamish,

I'm afraid that lots of tortoises will eat stones -- especially small white ones. There are theories that this means they are lacking something like calcium in their diet, but there are also theories that they are just testing different components in their substrate, and that a few pebbles aid in digestion (I don't believe the last one myself). My Horsfield used to have an absolute passion for small white pebbles and, like yours, she had lots of limestone flour, plus cuttlefish bone, plus Nutrobal, and it didn't make a blind bit of difference. She seems to eat fewer of them now (not sure why -- maybe she is just older and wiser). I spent a whole week two years ago sifting all the stones out of her enclosure -- but they miraculously appeared from nowhere, so that was not time well spent.
It is possible for stones to get impacted inside a tortoise and cause problems, but this is rare, and I think you'll find that they go in one end and out the other. I wish I could be of more help, but I've learned to live with it, and I just take the pebble away if I see her heading for one, and the rest of the time she's on her own, and she seems fine.

Nina

Hi Carly

I can't better Nina's reply, but unlike Nina I do think the theory about aiding digestion is plausable in someway, occasionally my dog will do it too.  I think it just helps grind up what is in the gut (but that is just my thoughts).

I keep horsfields too and like Nina I agree they go through a phase of eating them whatever you try to do and then 1 day they just stop.  As to them going for white stones I also believe it is to do with the colour spectrum of light as tortoises see things differently to us.  I just think the white stones are more visible to them and that's why they head for them.

Helen

I wonder if it is generic that they pick the white stones as in the wild most shells that would be left lying around for them to munch on would be bleached white with the sun. This would ensure that the shell would also be clean of what ever the creature died of during the sunshine baking process. I might be way off the mark here as i'm running on ONLY one coffee, need TWO to reach normality.

HTH

Elaine

That's interesting, Helen! I didn't know about the colour spectrum. That would explain it.

Nina

Such a good question!

my to horsefield were out on my parents gravel garden getting some exercise and some sun. Humphrey entertained himself but George spent the whole time biting the stones. Luckily they were all too big for him to swallow. I put it down to him being a bit of a piggy. I also guessed that it would trim his beak.

Dinosaurs used to swollow stones to aid digestion. Maybe torts do to.

Zoe

Your dinosaur theory might be right! I always think that tortoises have a little bit of the dinosaur about them anyway (except they were to smart to become extinct ).

Nina

i belive torts eat stones because like dinos they eat stones to help digest their food the rocks roll around in their stomaches and grind up their food

Hi, in reply to your horsefield eating stones, today was a good day wheather wise and i put my horsefield out for about 20 mins and she went straight to the gravel border of our garden picked up a stone that she could only just fit in her mouth and tryed to swollow it. I ran to her and managed to prize it out of her mouth. I am shaw that if she had swollowed a stone that size it would have killed her.

my two 1 year old tortoises and 5 year old tortoise are doing the same,what we have done is we have put a pot of limestone powder in,their enclosure and rocket(the 5 year old tortoise)is eating it like mad!but one of the babys are just shoving themselves in it sometimes!try sprinkling a bit of nutrobal on the food a couple of times a week it is good for their bones.i hope this helps.Morgan Risdon.age 9.

I have a spur thighed tortoise who is now 30 months old. He also likes to eat small bits of gravel...very worrying, but you cant watch them 24/7. I have also noticed his 'favourite' colour ones are white. Must just be a tortoise 'thing'...hopefully causing no harm.

Hi Diane,

It might be worth trying to leave a few bits of cuttlefish laying around instead?

Are you using any supplements at all, nutrobal, or limestone flour?

Hi just noticed your comment on your spurred tort eating white pebbles/stones.

My little 5yr old spur has been eating them now for around two years.  I know that he/she as I am not yet sure, passes them but I am astounded by the size of what he/she can swallow.   M y little one passed two pieces of stone  this morning certainly not smooth ones one immediately after the other and they were as large as my thumb nail which is quite large for the size of him/her. If I had seen him trying to swallow anything that large I would have been frantic and have taken it off him/her. It doesn't appear to be bother him/her at all.  It must be what they do. He has a hugh garden area to walk around but he just keeps making for the pebbled area.  I don't want to deprive him of this pleasurable area for him/her, but I am tired of moving him/her away and if I try to block it off  he/she climbs over whatever to get to it as though he/she is on a mission.  I will just have to keep an eye on him when he is around that area. 

Try not to worry I am sure that their instincts tell them their limits. We as tortoise lovers love our little creatures and learn as we go along.  Hope this helps

Mika

Our Horsfield tortoise tries to eat everything white including bird poo and my husbands trainers! I have also seen him trying to eat stones (of any colour) and soil. I was told that they know what to eat and what not to eat but Im not sure about the trainers! 

In reply to eating white stones, my tortoise does the same when I let him roam the garden.