I've reposted Antonio's message below and replaced the long URLs he used with TinyUrl as the editing page is  unable to cope if  URLs are too long.  I hope you don't mind

Helen 

I have recently been feeding Ed some Baby Leaf Herb Salad from Sainsburys, as im back from university and my garden has recently had some stuff put on it, so i cant take the weeds out of it!!

I cant find it online, but this one http://tinyurl.com/cy6m5n is basically it.

http://tinyurl.com/d2aa8q is also very similar to what i am feeding him.

He really likes one of the leaves, which on the back of the packet, says its baby cos.

Is this ok to feed Ed with?

Thanks,
Antonio

Hi Antonio,

In the first salad, the lettuce and rocket is OK, but the coriander and parsley aren't great. In the second salad, everything is fine except the spinach (which I think is high in oxalates). Most people agree that the best supermarket salad you can buy for tortoises is Florette Crispy (you can buy this in most supermarkets), as everything in there is fine for tortoises. However, it should only be fed in the short term, and you want to get a good supply of weeds and flowers as soon as possible. Are there any places near you where you can find weeds (dandelions, sowthistle, plantain) etc.?

Nina

Yes, its just the short term. I have planted some weeds for Ed about 2 month ago, so by the time i come back for summer (7 weeks) they should be ok.

If not I live near some woods, which would be great also.

Thanks :)

Just to add to that, can sowthistle be given if it has the prickley things on? Ive only seen it with them on?

Thanks

Hi Antonio,

Prickly sowthistle (sonchus asper) is fine for tortoises. I don't think that you need to cut the prickly bits off (after all, in the wild they eat cactus pads). I have a lot of smooth sowthistle (sonchus oleraceus and sonchus arvensis) in my garden, so I tend to feed that to my tortoise. The one thistle that isn't great to feed is the one called milk thistle (silybum marianum), which is very prickly and usually variegated white and green, because it has a reputation for soaking up nitrates if it is grown on fertile ground, and that isn't good for tortoises. But it does look very different from sowthistle.

Nina