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Hey, what's going on? I get so many questions about what kind of plants can I grow for my reptiles to eat, my turtles, my tortoises. So, today I thought I'd show you some of the uh plants that I'm actually growing here at Camp Cannon for some of my lizard and tortoise friends to eat. So, stick around because today we're going to become something of amateur funness. This is So, as you know, most of the animals I keep here are herbivores. My tortoises and some of my rhino and rock iguanas are, of course, herbivores. And I like to do that because it's easy for me to kind of feed them a similar food. Most of them eat the same
foods. And I'm actually standing in a pretty good representation of some of the edible plants uh that I actually have growing here. Now, I don't really have much of a green thumb. I just kind of am lucky that I live in Florida and things just kind of start to grow here, but where I am right now, we got a few edible plants. You see, I have a knife here because it helps me cut them off and so on. Like, for example, we've got a lot of spineless cactus. It's from the Apontia genus. Uh, I do not know the species name, but it's spineless prickly pear. You can do a Google search and find out about it. What I like to do is I can just slice off a little bit like this, and I can give it to my little
buddies right through the cage. and they love to eat it. Now, I'll also go around and I'll slice some off and I'll mix it in with some of the Missouri tortoise diet, the zoomed grassland diet. I like to mix things in for a little bit of variety. But that's the cactus. Another cool thing about the cactus, guys, is I will send cactus when you purchase a tortoise from me. I usually send two pads, one for you to plant, one for you to feed off. This stuff stays good for a very long time. So, you can slice a little bit off. No worries. Now, if you want to get it to grow, all you do is you simply break off a pad, stick it in well- drained, sunlit, sandy soil, and this will start to grow, and you'll see
little buds that essentially turn into this. If you look here, here's a little guy right now growing off of it right there. And then that's the next stage. And then eventually it gets really big and tall. It can grow at about 7t tall. And I have some really big stalks that I can show you later on. So, that's the cactus. But I'll put that one up there for now. And then I'm going to move to something different. This plant right here is called POS vine. And POSOS vine is uh from the Solomon Islands. Now, who do you think eats this? My Solomon Island skink. This is actually something that they really enjoy to eat. It starts off real small on the ground and then as it grows up onto another tree, it really
starts to get big leaves, but at any size, your monkey tail skinks or Solomon Island skinks can eat it. So, that's another plant that's edible. And then right here, I didn't even plant this, guys. I use a lot of the tortoise manure, and the tortoise manure uh becomes a really good fertilizer, right? But this is a papaya plant. So, right now, it's growing on up. It's getting some blossoms, and eventually you're going to see papaya fruit. So, the lizards love to eat the leaves. The lizards and tortoises eat the leaves. And then some of my tortoises can eat the fruit, like my red foots and my yellow foots and mountain tortoise, the animals that like a higher fruit content. But now that's not the only fruit I have here, man. Um, let's just
look at one more in this section and then we'll go on a little walkabout. But right here is the banana leaves. And what I like to do is take a sharp knife and I slice them off. And as we go on our tour, you're going to see me feed some of our special friends some of this stuff. So this is what I like to do. And you can never overfeed natural foods. We've talked about it in other videos about how tortoises really enjoy eating the natural foods. And so if you can grow if you're in a spot where you can grow these foods, that's fantastic. But also, you know what? Get yourself a little greenhouse, try and plant stuff in the house over the winter and see if you can grow it up. It's a lot of fun.
You learn a lot more about different aspect of science, botany, and you see how these animals are really connected in their ecosystem to the plants that they surround themselves with. Some of the plants they eat, others are for shade. But let's go on a little bit of a walk. Let's see what else I can show you as far as some of our edibles. So, as you can see, I like to line all my pens with the cactus and some of the other edible plants that I feed the animals with because if I put them on the inside, the plants wouldn't last very long. So, I grow them up on the outside and then feed them off to the animals on the inside. So, here's some more edibles that I have here at C Canon. And these are my mango trees.
Now, I actually have five on the property. And it's really cool because these guys are in the mountain tortoise pen and they love to eat fruits. They're also an animal that comes from a forest. Right now it's the middle of the day, so these tortoises are kind of hiding. We have the mountain tortoise and the elongated tortoise. Why don't I get a tortoise because so far it's been a tortoise video without any tortoises. So let's see if we can dig one up for you. I still have my knife and there's a reason for that. Here's one right now. So here's an elongated tortoise. And during the hotter part of the day when it's dry, they like to kind of hide out
in the leaf litter because as we've learned, the tortoises love microclimates. But these guys eat something called elephant ear, which I also plant on the outside of the enclosure. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my knife. I'm going to walk right over here. Again, here's some elephant ear. It grows in Southeast Asia where these animals are from. So what I'll do is I just gently do a little chop. get a little elephant ear and I can toss it in. And when these guys are ready, they're going to come back and eat it on up. It won't be here in a few hours, trust me. So, there's the mango tree that drops the fruit. These tortoises will actually in the wild, they have seen mountain tortoises uh
kind of go towards trees right before they're about to uh ripen and they're just kind of milling about waiting for the fruit to drop. It's really incredible. You got to remember tortoises are animals that are very habitual. the creatures of habit and they know they live in small ranges where they actually know where the different flowering plants are, where the different fruit trees are and they have that small range. That's why when tortoises get upset or we build on their range or intersect it with some kind of roadway, it really messes up what these animals have been dealing with for the last oh sometimes hundred years of their life. And matter of fact, here comes a brown mountain tortoise. We're gonna
throw that plant right out there. And you'll see exactly why I like to grow this plant. They love it. So, he's just gonna figure it out now. Hey, wait a second. It's time to eat. Anytime you throw plants in here, they disappear. All right. Hey, what do you guys say we get rid of some of these banana leaves with some of the bigger tortoises I have? We'll let him eat and we'll continue our little well, our little botanical garden tour. Here's Nazi. I love this tortoise and I love to feed them banana leaves. These guys just absolutely love them. So, you saw me cut these down in the beginning of the video. I'll just throw some out.
It's just a nice little treat. And again, it's something that I can kind of get these animals fed with uh without really having to do too much uh do much shopping. I just walk around, trim the verge, throw the excess into their enclosure. I think he wants a little pet first. My little buddy right here. It's not so little anymore. So, once he smells the banana leaves and figures out that my hands don't have any food, he's going to turn his attention to them and he's going to start eating. The other cool thing I like about feeding this natural foods, the foods that you grow, it's really good for their beaks because they're going to be crunching on some of the harder stuff and it helps wear down
their beaks and it's just a natural way all around for these animals to eat. Like I said, also can't overfeed them this stuff. Just always mix it in. Variety is the spice of life. Oh, I hear some of the other kids get a whiff of the banana leaves. I don't know if it's the leaves that smell or if they just see me in here and they know it's time for food. All right, guys. Get to it. Everything they do is so slow. So, as I make my way around the yard, I like to just kind of, you know, the radiated tortoises just look like they were hungry. you know, I can't help it. So, what I can do, you just simply break off a pad, throw it down,
throw a pad at this guy right here, and it'll get their attention. And basically, you just create a buffet. So, it's kind of neat. I know that there's nine of them in here. I just toss out nine or 10 pads, maybe a few more, and then it gets them all stimulated to start eating. And there you go. The youngest one's eating there over here. This big male, he's chomping down. But then Shelby, come here, Shelby. Get some, will you? You in the mood? And here's a little trick, guys. Sometimes if you just break it open, they can smell it better and that'll get them going. So if you have a tortoise that doesn't know what the cactus really is, all you do is you break it open and they'll start to eat it. Or at least that's what
usually happens. Let's see if I can get her to do it right now. She seems interested. So, let's just let her do her thing. Oh, there we go. That's a good lady. So, let's keep making our way around. But that's the fun of planting all these things and watching them grow because as you walk around, just chuck them in the pen. You got some food keeping these guys moving. Ah, so you found my leopard tortoises and you've seen what they do to grasses of all kinds. This happens to be something called elephant grass.
Uh, napir grass, Uganda grass, it's synonymous. It's the same plant. Uh, grows in Africa in kind of more moist soils along uh, river banks. So basically in Florida it grows very well but it can become an invasive species so you have to be very careful where you plant it and you don't want it to get off your property. But here it is here at Camp Kennon. Um you can see what they do to it. It's funny. I mean this is a pretty aggressively growing plant as I mentioned. Um it doesn't really germinate too well uh from the seeds but how it reproduces or how it gets bigger is through ryomes. It grows an underground root and then the grasses grow up or they fall to the ground like this. And if there were no tortoises,
this Oh, look. It's a tiger. It's an African lion. Look at that. Yeah, get out of here, you lunatic. She's always butting in when I'm talking. But anyhow, back down here. So, what would happen is if there were no tortoises, these would fall down and then this would root and start a whole new stock. But because there are tortoises here, doesn't really get a chance. And you can see that they keep it pretty well mowed down in here. Uh, also this enclosure is filled with cactus and hibiscus plants. And believe it or not, there once was a very nice, well, kind of turf. There was a lot of grass here. But these guys mow it down so effectively that I have to come out
and reed a few times a season. I'm always throwing grass seed out and then I lock the tortoises in to give it a chance to establish. But uh yeah, the leopard tortoises are the most efficient lawn mower you're ever going to meet. So, let's walk over here. I'll show you the hibiscus real quick. It's in the same enclosure. So, you can just get on up. We don't have to disappear for a minute. We're just going to walk right to here. And you can see lots of hibiscus. I put the little cages around it because if the tortoises can get to it, they'll step on it. They'll mow it down and they'll just eat all the leaves off. So, I'm trying to grow things. And this tortoise right here sees that I'm over by it. So, let's
give it a treat. How about a little flower? This is a hibiscus flower. You can grow these indoors. Um, keep them outside if you live up north during the summer, but let's see that tortoise move to it. And uh, that's what's gonna that's what's going to really get their attention is those nice colors. And boom, over. That's what they like to eat. So, it's pretty cool, man. Everything in this pen, with the exception of this grass, which is a native Florida grass, is edible. That grass there, they like to hide under it, and it keeps them uh out of the sun. So basically all throughout Camp Cannon, we've got elephant grass, cactus,
hibiscus, we even have some mulberry leaves. Let's wander over there on our final pen. All right. So, we're inside this sculcana tortoise pen and basically we are here with a sapling mulberry tree. I have a few of them planted throughout the property. Um, mulberries are very high in calcium, their leaves. The tortoises really love these leaves. I personally like the berries. Uh, let's see. Here's one right here. It'll leave it'll stain your fingers, but tastes really good. They're really sweet and the tortoises can eat them. It's safe. The leaves are fantastic. That is really tarts, if you will. Excellent. So, these leaves are great for the monkeytail skinks, the rhino, any green iguanas, bearded dragons, any uh herbivorous
lizard or tortoise is going to love these leaves. Uh you can feed them to any species as long as it's safe. Now, people often ask me, "Oh, how do I know if uh my plant is poisonous?" What I would say uh not to feed turtles and tortoises or lizards any plant that's known to be poisonous like oleander. If it's makes your dogs or cats sick, chances are it's going to make your lizard sick, too. So, you want to just do a little Google search for poisonous plants in your area and make sure you just don't have those in your enclosure. But if it's an edible plant, these tortoises will eat it. You'll see some species might not like the banana, but another species will. Uh try it
out. Can't hurt. Um, finally we are in a field of grass. All tortoises are going to munch on grass from time to time. Some like the leopards and sulcatas are really going to enjoy it. I don't know what kind of grass this is. It's a field mix. Okay. But I know they like bermuda grass, orchard grass, timothy hay. You can get involved and plant all those things as well. Uh, so there you have a brief explanation or a brief tour of some of the plants that I keep here at Camp Kennon to keep the tortoises happy and healthy. Grow them up. Make sure you protect the bases of these plants cuz as saplings, a sulcata tortoise is going to mow right over them. That's why we have the very uh, you know, decorative cinder block around them.
Anyhow guys, I hope you enjoyed this edition of Camp Cannon. I'm going to look for some more mulberries because I think that one has more than this tree. So, I'm going to go have a little snack and I'll see you guys later. Oh, and by the way, if you want a cool list of plants that are edible for turtles and tortoises, I'm going to provide you with one. We'll see you later. The following four pages of edible plants are by no means a complete list. So, if you have any suggestions of your own, feel free to go ahead and let us know about it in the comments below. We can all learn a lot from each other, and that's what makes social
sites like this one so great. We can all get smarter together. Believe it or not, this episode wraps it up for season 3 of Camp Kenneth. But don't worry, we'll still be providing cool content every Tuesday. Starting next week, we will post our very first 360° video, so be sure to check it out. We'll be posting these 360° videos all summer long with cool glimpses into the camp here and other places near my home in South Florida until season 4 kicks off. Well, that about does it. Thanks so much for watching and being a loyal fan to Camp Kennan. We'll see you next time.
