Whilst having a google a few months back I came across a few articles on feeding cacti to Tortoises (I think they're called Turtles in America)

Being a cactus grower I was interested in these, it turned out that Tortoise keepers were having problems sourcing cacti that hadn't been treated with pesticides. Most cacti growers at some stage will have problems with both Mealybugs and Spidermites. Both of these are big problems and can distort and kill off cacti. Mealybugs love cacti, especially Opuntias or Prickly Pears. So most commercial cactus collections, including cacti destined for sale, will have been sprayed with pesticides.

Having given this some thought, I realised that although I have sprayed the stock that I have for sale, I've never sprayed the beds in the ornamental cactus house. There is no doubt about this as I built the cactus house myself in 2021.

In the beds are two large Opuntias, Austrocylindropuntia subulata and Opuntia quimilo. Both ideal Tortoise food plants and both with ample cutting material available to start a pesticide free cactus plant concern.

I hope to have these plants available in a few months time. Once they are in cultivation it will be a lot easier to produce more from the prunings of the first ones (they won't all sell at once unless there's a stampede of very hungry Tortoises )

I've also put my feelers out for a cutting of one of the  Galapagos Opuntia (Opuntia galapageia) which is one of the plants eaten by the famous Giant Tortoises of the Galapagos Islands.

Galápagos tortoise - Wikipedia

 en.wikipedia.org

Galapagos Opuntias are hard to obtain as seed or cuttings can no longer be taken from the Islands. Out of the 200 species of Opuntia only 6 occur in the Galapagos Islands :

Opuntia echios 

Opuntia megasperma 

Opuntia galapageia 

                                                Opuntia helleri 

Opuntia insularis 

Opuntia saxicola 

It's very unlikely that we will source the other five Galapagos Opuntias so lets hope no one has a complete collection of Galapagos Tortoises.

These are the two species that we are starting the range off with.  We have many other Opuntia species but most are not very "user friendly" producing glochids which are tiny spines that can be real irritants to skin and especially eyes (some may become airborne if the plant is disturbed) 

These pictures are of "Buzz" our first Tortoise customer enjoying a taste of our Eve's Needle cactus leaves. Picture's from the Tortoise's human - Jake Theoff.

   Opuntias should only be given sparingly to Tortoises as too much will cause a bad tummy and no one likes runny Tortoise poo, especially the Tortoise. Don't plant them where they can get to them, only feed them small amounts as an addition to their diet. In the wild they will seek out young growth so taking off pads to produce new growth will be ideal.

   We must stress that we only produce pesticide free plants for you to grow on as treats for your Tortoise, we are not wholesale pet food suppliers. We are not doing this to make a profit, as a stand alone business idea it wouldn't work as it's self defeating. Once you have a few of these plants you can propagate enough to supplement your Tortoise's diet.  The whole idea of this is to provide pesticide free plants for Tortoise lovers. This will work fine alongside our existing cactus sales and will just add another aspect to the business. Besides which, we like Tortoises.

I've made a couple of videos explaining this enterprise, the first one about what and how much to feed, and the second about the cultivation methods

We now have a stock of both Austrocylindropuntia subulata and Opuntia quimilo available for Tortoises. We sell these at £6.00 per plant.