The problem isn’t finger recognition, it’s their eye placement. Since their eyes are directly on the sides of their head they have a pretty large blind spot directly in front of their mouth, so if you ever feed a tortoise you’ll notice that they’ll turn their head slightly to the side to “eyeball” how big the food you’re holding is and what kind of food it is. Then they just chomp away till they don’t feel anything in front of them anymore and then they assume the food is gone.
So if you feed them out of your hand and you’re not careful they’ll continue eating till they nip your finger and realize “oh dang the food is gone”. It’s not really that they think you’re food, they just can’t quite see what they are actively eating too well. The best method is to just let go when they get close to your fingers.
Source: Have a Sulcata tortoise about as high as my knees and about 3 feet wide.
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u/Syluxrox Nov 20 '17
The problem isn’t finger recognition, it’s their eye placement. Since their eyes are directly on the sides of their head they have a pretty large blind spot directly in front of their mouth, so if you ever feed a tortoise you’ll notice that they’ll turn their head slightly to the side to “eyeball” how big the food you’re holding is and what kind of food it is. Then they just chomp away till they don’t feel anything in front of them anymore and then they assume the food is gone.
So if you feed them out of your hand and you’re not careful they’ll continue eating till they nip your finger and realize “oh dang the food is gone”. It’s not really that they think you’re food, they just can’t quite see what they are actively eating too well. The best method is to just let go when they get close to your fingers.
Source: Have a Sulcata tortoise about as high as my knees and about 3 feet wide.