THE RIGHT STUFF!

You've just bought a lovely new chinchilla and the pet shop owner shoves something that looks like rather dodgy rabbit pellets and sunflower seeds into your hand with plenty of advice that your chinchilla will also need water every day, some peanuts and some hay - oh yes - this hay here - as they shove BEDDING hay into your shopping cart, they also recommend stuffing your chinchilla with lots of nice treaty things too - like raisins - "oh...they do love raisins!....and at least four a day....."

So what's wrong with that? some may ask, after all, pet shop owners that sell these lovely exotics pets like chinchillas have done lot's of research haven't they? they know best?

I would say a good 80% of PET SHOP owners do NOT know a thing about Chinchilla nutrition
(breeders in general know better)

yes, there may be some excellent pet shops out there that have a good knowledge of chin nutrition, but from what I have heard, seen and ventured out of my front door to, unfortunately even after many years of people having chinchillas as pets - a great deal of shops know nothing about the proper chinchilla diet - shame on them!

This page is to set things straight, if you find that after reading this and discover your pet is eating his way to chinnie heaven
then you had better start working out a new healthy diet for them - quick!
The longer you leave it, the more problems will occur - and this includes expensive vet bills

THOSE BORING OLD PELLETS

Okay, so pellets look boring - but so does a piece of wood - and chinchillas love pieces of wood!
We humans may look at a nice and pretty expensive package (yes, that one in the shops that says 'wholesome' on it)
and think that our Chinnie would love it - because it has some interesting pieces of carrot and oats and raisins and
other unidentifiable nice pretty bits in it
  That's what you think!

Chinchillas do not go by the 'look' of their food - they go by how many treats they can shove into their pudding tummies and
will try their pest to persuade their human owner to fill them up on these 'goodies' and not smelly old pellets
If a chinchilla has too many treats or treat like food - why bother with plain pellets - is their kind of reasoning

You know when your mother made you eat your greens don't you? - and why did she make you eat your greens?
Well, the same applies here

To understand a chinchilla diet we have to go back into the history books of early chinchilla breeding - although the first pioneers of commercial chinchilla breeding knew that the diet of wild chinchillas was quite simple - different food programmes to suit the chinchillas in captivity was a different story - there were plenty of tedious and laborious trials to see if there was any improvements in the health of captive chinchillas and many unfortunate animals died during such times - the chinchilla diet way back then was probably one the biggest 'headaches' that the pioneer breeders came across

Luckily, we humans can thrive on variety, but this is not the case with the chinchilla

The less of variety they have the better - variety must be limited - they have a very delicate digestive system, wild chinchillas live on a very sparse diet of mosses, grasses, cacti and any odd and dry looking vegetation that existed in the high rocky atmosphere of the Andes
Chinchillas are herbivorous animals which means they have a method of supplementing their diet by rein-digestion.
You notice that your chinchilla occasionally through their sleeping day eat their own droppings? well, that's not because they are mucky little fluffs - there's a very good explanation why they do this - during the day when chinchillas are not normally active they 'manufacture' special faecal droppings to help in the digestion of bacteria in the gut, a bit like a cow really that re-cycles with it's 4 stomachs, but with this way, the chinchilla 'properly' digest the droppings and completely gets every little essential vitamin out of it, the most important are potassium, sodium and phosphates
because of this, it is extremely important that chinchillas have a CONTROLLED diet - loss of control can lead to all sorts of complications including bloat, blockages and infections

A chinchilla only needs for it's main staple diet - PELLETS and HAY (or GRASS or ALFALFA) and WATER
Anything else is a treat

Keep to a very simple regime - PLAIN pellets NOT fancy pellets
To know how good your pellet is quite simple - look on the package and if the product indicates it is lower than
15% protein - keep away from it
16% - 18% is the protein content you need - that 1% makes all the difference - remember - they eat it EVERY day
Most chinchillas will eat around 3 quarters of an ounce - but some eat less and others may eat more - it can depend on their weight
Keep pellets dry, out of sunlight and use before the expiry date of course
Most good pellets should last no longer than 6 months in vitamin value

THE BEST HAY

Hay is a tricky one for most people - generally you can find this in the pet shops - but be very aware that you are not feeding your chinchilla BEDDING HAY! - it can look similar to the hay needed but it definitely is not!
The essential thing about hay is that it should be dried properly before baling
Hay is best kept out of plastic bags - but a bag with the top open (and used within 2 months or so) is fine
MEADOW hay or TIMOTHY hay is the best - in the UK meadow hay is the more plentiful as Timothy hay is generally cultivated in the USA regions, some breeders swear by Timothy hay and others are indifferent, whatever, it really is personal preference and if you use the right hay nothing can go wrong
Hay can be a complicated subject to go into and I feel there is no need to explain this here - if you were a farmer and cultivating the stuff that would be different - hay relies on good conditions, the least pesticides used and seasons weather - you just buy it at the shops!

Feeding hay to chinchillas is quite simply stuffing a handful into their racks, do not lay it on the corner of their cage as they will use it to toilet on! - best in a rack so they can pull it out, they will not eat a handful a day and most will enjoy throwing it around the cage creating a piled mess for you to clean, but that's their fun
Personally I do not like messy hay and I feed my own chinchillas on a certain grass, I add a little hay occasionally for a change and some Alfalfa, but their main diet is pellets and grass, the grass is short cut and is no good in the racks so I have a separate bowl for the grass and one for the pellets, absolutely no mess with this and easy to clean, the grass is also slightly higher in protein to hay
But once again - it really depend on the owner what they prefer
If you would like to know more about the grass I give my own chinchillas - click HERE

There will be a sheet on TREATS in the near future

All in all - if you keep to this regime along with fresh water every day you cannot go wrong
have a healthy chinchilla that will live a good and full life!