Best chinchilla pellets?

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aprinceton

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Jul 19, 2015
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Hi everyone,
I was wondering what the best chinchilla pellets are (well, best for a reasonable price!)
I started out with kaytee because I'm new to chinchillas but I learned its not great food. I ordered oxbow for them, but they simply don't like it as much. They seemed to eat a lot more pellets when they were on kaytee. What's a good brand that isn't oxbow that they might like?
 
There is not one "best" food, it's what you can get and your chins do well on. The three primary brands that are good chinchilla food are, oxbow, mazuri, and tradition. There are other brands, including some rabbit food that work as well, but those are the most common.
Eating less pellets it's necessarily a bad thing, chins should eat roughly 2tb of food a day, plus hay, some eat more pellets some less. However hay should make up the bulk of their diet, about 75% of it. Also with better food the chins don't need to eat as much to get the same amount of nutrients, so they will eat a little less. If the chins aren't even eating 1-2 tb of pellets each a day then try one of the other two brands.
 
Amethyst said:
There is not one "best" food, it's what you can get and your chins do well on. The three primary brands that are good chinchilla food are, oxbow, mazuri, and tradition. There are other brands, including some rabbit food that work as well, but those are the most common.
Eating less pellets it's necessarily a bad thing, chins should eat roughly 2tb of food a day, plus hay, some eat more pellets some less. However hay should make up the bulk of their diet, about 75% of it. Also with better food the chins don't need to eat as much to get the same amount of nutrients, so they will eat a little less. If the chins aren't even eating 1-2 tb of pellets each a day then try one of the other two brands.
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Oh, thank you! It makes sense that they would eat less of a better food. I think I'm going to try one other good brand just in case, though. They don't seem to eat too much of it still.
 
I feed Mazuri and my chins tend to eat about 2Tb per day and are supplemented with Timothy hay.

Amethyst, if I'm reading your post correctly, hay should be 75% of their diet? Does that mean that we should be giving 6Tb of hay (or however that measures) to 2Tb feed? Should we be weighing the 2Tb of feed and multiplying that weight by 3 and feeding that many grams/oz/whatever of hay?
 
CalicoPrairie said:
I feed Mazuri and my chins tend to eat about 2Tb per day and are supplemented with Timothy hay.

Amethyst, if I'm reading your post correctly, hay should be 75% of their diet? Does that mean that we should be giving 6Tb of hay (or however that measures) to 2Tb feed? Should we be weighing the 2Tb of feed and multiplying that weight by 3 and feeding that many grams/oz/whatever of hay?
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The hay is the primary food (chinchillas are grass herbivores), the pellets are more like the supplement adding the minerals, vitamins, and other stuff the hay lacks. You don't need to measure or weigh the hay, but there should be unlimited hay available all the time. Most chins eat about a hand full of hay a day, but since they are so picky they need to have access to more then that so they can pick and choose strands and still get enough to eat.

I mentioned that hay should be at least 75% of the diet more because it can be a problem when people think the pellets are the main food and/or the chin is a pellet hog and they don't see it as a problem, they don't end up eating enough hay which can lead to gut and teeth issues. So it's really more of an issue if they aren't eating their hay then if they aren't eating pellets. A chin can live off of mixed hay alone (alfalfa, timothy, oat, etc) just like a horse can, but I've heard the fur quality can suffer (possibly because the hay quality varies from season to season). A pellet only diet doesn't have the long strand or amount of fiber needed for proper digestion and also doesn't wear down their teeth (chewing wood only wears down the front teeth not the back). The best diet seems to be hay with a side of pellets, that way the chin gets the fiber and wears down it's teeth properly and gets any missing nutrients the hay is lacking from the pellets.
 
Amethyst said:
The hay is the primary food (chinchillas are grass herbivores), the pellets are more like the supplement adding the minerals, vitamins, and other stuff the hay lacks. You don't need to measure or weigh the hay, but there should be unlimited hay available all the time. Most chins eat about a hand full of hay a day, but since they are so picky they need to have access to more then that so they can pick and choose strands and still get enough to eat.

I mentioned that hay should be at least 75% of the diet more because it can be a problem when people think the pellets are the main food and/or the chin is a pellet hog and they don't see it as a problem, they don't end up eating enough hay which can lead to gut and teeth issues. So it's really more of an issue if they aren't eating their hay then if they aren't eating pellets. A chin can live off of mixed hay alone (alfalfa, timothy, oat, etc) just like a horse can, but I've heard the fur quality can suffer (possibly because the hay quality varies from season to season). A pellet only diet doesn't have the long strand or amount of fiber needed for proper digestion and also doesn't wear down their teeth (chewing wood only wears down the front teeth not the back). The best diet seems to be hay with a side of pellets, that way the chin gets the fiber and wears down it's teeth properly and gets any missing nutrients the hay is lacking from the pellets.
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Ahh see and I *did* think pellets are the main food. When I got them, they hadn't been fed any hay at all, and thankfully, I keep timothy hay around regularly for my rabbits or else they may not still have been getting it. Great info, thank you, Amethyst! :)
 
I have been put in charge of our chinchilla while my DD is away at college and I am only allowed to feed her Oxbow.
 
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