How much food do your chinnys eat?

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GahhItsLee

Lee
Joined
Mar 16, 2010
Messages
425
Location
Upstate New York
Today i was looking over at the food container and i realized I had just filled it with 5 pounds of food only 11ish days ago and now its half empty. I just took in two more chinnys a few days ago but they havent eaten more much. So my chinny takes out around lets say almost a pound of food a week. How much do your chinnys use? Oh and just throwing this out there sometimes he decides he doesnt like certain pellets and just throws like 3 in a row.
 
I only give Shelly two handfulls of food at a time. Sometimes she will eat it in one day and sometimes it will take her a day and a half. I think 5 pounds of food in 11 days is a lot.
 
Oh I may have messed up what i said he ate half his food (almost) So hes eaten around 2 pounds in the 11 days but i still think its alot. Sorry for the confusion
 
My girl (she's not very large, about 550-600g depending on the day) eats about a tablespoon and a half of pellets a day. She eats a TON of hay though.
 
Hmm ok im just trying to decide if i should ration his food more than i do since i let him eat all his little heart desires. Also hes little... No idea of age since hes a petstore chin but when i spoke to the manager i was told that the store policy is that all chins they receive are under 6 months and he had been there a few weeks so my guess is 7 months - maybe 9 months... Also hes about half the size of my two full grown chins (I know size doesnt mean age but its such a large difference i think it shows hes still little)
 
From what I've read on here, chins should be chubby enough that you don't feel their spine and can just slightly feel their ribs. If you can feel the spine, feed more. If you can't feel spine or ribs, feed less.

Others with more knowledge will correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure. :D

How much does he weigh, do you know?
 
I dont know since i havent found a scale in any store around me yet and havent felt too much of a need to weigh him since hes obviously been gaining weight and growing since i bought him
 
I would agree with Ash's suggestion. See how he feels. If you feel his bones then feed him more, if not feed less. I know Shell's food is fine because she is a pudgy little thing now.
 
Ok so I can feel his spine very very slightly. Like I can tell he has one but not feel every little contour. Also I cant feel his ribs all that much
 
I use about 2.5 lbs of food per chin per month. You would probably end up using between 5 to 10 lbs a month with three chins depending on their appetites. It's alright to free feed and let the chins eat what they want. Generally they will eat between 1 to 3 tablespoons a day. It isn't necessary to ration their pellets.

I've seen chins do strange things with their pellets. I have a girl who eats most of her pellet and then throws down a little crumb back into her dish. She won't eat the crumbs, she's just wasteful like that. :)

It's hard to tell what his age is...he could be really young. And sometimes younger chins, especially males will eat more than others. :)
 
Mine eat about 1.25 to 1.5 tbs or pellets every 24hr hours (about 16+ grams). I give them 25 grams every day (about 2 tbs) and they eat most of it. I keep giving them more than they eat in case I am not there to refill soon enough. They have access to hay all the time too. One of them eats a lot of hay.
 
My littlest boy eats the most pellets. I see no need to ration the pellets, or hay for that matter. I buy a 20lbs sack of Panr show rabbit and I have 5 chins. I keep it fresher by storing it in a GIANT ziplock bag but by the time we're down to the last 5 lbs or so (6-8 weeks) the boys tell me it's getting old so it goes to a hungry horse and they get a new bag
Oh, and about every 2 days I dump the old feed and clean their food bowl
 
I dont ration anything. If it is empty I fill it. Daily food is dumped, and hay is filled. I use a dixie cup full of food for each bowl. They never eat that much, but that is what I give them.
 
Ok yea ive been giving him a decent bit of food and whatever he doesnt eat after a day or two i just dump out and than give him some more.. Im probably wasting abit dumping it but i figure it has to go stale or something or atleast get less tasty.. So I guess he just has a big appetite. Thats good since i like all my pets to be chubby :p
 
Edgar eats from 1.5 to 2.5 Tablespoons of food a day. We fill his bowl when it needs it and he also gets unlimited hay.

I have noticed that as he goes through growth spurts he eats more. He just turned 7 mos and for the first time hasn't gained a lot but since he's healthy we are happy.
 
Yea I guess its all whatever works best for everyone
I prefer free feeding my animals just to make sure they can have whatever they want
I also give them all more hay than they eat (They have those hanging hay holders with the bell on the bottom) I fill that daily and get rid of whatever is left in the morning and than refill. It works great for me because i know someone who trains race horses so i get unlimited free hay :)
 
A little off-topic, but I wanted to mention that those hanging hay balls can be dangerous. My friend's chinchilla got his head stuck in one overnight, and was probably struggling for several hours to get his head free before my friend found him. Luckily, he wasn't hurt (just very shaken up!), but he could easily have broken his neck, etc.
 
I'm estimating that my little guy eats about 2-2.5 tablespoons per day. I put more in his bowl than that, but I usually end up putting "leftovers" in my compost bag - that is, unless of course, he poops in it. He does that every once in a while too. I give him fresh food every day - am I being wasteful? I thought his food, hay, and water needed to be changed daily. He's a little guy and a pet store chin as well. I can tell he has a spine, but it's not extremely apparent. I can just barely feel ribs when I'm holding him. some days he looks like a bowling ball, sometimes there's a strange resemblance to a weeble (that may be good since weebles wobble, but they don't fall down;))!
 
I've got a scoop that stays in the pellet container and it measures 1/3 of a cup. Each chin gets a bit less than a full scoop and that seems to be the right amount for them b/c there dishes are pretty much empty by morning give or take a few pellets. All dishes get dumped of debris and fresh pellets are given each day along with fresh hay daily.
 
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