Should I Be Concerned?

[Zahrii]

Well, I already am concerned, but should I be even more concerned with this? Last night I noticed that there were a few half-eaten food pellets next to my chins' two food bowls. This normally never happens. There were also a few crumbs in the bowl, which isn't too unusual so that didn't worry me too much. Other than that they ate all of their food. My first thought went right to teeth issues, so I immediately gave them both sticks. They chewed on them happily, no change in chewing patterns or anything, so that calmed me a little. I started giving them 2 tablespoons in each bowl once a day during the evening about one month ago. Before then they had about 1-1/2 tablespoons of pellets in each bowl. Could this just be them not being as hungry as they were before and just picking at their pellets if they aren't hungry enough to eat them whole, or is this a bigger problem? It's also hard to see if one is just eating all the pellets and the other is having issues eating, since when I refill their bowls they don't always have a good appetite. They usually just go through their food throughout the day, so I barely even see them eating.

They also have both had and are still having weight loss, but not to dangerous levels. They were just overweight before I got them (so I'm thinking) and now they're dropping grams since they have had a better diet. I'm thinking their healthy weight will be around 650 grams. One of them is 682 (still dropping) and the other is 714 (still dropping). The speed of the gram loss is slowly decreasing though. Could the pickiness with some of the pellets be because their weight is getting to normal levels?

 

[MaineChins]

1. Chinchillas cannot be overweight. A healthy adult chinchilla's weight can range anywhere from 450 to 1600 grams.
2. Do NOT limit your chin's pellets or hay. Always have pellets, hay, and water available.
3. Limit treats to no more than 1/4 teaspoon daily, and do not ever feed fruits, vegetables, nuts, or seeds. Excess treats will dampen the chins appetite and fill them with useless unhealthy calories.
4. Limit activity to help your chin gain weight. Chinchillas do *not* need exercise. Take the wheel out of your cage if you have one, and for interaction, just hold your chin and enjoy him for 15 minutes instead of letting him chew your house down roaming free. If he's cage surfing, he's anxious. Try to figure out what's scaring him and stop that stressors. Stressed out, wheel-running chins are often hyper and skinny.

 

[Zahrii]

1. Chinchillas cannot be overweight. A healthy adult chinchilla's weight can range anywhere from 450 to 1600 grams.
2. Do NOT limit your chin's pellets or hay. Always have pellets, hay, and water available.
3. Limit treats to no more than 1/4 teaspoon daily, and do not ever feed fruits, vegetables, nuts, or seeds. Excess treats will dampen the chins appetite and fill them with useless unhealthy calories.
4. Limit activity to help your chin gain weight. Chinchillas do *not* need exercise. Take the wheel out of your cage if you have one, and for interaction, just hold your chin and enjoy him for 15 minutes instead of letting him chew your house down roaming free. If he's cage surfing, he's anxious. Try to figure out what's scaring him and stop that stressors. Stressed out, wheel-running chins are often hyper and skinny.

Chinchillas can definitely be overweight, that has been confirmed by my vet and other people on this forum. I never limit their hay and water, only their pellets and I've never had any issues with measured feeding. Some people free feed, and that's fine, but I've seen others measure and even encourage it. I know what to feed my chins for treats, they have 10 options for chin-safe organic treats. They get treats twice weekly. They don't need to gain weight, and the wheel is already out of their cage since one of them has minor bumblefoot. His brother gets playtime outside of the cage, which is not roaming free. It's in an enclosed, chin-safe area with full access to inside the cage. They only cage surf when I'm weekly cleaning since I block them off on the level I'm not yet cleaning. The process doesn't take long and they don't constantly surf either.

 

[MaineChins]

Chinchillas can definitely be overweight, that has been confirmed by my vet and other people on this forum. I never limit their hay and water, only their pellets and I've never had any issues with measured feeding. Some people free feed, and that's fine, but I've seen others measure and even encourage it. I know what to feed my chins for treats, they have 10 options for chin-safe organic treats. They get treats twice weekly. They don't need to gain weight, and the wheel is already out of their cage since one of them has minor bumblefoot. His brother gets playtime outside of the cage, which is not roaming free. It's in an enclosed, chin-safe area with full access to inside the cage. They only cage surf when I'm weekly cleaning since I block them off on the level I'm not yet cleaning. The process doesn't take long and they don't constantly surf either.

Chins can only be overweight if they are fed junk and are ill with fatty liver disease, but by the time they show illness they're dead. I've mentored under the top chinchilla minds in the country, raised chins for over ten years and you are misinformed.
If you want to get good advice you can trust, I suggest you visit a facebook group full of ranchers, breeders, vet techs, shelter operators, biologists, and smart chin owners called Let's Love Chinchillas. Maybe they'll disagree with me and you can be happy.
Good luck.

 

[Zahrii]

Chins can only be overweight if they are fed junk and are ill with fatty liver disease, but by the time they show illness they're dead. I've mentored under the top chinchilla minds in the country, raised chins for over ten years and you are misinformed.
If you want to get good advice you can trust, I suggest you visit a facebook group full of ranchers, breeders, vet techs, shelter operators, biologists, and smart chin owners called Let's Love Chinchillas. Maybe they'll disagree with me and you can be happy.
Good luck.

Please tell me how I'm misinformed exactly, I'd like to know in case I'm really in the wrong here. At least one of my chins were overweight if not both of them and it's very possible that they were fed junk like you said from their past owners. Now that they're on a proper diet with me they're losing weight and going back to a healthy weight for their body structure. I've only had them for a few months. I also don't have Facebook and will never get an FB account. There's multiple good and informed people on here and a chinchilla subreddit that I also go on.

 

[MaineChins]

This is a healthy, well bred, show quality, year old chinchilla who is not pregnant, and not overweight. Her weight will probably fluctuate around 300 grams over her lifetime, due to age, energy requirements, environment, stress, illnesses, pregnancy, and nursing. I will free feed her pellets and hay and she will drop about 50 grams when she's past her first 2 years. She's done growing, so she'll lose a little and settle in to her adult weight. When I take her to a show, she'll likely lose another 50 grams from stress, but she'll regain that within a week. If she ever got giardia, URI, or malo I would see her lose 200+ grams, but at that weight loss she would likely pass. During pregnancy I've measured 500 gram weight gain for a litter quads, but I expect to see around 150 grams for a normal litter. During nursing she'll be about 75grams above her average weight, and be below average when the kits are 8-10 weeks and ready to wean.

I have healthy, not overweight, female chins who are 1000 grams. Some of my best breeding males average 750 and 850 grams. I have never seen an overweight chin because they usually die from bad diet, but I have seen hundreds of underfed, emaciated chins surrendered to my shelter.

Chins who have limited resources are more prone to stress and illness. Perhaps your chins are adjusting to their adult size, or still growing, or relaxing now that they have adequate food. If you are feeding only a quality pellet and hay, it doesn't matter how big they are. Let them eat, they need their intestines full to function properly. If chin food is too expensive, you can buy rabbit food and have excellent results. Check the label and don't buy any with corn.
If your chins had round distended midsection that isn't overweight, that's bloat. Luckily they survived. If their middle is much bigger than their hips and shoulders and feels hard and tight, they need to be vetted and treated for bloat. Sometimes changes in food and treats can result in bloat, it's painful and deadly.

You are misinformed about limiting chin's pellets, your vet and "other people" are misinformed about overweight. I'm not surprised since I've encountered these myths before and stopped participating in forums and facebook groups because it's exhausting trying to fight the dogma of other pet ownership that don't apply to chins. I have visited the world's best chinchilla ranches to learn from them, and they ALL free feed hay and pellets. Not one breeder I have EVER encountered has ever been concerned any of their chins are overweight. We consistently feed quality pellets and hay, so we are only concerned if they are underweight because that's a sign of illness.

 

[Zahrii]

You are misinformed about limiting chin's pellets, your vet and "other people" are misinformed about overweight. I'm not surprised since I've encountered these myths before and stopped participating in forums and facebook groups because it's exhausting trying to fight the dogma of other pet ownership that don't apply to chins. I have visited the world's best chinchilla ranches to learn from them, and they ALL free feed hay and pellets. Not one breeder I have EVER encountered has ever been concerned any of their chins are overweight. We consistently feed quality pellets and hay, so we are only concerned if they are underweight because that's a sign of illness.

To be exact, the vet only said that is was a possibility that they were overweight since I only know that their past owners fed them a quality pellet. That was probably the only quality thing they fed them. I'm not sure how much junk they might have eaten. They could have easily fed them too many treats since they had a half-empty bag of "chinchilla cookies", but I'm not sure how long they had the chins under their care. So that would have made them at least a little overweight for their body structure. My vet is a retired registered breeder and she's bred chins for years. I definitely trust her judgement, and I'm pretty sure she's not misinformed. My chins eat throughout the day, so they usually empty their bowls only a couple hours before I refill it. On rare occasions there's even a couple pellets left. Even when I refill it they don't immediately start eating. They used to, but then I increased how much I gave them so the obvious hunger has never been an issue anymore. Again, I free feed hay, and that's the majority of their diet, so I really don't see a need to start free feeding unless my vet says it's needed. 2 tablespoons of pellets in two food bowls have worked for me and my chins. If they seem to be really eager to eat again, I'll increase the amount. But so far that's never happened, so I won't be changing something that doesn't need to be fixed.

Out of this topic though, my original question and concern still stands. Should I be concerned about the few half-eaten pellets I have seen? I checked this morning and their bowls weren't empty, as per usual, but there weren't as many in them so it means that they've been eating. There's no larger amount of half-eaten pellets on the cage floors either.

 

[MaineChins]

It's common for a chin to decide it's bored, distracted, or startled and only eat half a pellet. I've heard of chins with malo only crumbling their pellets and leaving half instead of eating them, but I haven't seen that myself. Watery eyes, not eating, drooling are the possible signs of malo.

 

[Zahrii]

It's common for a chin to decide it's bored, distracted, or startled and only eat half a pellet. I've heard of chins with malo only crumbling their pellets and leaving half instead of eating them, but I haven't seen that myself. Watery eyes, not eating, drooling are the possible signs of malo.

Good, good. My boys don't show any of those signs. They still happily chew on sticks and eat hay too, which is a good sign. If they were half-eating most or half of the pellets I would be more concerned, but it's only a few out of who knows how many.