Talked to Dr. James Butler on Chinchilla nutrition

[chechinchillas]

I talked to Dr. James Butler on the phone today (he did his thesis on chinchilla nutrition) and thought I would share with you what he said about the alfalfa and timothy hay. He said people use alfalfa because it's more readily available, but if feeding an alfalfa based pellet and alfalfa cubes is too rich for some chins (only 1 of my chins) you can feed an alfalfa based pellet with timothy cubes or loose timothy hay. He said if you do feed alfalfa hay besides the pellets to use the alfalfa blocks not the loose alfalfa. I asked him if I just fed her straight timothy hay pellets and tim blocks and loose tim would that be okay and he said I could, but that really wouldn't be enough protein. I got my wholesale shipment from Oxbow of loose timothy hay and timothy hay cakes and everything looks good. It ends up being about a $1.09 a pound including shipping, but they have a minimum order of $150 and then shipping is about $115 for (6) 50lb bags. Shipping was pretty quick too.

 

[tunes]

Thanks for the confirmation, but that's pretty much preaching to the choir on this forum. Most people already recommend using a timothy hay with an alfalfa based pellet for the reasons you mentioned above. He's a super nice guy to talk to isn't he?

He's right though, getting timothy out here where we are (he's in NE, I'm in SD) is impossible. It's either brome or alfalfa. Blech.

 

[Sugarmama]

If you do a search on feed and hay threads here, you will find that advice given many times over.

Timothy pellet=alfalfa hay
Alfalfa pellet=timothy hay

 

[MerrittChinchillas]

You can't find it here either. We have known Doc. for 30+ years and you're right he's a very nice guy.

 

[chechinchillas]

I can get it fresh from a farmer for $5 a 60lb bale, but I am afraid to try it in case anything else is in it or it is too rich so that's why I used oxbow this time. Yes, he was very nice. I was worried about bothering him when I called and he didn't mind at all. I am going to try another online place next time that is supposed to have really nice timothy hay, but with shipping runs the same price as oxbow.