Feeding your Chinchilla should be simple.

Feeding your chinchilla an appropriate diet is crucial for their overall health, disease prevention, and longevity. Chinchillas have continuously growing teeth, requiring proper nutrition from the start to ensure they stay healthy. A diet lacking in fiber and abrasive material can lead to terminal dental disease and other health conditions.

What should you feed a Chinchilla? 

We’re in the USA so we follow the US standard of care. A Chinchilla’s diet consists of a plain commercial pellet, coarse fibrous hay, and clean water. That’s it, and deviating from this bland diet our pets are raised on may be detrimental to their overall health.

Many pet foods marketed to Chinchilla owners are not ideal to feed your pet. They’re full of junk food that shouldn’t even be in the bag. When shopping for a staple diet you want to look for a plain pellet. There should be nothing mixed in with the pellets. It’s not uncommon to find brands that have brightly colored puffs, seeds, nuts, fruits, and vegetables mixed in the pellets. Those cheap fillers turn a balanced meal into a bowl of sweets.

Chinchillas are native to the arid desert of the Andes mountains. Their body is not designed to have a diet high in moisture, carbs, sugars, oils, or fats. The rare berry or seed that a wild chinchilla finds may be the only source of nutrition that week. In captivity, our chinchillas have their bowls filled daily. Many owners do not realize that a small piece of dehydrated fruit still contains all the sugar of its initial size, it doesn’t go away during the drying process. Feeding a diet with these sweets mixed in can negatively affect their health over time.

Chinchilla Pellet Recommendations:

The pellet you choose to feed your pet needs to be one that you can reliably and consistently provide. Chinchillas do not do well when their diet is changed frequently. There are tried & true trusted brands many chinchilla owners are familiar with and there are rabbit feeds that are suitable for chinchillas, too.

Brands like Oxbow Essentials, Supreme Science Selective, Mazuri Chinchilla, Full Cheeks Chinchilla, and Sherwood Pet Health have been great for pet chinchillas. They’re usually easily found at your local pet stores and can be ordered from online stores too.

When you have more than a couple of chinchillas, it may be more economical for you to purchase rabbit pellets in bulk. Many rabbit pellets are formulated with the same nutritional needs as Chinchilla pellets and can be purchased for a fraction of the price since rabbit breeding is more common. Brands like Nutrena, Manna Pro, Manna Sho, Pen Pal, Purina Rabbit Chow, Tradition ( Hubbard Life ), and Modesto Milling Organic Rabbit have been tried and tested by chinchilla breeders and rescues with great results. We feed rabbit pellets to our chinchillas, both pets and rescue!

After reading this information, you may decide to change your pet’s diet to something healthier. A drastic change in your pet’s diet can lead to tummy trouble. Unless your current diet is entirely inappropriate you should transition them slowly over 4 weeks.

Week 1: 25% new pellet mixed with 75% old pellets.

Week 2: 50/50 old and new pellet.

Week 3: 75% new pellet and 25% old pellet.

Week 4: Slowly switch to 100% new pellet.

If your original pellet was really “yummy” full of treats, it may be a struggle switching over to something healthy. Chinchillas can be picky eaters and prefer to pick out the treats in their bowl. We call this a meal-strike, but you do not want to cater to that behavior. Healthy Chinchillas will eat if they’re hungry. Make sure they have lots of hay, pellets, and clean water.

Should you limit a Chinchilla’s food intake?

Chinchillas who are fed healthy diets, who have no medical concerns, should not be placed on a restrictive diet. There should always be food and hay available. We’ll share a statement from BLS Chins that we wholly agree with:

“Let’s talk about free feeding or measuring.

Breeders advise free feeding but let’s get into the nitty gritty of why. Chinchillas are hindgut fermenters, very similar to a horse’s gut. This means they have an oversized intestine that is specifically made to digest and utilize fiber/cellulose. Hindgut fermentation allows the chin to eat small amounts of low-quality forage continuously (grazing behavior) and get more nutrition from it than other forms of digestion. This specialized form of digesting is what helped the chins live in a sparse, desert environment.

Chins need constant access to food to keep their gut moving. If food sources are limited, it can cause binge eating when reintroduced, stasis, or bloat. Gut bacteria is critical to proper gut health. Underfeeding that bacteria or feeding the wrong diet can upset that careful balance.

The measuring pellets/feeding only 2 tbsp per day theory started way back in the 60s and 70s when commercial pellets started to come to the market. These pellets were often soft (didn’t provide the tooth wear needed), higher in sugary binders (so overeating could be an issue), were not nutritionally complete (need other supplements in addition to the pellet), and didn’t provide enough fiber. In that era, hay was absolutely necessary in addition to the pellets to keep the gut moving.

Since then, pellets have improved greatly. They now have all the nutrition your chin needs, balanced fiber, lowered binders/sugars, some now include probiotics, ext. Unfortunately, some places have not updated their feeding recommendations even though there were major improvements in the pellets.

Limiting the pellets today can lead to serious problems, and let’s go over why.

Each pellet has a different concentration of nutrition. The easiest way to visualize this is to compare an extruded feed with a regular pellet. In the pictures attached here, you can see two different pellets in a leveled ½ cup. The extruded pellet weighs significantly less than the other pellet. That means your chin would be getting less feed and nutrition if you limited the pellets. While it may not be obvious at first, over time this can lead to malnutrition and other problems.

The next reason that people tend to advise limiting pellets is the thought that the chin would become overweight. It is extremely rare for this to happen. The only reported cases of overweight chins are from improper diet or thyroid issues. A healthy chin on a healthy free fed diet will not be overweight. The chin will naturally eat only what it needs. This stems back to natural selection in the wild. A fat animal, is a slow animal and is the first one eaten by predators.

In conclusion, free feed quality pellets and offer a handful of hay 1-3 times a week for a healthy gut. "

In addition to the nutritional reason not to limit feed, it’s also a safety concern when you are housing more than one chinchilla in a cage. Chinchillas can and will fight over limited resources. Unfortunately, we’ve had animals surrendered to the rescue who are skinny, malnourished, and beaten up due to them fighting over limited food. If you have more than one chinchilla in your cage, it’s important to have 2 food and water sources available.

What is the deal with hay?

Hay is another important part of your Chinchilla’s daily diet. Hay helps wear down their teeth just like pellets and wooden chews. Chinchillas have open-rooted teeth that continuously grow their entire lives, so it’s important to provide roughage that encourages chewing and grinding. There’s a variety of hay your pet can have so take your pick!

The most common hay is Timothy Hay.

Timothy Hay comes in 3 cuts.

- First cut, which is very coarse stemmed and has a lot of fluffy heads. This cut is full of fiber and easy for young chins to chomp through. 

- Second cut, Which is a mix of softer and firm, leafy hay. This is a common cut many brands offer and is good for all ages. 

- Third cut, is very soft and leafy. This is perfect for chinchillas who are old, disabled, unwilling to eat most hay, or little babies just starting to explore solid foods.

There is also Alfalfa Hay which is sweeter and rich in nutrients. It's best for young or growing animals such as kits under 6 months of age. It can also be given long-term to malnourished animals to regain their condition. 

Orchard Grass is a high-fiber, leafy hay. Sometimes a mix of Timothy, Garrison, and Alfalfa. It's a good alternative to Timothy if your pet is picky as it has a fun variety of textures.

Oat Hay is a hard, stem-filled hay that is tough and yellow/pale in color. It comes with Oat heads, which are a treat and should be fed sparingly. 

Blue Grass Hay is another leafy hay option.

Botanical Hay is generally Timothy hay with herbs mixed in. 

If loose hay isn’t an option for you due to a chronic grass or pollen allergy, try compressed cubes. They’re commonly available in Alfalfa or Timothy hay and It’ll greatly reduce the dust.

Are all treats bad?

Our approach is less is more. Chinchillas are smaller than you think under all that fur, and too much sugar in their little bodies can cause havoc on their health. Opt for small healthy treats like a plain Cheerio, a pinch of old-fashioned rolled oats, shredded wheat, dried hibiscus flowers, or apple wood chew sticks. There are hundreds of safe herbal treats for chinchillas too, so there's no reason to default to highly processed, corn-based, sugary, pet-store treats that will harm your pet. The biggest takeaway is that moderation is key, and treat isn’t a daily thing. 

The most important reason we advocate avoiding seeds, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, is because they're a health risk. Seeds and nuts are oily and known to contribute to fatty liver disease. Fruits and vegetables contain sugars that are difficult for Chinchillas to process leaving them susceptible to blood sugar-related highs and lows. During the breakdown of these foods, gas fills the stomach and intestines. Since chinchillas are unable to release this gas (burp and fart), large gas bubbles form and cause bloat. This bloat can put your pet into gastroparesis (stasis). This can happen rapidly and is painful for your pet. When your pet’s gut stops working they will reduce or stop emptying their stomach (pooping), become prone to intestinal blockages, healthy gut flora ( bacteria ) will die, and the belly will swell. If caught early this condition responds well to an aggressive approach of probiotics, Metacam (pain/inflammation drug ), pro-motility agents, Infant gas drops, massage, and exercise. A veterinarian is usually needed.

We’ll add a more comprehensive treat list HERE when we’re able to.