Modern healthy Chin Feeding

[moletteuk]

I've been having a dig around looking for good sources of chinchilla feeding information that is broadly in line with what we know on the other side of the forum to be healthy for degus.

Davx, a forum member who helped us modernise our degu feeding recommendations seems to be involved in the following sites and all the information I have found in these sources seems to be founded entirely in science and common sense.

This first page about wild chin diet is in English:
chinchilla-scientia.de/index.php?id=natural_chinchilla_diet

As you guys know, there is a massive gap in information available in English and lots of contradictory information on the English speaking sites so I have had to go to German sites for good info. There are generally pictures to inspire you and the Google translate function and online dictionaries will certainly give you the gist. If there is anything in particular you need help with or any pages you would love to have translated, let me know and I will see what I can do.

There are pages in German about the different feeding philosophies from pellets/hay/water to mixed diets of pellets plus a variety of forage and natural foods, to a full natural diet, with pros and cons of each:
chinchilla-scientia.de/index.php?id=fuetterungsarten

Steps for transitioning to more natural feeding
chinchilla-scientia.de/index.php?id=714

This page has links to pages for safe forage plants, wood, fruit, veg, seeds and poisonous plants lists and pellet list, google translate does a pretty good job on these simple lists:
chinchilla-scientia.de/index.php?id=futterlisten

Two respected German Chinchilla forums:
www.chinchillaschutzforum.com/
www.degupedia.de/board/

General guide to chinchilla care in pdf booklet:
Available to download on this page, I found the direct pdf link to be dead, but the file-upload.net one worked although it did play a pup/spam video:
www.chinchillaschutzforum.com/t1800-kleiner-chinchilla-ratgeber-kompakte-infozusammenstellung-zur-chinchillahaltung-und-ernahrung-inkl-futterlisten


Let me know what you guys think.


There is also a brief pdf if you click on Chinchilla Nutrition on this american vet page:
scottsdaleveterinaryclinic.com/pet-forms/

[randomname]

oooh great find moletteuk . Had a look at the first link. Is the first decent thing I've read on chin food, can't wait to read further about this when I get time.
Thank you so much for digging around for this, you really do go above & beyond for this forum. Thank you

[polly]

I personally would not feed any chinchilla 80% of what is shown here, the risks are too great and not enough hard evidence exists to show otherwise. Flower mixes, herbal forage and leaves, certain root and bark are fine, but fed dry. Opinions will vary, naturally, but I speak from personal experience.

[deguconvert]

I'm actually excited to see these links! Well done, Moletteuk. It makes sense to me that there must be a way to more closely mimic their natural diets in the wild, giving them a more diverse and appealing selection of foods. I would hate living on canned meat, freeze dried potatoes, and dried vegetables squished into a cube for me to gnaw on, day in and day out. BLECK!! I wonder if we could entice DavX to pop in and give us some help with this. It would be lovely, wouldn't it?

[randomname]

I'm still on the fence. I haven't seen enough to risk fresh veg or seeds, but I don't see the harm in 1 sunflower seed every 3 months, say. I definitely wouldn't feed fruit, but many people do. I know forage & hay are the main thing I need to concentrate on at the moment, but looking forward to reading some new information. I remember 10 years ago when muesli foods were totally acceptable for all animals, rabbits especially. There was a study done by the "inappropriate word" Vet's & it proved not only selective feeding but dental problems were 100% caused by muesli foods. Welfare organisations had said for years it was killing our furry friends, but the vets/breeders/companies only took note when the report came out. Science changes, but studies have to be funded - most funding comes from food companies, so it's not in their interest to study natural diets unless they can market them. Hopefully someone out there is doing more scientific study on chin diets.

[moletteuk]

There's no pressure at all, some of you guys were looking for more information, so I thought I would go straight to a source that I trust and report back. Everybody needs to think and decide for themselves. If it kick starts some conversation then that is great.

When we think about alternative ways of feeding I do think we need to put the pellets and hay diet equally under the microscope, and also consider long term and short term effects of the various diets.

Pellets are usually made of grains and veg by products, and we already know that chins struggle with grains, so does it make sense to trust pellets but not the same/similar ingredients in their natural form?  It seems clear that chinchillas have a particulary delicate constitution, is it possible that the pellets and hay diet with it's limited ingredients and sterile nature could be limiting gut flora which could contribute to the delicacy?

I'm not going to pretend that more natural diets don't have plenty of pitfalls with the difficulty of transitioning, difficulty getting enough forage to allow the animal scope to select for themselves, difficulties of freshness, the big responsiblity of getting it right.

I would like to think that there could be some interesting middle ground that could be explored safely, where the potential gains could be worth the effort. From my knowledge of degu diet I would say that the first area to look at is forage, rather than veg (or fruit), I think forage has the most potential as a source of diet improvement, and I don't think anyone has any issue with dried forage? Perhaps fresh forage has some issues with contamination, freshness and so on, but if there was a way to introduce it gradually and safely enough then it does have large potential benefits from it's natural and easily absorbable vitamins and minerals and for teeth wear (fresh forage can be more abrasive than dried because the silicates are completely intact). For example, the calcium in fresh plants is most easily absorbed with the moisture already there, and at the same time the safest as it is also easier for the chincilla to regulate and excrete any excess with the moisture to excrete it already being there.

I'm going to leave it there for now, I hope you guys don't mind me butting in when I don't have chinchilla experience.

@dc yes, it would be great to see davx again, we haven't heard from him in a couple of years I think.