Post by darthchinchi on Oct 9, 2017 15:45:13 GMT
I can't share the charts with you, as they haven't been made public as far as I'm aware, but recently SWC shared some numbers on behaviour observed in the wild, on their webcams. If you like to see for yourself it's posted I'm the FB group (along side some footage of wild degus 
) www.facebook.com/groups/6092557707/
So basically it looks like wild chinchillas spent 1/4-1/3 of their time searching for forage. They spend about 1/3 of their time being alert.(numbers based on 2 observation cams)
Rest of the time is spent on other behaviours (grooming, defending and so on).
If this gives a clear picture of the wild chinchillas behaviour, it makes a lot of sense to try and stimulate via food, as most of their time is spent on watching for predstors/intruders and foraging. It doesn't make any sense to not give them the opportunity to get the forage experience. By this I'm talking about a varied diet not only consisting of hay and pellets. Doesn't have to be a big thing though. I honestly do still believe the behaviour can be triggered just by mixing a couple of brands of pellets and/or adding herbs or dried forage to the daily hay ration.
Other alternatives could be feeding in different spots in the cage, so they have to move around to get their food. Maybe find some sort of way to make them work for their food. Like when branches with leaves are given, where they can choose what they want first, and have to get it off the branches.
) www.facebook.com/groups/6092557707/
So basically it looks like wild chinchillas spent 1/4-1/3 of their time searching for forage. They spend about 1/3 of their time being alert.(numbers based on 2 observation cams)
Rest of the time is spent on other behaviours (grooming, defending and so on).
If this gives a clear picture of the wild chinchillas behaviour, it makes a lot of sense to try and stimulate via food, as most of their time is spent on watching for predstors/intruders and foraging. It doesn't make any sense to not give them the opportunity to get the forage experience. By this I'm talking about a varied diet not only consisting of hay and pellets. Doesn't have to be a big thing though. I honestly do still believe the behaviour can be triggered just by mixing a couple of brands of pellets and/or adding herbs or dried forage to the daily hay ration.
Other alternatives could be feeding in different spots in the cage, so they have to move around to get their food. Maybe find some sort of way to make them work for their food. Like when branches with leaves are given, where they can choose what they want first, and have to get it off the branches.
