Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ahappycamper]

I notice all the great brands most recommend such as Mazuri, Tradition, Oxbow are all ALFALFA based. Does anyone know any great TIMOTHY HAY based pellets?

How come these are some unknown, or not usually talked about when people speak of great pellets? Is it because these are somehow superior to the state of the art, Mazuri/Tradition/Oxbow? 

[jessla]

I bought some timothy hay pellets, and my chinchillas wouldn't touch them!

[Petco Chinchillas]

Did you slowly give him the pellets or did you just stick a bowl of it in there?   

    Never heard of timothy hay pellets....

[jessla]

I mixed the pellets in with their food, and they ate everything but the pellets.  We were trying to get them to eat more hay since they weren't really eating it.  But we switched them to another brand, and now they're eating it more!  I thought they might be tricked by the hay pellets LOL.  Buuut they weren't.

[Maceyhay]

Sometimes chinchillas don't like the pellets and you should try the real thing. Get fresh hay from somewhere like sierra valley hay. They have all types of hays that are boxed fresh and sent right to your door.
www.sierravalleyhay.com

[Jo Ann]

 

  

I mixed the pellets in with their food, and they ate everything but the pellets.

When you say you mixed the pellets in with their food ... what food are you talking about?   

   Jo Ann

[jessla]

I mixed the hay pellets with chinchilla food pellets.

[Jo Ann]

   OK      Just caught me off guard there.  I am use to loose hay or hay cubes.

   I can't understand why they are eating the food pellets and leaving the hay pellets.  Most chins love hay.  I would try the real thing with them ... the more hay is processed, from what I have been told, the less nutritional value it has.  Hay pellets would have to go through a huge amount of processing.

Does the chinchilla food have an Alfalfa hay base or Timothy hay base?  If the food you are giving them has an Alfalfa hay base and the pellets are made from Timothy hay ... they are letting you know they prefer Alfalfa hay  OR  they prefer the real thing. 

What brand of food do you give therm? 

   Jo Ann

[jessla]

Sorry, my answer was confusing.  I feed my chinchillas half Kaytee Fiesta and half pellets that come from a dispenser at the pet store I frequent (forget the brand name of them.)  Which, looking at the ingredients, looks like the Kaytee pellets are alfalfa based.

I do feed my chinchilla real timothy hay.  At first I was feeding them Oxbow, and they didn't really eat a lot of it... Then, one day, at Pet Smart, I saw a bag of pellets made of timothy hay.  So, I decided to buy it for my chinchillas and mix it in with their food, to try to get them to eat more hay.  Well, they didn't touch it at all.  They ate all their food except the timothy hay pellets (forget the brand of that stuff... the bag is somewhere...).

Anyway, I misunderstood the question, so I answered it wrong.  Anyway, now I switched my chins to Kaytee timothy hay, and they seem to be eating it more now.

[Jo Ann]

    Have you checked out some of the ingredients in the Kaytee Fiesta pellets?   
"... Ground Corn, Raisins, Dried Banana, Dried Papaya, Peanuts, Dehydrated Carrots, Wheat Flour, Dried Beet Pulp, Dehydrated Sweet Potato, Ground Rice, Dried Cranberry, Dehydrated Apple, Rice Flour, Soy Oil, Dried Cane Molasses ..." 

These are sweets, treats and no-nos ... chinchillas need a good quality chinchilla pellet.  Treats are special and should be given sparingly ... one or two a day, is the general rule.  If you set a child down at the table and let them choose what they want to eat ... collard greens or a bowl of ice cream covered in toppings and fruits ... Which do you think this child will choose?  Same goes for chinchillas.

When raising chinchillas, one of the most important things (besides a high quality food), is keeping that food in a cool, sealed, safe-from-contamination environment.  The longer a food is exposed to light and heat, the faster it looses it's nutrition. 

Mice/rats carry many germs and deceases and often run freely in a pet/feed store.  Open bins and shoot dispensers are a free meal for them ... not to mention what they may leave behind that can cause other animals major problems.  Think of the human hands that have touched that food ... did they just clean up urine or poop off the floor?  Was their hands washed just before handling it?  Doubtfull  ... most people prepairing food for humans do not wash their hands often enough.  Wonder how many bugs were hatched in that food???   I stay away from open bags/containers of food.

Just something to consider ... food for thought ... you might say.   

   Jo Ann

[jessla]

Mice/rats carry many germs and deceases and often run freely in a pet store.  Open bins and shoot dispensers are a free meal for them ... not to mention what they may leave behind that can cause other animals major problems.  Think of the human hands that have touched that food ... did they just clean up urine or poop off the floor?  Was their hands washed just before handling it?  Doubtfull  ... most people prepairing food for humans do not wash their hands often enough.  Wonder how many bugs were hatched in that food???   I stay away from open bags/containers of food.

Good advice.  Although, the store I get the pellets from actually does not sell animals.  It only sells supplies for pet owners.  And the people that work there are very knowledgeable, so I don't believe they would contaminate the pellets.  And it's not really an "open container"... it's closed up top, and you have to pull out a bottom piece to get the pellets to fall out, so I don't think any bugs were hatched in there.  Anyway, either way, it's hard to trust the factories that the pellets come from as well.  I'm sure it's possible that the machinery isn't super clean, and it's also possible the pellets were handled at the factory pre-sealing.  I'm sure the hay that chinchillas eat has been handled too.  I'm sure that there's not as many laws about pet food cleanliness as there is about human food cleanliness.

Also, I'm pretty sure that chinchillas that live out in the wild eat off the ground all the time.

So I'm really not that worried.  And I checked the nutrition facts on the back of the Kaytee food against the recommended ones, and they were not that far off.  Also, they only get half of the Kaytee, and the rest are pellets, so they're probably getting more or less the recommended nutrition.

[Jo Ann]

   Glad you think you are fully knowledgeable and that you have that much confidence in the store you purchase your chinchilla food from.   

    One of the first questions a rancher/researcher that has been in the business for 40+ will ask (if a chinchilla becomes ill) is: "Do you store your chinchilla pellets in an airtight container that is off the floor?"  And/or "Have you purchased any chinchilla pellets where the bag has been torn or open?"  (Author of "After 40 Years..." by Alice Kline)  In short, is there any possibility of contamination of the food you are giving your chinchilla?  Because this is the most common problem that researchers have found over the years. 

But, I've only been breeding for well over a decade, having no less than 100 chinchillas at any given time, and up to 200+ at times, what should I know? 

   Jo Ann

[Debbie.nl.ca]

If I had no choice but to get feed from a pet store, I'd remove all the treats and feed them by hand. The only thing in their food dish should be pellets.
This would be much healthier for the chin and hand feeding treats is the best way to gain their trust.

Are there many chinchillas in your area? Pet store pellets seem to be on the shelves a long time. I've seen dust on the bags & cans at some shops.  
I also couldn't find an expiry date on the pet shop pellets, some don't have an ingredients list either.

I can not get a good chinchilla pellet here in Newfoundland. I have tried shipping but with 40 + chins it got a tad expensive, which I willing to live with but ran into late shipments and the like.
I now feed the best rabbit pellet on the island after much research that is. It's the same pellet my first pet shop chin was fed. After about 5 years of messing around with shipping and changing pellets I have been feeding the rabbit now for 6 years with out a hitch.
So if you can not get a quality chinchilla pellet in your area go with the freshest rabbit pellet used buy the rabbit breeders in your area, or for a small # of chins order in some mazuri.