Chinchilla wont eat pellets, and odd behavior question?

[JenChin19]

I made the mistake of buying the food that comes with little bits of fruit in it for my new chinchilla. It's called something like Prima Vita. The bits of fruit are only sparingly scattered in there, the food is probly 96 percent pellets, but he still scatters and throws the pellets aside to find the little bits of fruit. I have not seen him eat a pellet once. He will also eat the few seeds that are scattered through the feed, but mostly he just eats the loose timothy hay I provide for him. So I don't have the money to just throw away a full bag of feed and buy a different one, so I've been handpicking out all the little bits of fruit and just giving him the pellets. He'll rummage through the pellets, looking for the fruit, fail to find it, and go over to his hay and eat it instead. Is this healthy for him to be mostly eating the hay only? How can I get him to eat the pellets too?

Also, since he's new, he's still jumpy and acts odd sometimes. When I'm visiting with him, meaning just opening the cage door, and watching him, talking to him, he'll sometimes jump up to the topmost ledge and sit there, kind of tucking his head in close to his body, and pull his ears back a little, and he'll just sit like that for a very long period of time, not moving an inch. What is he doing?

 

[mishellyshel]

'cause he is a grumpy gus! give him time.

as for the food.........if would get a bag of good pellets & mix them with what you have to get him used to eating the pellets. but as long as he is eating hay and having normal poop he is fine.

 

[Sesame]

Continue to sift out the fruity pieces. You can start doing a food switch to another brand of pellet. I forgot what the exact schedule of how to switch from one pellet to another, but if you use the search function up above, there are threads about it. He's just digging through looking for the junk food; just like a little kid who doesn't want to eat veggies and just eat candy all day. When you do a food switch, you need a good amount of both brands of pellets to do it slowly without it upsetting his digestive system too much. You may want to consider switching to Mazuri or Oxbow since they are available at the petstore, though forum members sell freshly milled pellets of various brands.

As for the behavior, he's in a brand new place! He just needs time to get associate. It'll be a slow start, but just spend time sitting near the cage, talk to him softy. Don't make any quick or loud movements/noises near him. He'll come around soon.

 

[EnslavedByNinjas]

I think now is the time to invest in a quality pellet (PANR, Oxbow, Mazuri are some examples) and start making that slow switch. I was in the same situation as you when I first got Nibbler. His was even more full of treats, though! A bit of motivation - high quality feed is much cheaper than the store bought stuff. I pay $0.60 a pound for PANR, versus something like $2.50 a pound for the stuff from Petsmart.

For the food issue, the schedule most people seem to recommend is:

First week - 1/4 new pellets, 3/4 old pellets
Second week - 1/2 and 1/2
Third Week - 3/4 new pellets, 1/4 old pellets
Fourth week - All new pellets

So as you can see, that old feed won't go to waste! And don't worry about his behavior. He'll learn to trust you over time, and it does take time! He doesn't hate you, he just doesn't know you yet. He'll come out of his shell.

 

[Sugarmama]

Lots of hay is good. They get a lot of nutrition and fiber from it. They should be eating a lot more hay than pellets anyway.

He wants his treats back. They sometimes are like little kids, wanting candy bars instead of healthy snacks. You can offer some healthy treats to him, to help ease his adjustment.

Some healthy snacks are:

Spoon size unsweetened mini shredded wheat, broken in half
Rosehips
Safely prepared twigs
Whole oats
Old fashioned oats--not the quick cooking kind, or microwave kind.
Unsweetened cheerios

Now, these shouldn't replace his food, but if you break some of these up and put them in his food dish, it may entice him to eat the healthy pellets also.

He is just being stubborn. But he will be far better off without all the unhealthy things that were in his pellets.

Also, I just wanted to mention, that you can check out the "chin items for sale" in the classifieds. There are many people on here who sell good, healthy pellets, for far less than you can get in a petstore, and it's fresher, also. They just buy in large quantities and sell the extra.