Chinchillas and their natural environment

[Luci]

so i get asked soooo many questions about chinchillas all the time. i'll explain to people the importance of a pellet/hay based diet, the need for dust baths, temperature issues, etc.
a few common questions i get are:
* well in the wild, they didnt always have pellets or hay, so what did they eat?
* if they eat plants, fruits, seeds, etc in the wild, why cant they have them now?
* what if a volcano hasnt occurred and there's no volcanic ash? (sometimes i chuckle at this but then realize its kinda legit)
* what do they do if the temperature outdoors gets wild? or if it rains?

these are just a few of the most popular questions i get. i know that domesticated chinchillas are slightly different than wild ones, but how did their digestive needs become so fragile and different? i guess i just really want to know how theyre so different than wild ones. at times i find myself without answers to people's questions so i figure its time to start learning!

 

[RDZCRanch]

Their main staple in the wild is grasses. We make the pellets to mimick the nutritional value they would get in the wild as closely as possible to maximize their nutritional intake.

I don't know of many fruits that grow in the high desert. They certainly don't get sunflower seeds, strawberries, carrots, or lettuce out there.

Wild chinchillas generally roll in dust of any kind. This is why they look so grungy. They usually just roll in dirt or dust that they can find. Since our dust is so finely ground and such it tends to dry out the skin which is why we have to limit the amount of dust baths our chinchillas take, when in the wild they are not limited.

Chinchillas in the wild have not been tampered with genetically. We've bred chinchillas to have thicker and plushier fur, so their ability to withstand higher temperatures is drastically decreased. Chinchillas in the wild are also burrow animals...it gets hot, they dig deeper. It's how most desert living rodents and mammals stay cool in the heat.

 

[caiti]

Wild chinchillas are omnivores. They eay lots of plants and some insects etc. Domestic chinchillas are herbivores. Like Tabs said, our pet chins are genetically altered. We've bred them to adapt to eating pellets and not to the foods they would eat in the wild. Genetics are crazy. Some animals have so much variation in their genes that can be manipulated to create huge differences quickly, like dogs. Think wolf to pug. I mean, they're both canines but think of all the different breeds of dogs and all those genes came from the wolf!! Dogs are actually pretty exceptional genetically, but it's an example of how breeding can change a species.

I always kind of thought the volcanic ash gets condensed with the rock strata and they dig at the ground/rock and break up dust but I realize that I kind of rationalized that without actually knowing if it's true--basically, I'm talking out of my butt. I'll say it's my quasi-educated guess and leave it at that.

 

[Pleiades]

I still want to know what happens if it rains? Do they just burrow deeper, or seek shelter? Or are the wild chins' fun much less dense than the domesticated coat, meaning drying wouldn't be such an issue?

 

[Pleiades]

fur* - not "fun", haha! FUR! :embarrassed:

 

[equusus]

Interesting topic!

I would tend to think (I don't really know) that wild chins would have more oily fur so it would be more rain repellent. Also I agree with our genetically tweaked domestic chins having more plushy coats.

Chins seem to be very similiar to horses in regards to digestion. Wild horses tend to browse more and eat a more varied diet while domestic horses are generally kept on a more grain/hay based diet. This seems to have lead to more colic and digestive problems in domestic horses. Something to think about.

 

[ticklechin]

Its why the domestic chin population has a high amount of malo compared to its wild couter parts-we have done a poor job of replicating the wild diet and survival of the fittest does not happen when we have vet dentists.

 

[kathiva]

In Chile they have a reserve for the chinchillas, and they have many wild chinchillas living in a nice area, and I believe they are trying to let them breed so they don't get extinct in Chile

Here's a picture of it

 

[Zerker]

Time for a fieldtrip?

 

[chinlover24]

i have been wanting to put my chins on a more natural substrate like sand? would that be alright or would the normal bedding be better?

 

[RDZCRanch]

Water has never been shown to cause lasting harm in chinchillas. The main worry when a domestic chinchilla gets wet is getting it dry, because a warm moist environment will encourage respiratory problems that lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia leads to a weakened immune system which can make the chinchilla susceptible to fungus. In the wild, they do not have as tightly packed, dense fur as our chins so their ability to dry in the sun or just from rolling in dust is higher. I doubt they just stand in the rain, they probably seek shelter like most animals when it rains. There is low lying brush in the desert as well as the burrows which the chinchillas can cover with the natural flora.

i have been wanting to put my chins on a more natural substrate like sand? would that be alright or would the normal bedding be better?

Just stick with the beddings recommended on this site. Fleece liners, aspen or KD pine. Your chinchilla has never and will never live in the wild, so mimicking the natural habitat would be bad. They've been bred in captivity for enough time now that they've been "adapted" to living how we want them to.

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

I have wanted to go to the National Chinchilla Reservation for a long time. If you google it, you can see some pictures of the wild chins and their cousins, the viscacha...as well as some youtube videos.

 

[kathiva]

Water has never been shown to cause lasting harm in chinchillas. The main worry when a domestic chinchilla gets wet is getting it dry, because a warm moist environment will encourage respiratory problems that lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia leads to a weakened immune system which can make the chinchilla susceptible to fungus. In the wild, they do not have as tightly packed, dense fur as our chins so their ability to dry in the sun or just from rolling in dust is higher. I doubt they just stand in the rain, they probably seek shelter like most animals when it rains. There is low lying brush in the desert as well as the burrows which the chinchillas can cover with the natural flora.



Just stick with the beddings recommended on this site. Fleece liners, aspen or KD pine. Your chinchilla has never and will never live in the wild, so mimicking the natural habitat would be bad. They've been bred in captivity for enough time now that they've been "adapted" to living how we want them to.

In Chile, the north part is very dry and it doesn't rain so much, in the south it is more rainy and it is colder, but in the mountains, in the north part of the country, is usually dry, and not so hot when you are closer to the coast, and it usually doesn't rain, it would maybe rain once a year or so, and the north part of the country were is hot is from the first to the third region, after that it starts to get cooler.
I am not so sure how cold is in the south and in the mountains, because I never had a chance to live there, I lived in the third region, and then moved to another city that was about 2500 above sea level, later lived in the capital for university, and it would snow once a year or even no snow at all, and I don't even remeber about raining, it was usually pretty mild, and the winter would only be up to 0 degrees celcius, so I am guessing that chins are in a good area where there is not so much rain and it's not so hot for them and it is dry enough for them.

 

[kathiva]

I have wanted to go to the National Chinchilla Reservation for a long time. If you google it, you can see some pictures of the wild chins and their cousins, the viscacha...as well as some youtube videos.

Last time I went to visit my relatives in Chile, I was able to go to the Zoo in Santiago and they had some wild chinchillas in there, they were pretty big and a bit different to our chins here, but cute still.

 

[kathiva]

Just wanted to mention, in the picture that I posted about the National Reserve, it says that it is in the fourth region, over there is a bit cooler than the third region, where I lived, so I am thinking that it must be a nice habitat for them, I didn't know that it was in the fourth region, I could have gone to visit them last year! Well, next time I will.

 

[kendra]

This is such a fascinating topic, whenever it comes up!
As for the ash part, volcanic ash has a lot of chemicals that can cause a lot of respiratory damage, in the wild maybe they weren't as effected because of just adaptation. Since domestic chins probably have more fragile respiratory tracts the volcanic ash would be harmful, chinchilla dust like blue cloud is a fairly close consistancy to volcanic ash but without the things like heavy metals and sulfur.
That's sort of a guess from what I've heard around here and my elementary knowledge of ash though