Food question

[TessVH92]

Hello
I adopted my chinchilla from a human society, and they gave me a 10 lb bag of food.mi know chins should stay on the same brand of food but I cannot find this brand anywhere within a reasonable distance or price for ordering online.

Any suggestions on what to do?
Currently I have Oxbow Chinchilla Feed, for a past chin I used Kaytee which can be found at Fleet Farm, Petco, and Walmart on occasion.

 

[Stackie]

Is Oxbow the brand they gave you? It is a very good brand of feed. Kaytee is not good. Good brands include Mazuri, Tradition, or some rabbit pellets such as Manna Pro Sho. If you do a search on this forum, you will turn up all types of threads discussing good brands of food. Oxbow can be found in Petsmarts, but many of the good brands can't be found in pet stores. You can find some of the better rabbit brands in feed/farm stores, or you can buy online. Several members here sell good brands of food.

 

[akane]

Rabbit pellets like nutrena and the manna brand (they have pro, sho, gro) are better than most pet store brand chin food like kaytee. Oxbow is about the only thing you can sometimes find in petstores and every now and then someone finds a shop that sells mazuri but for the most part those need ordered online. That's why many use rabbit pellets. Personally I wouldn't touch tradition with a 10' pole. Bunch of filler junk and even animal products. No idea why people think it's a good pellet.

 

[Stackie]

Akane, Tradition is a great brand that was developed by one of the long time most successful ranchers in the chinchilla industry, and used by many others. Pretty bold statement of you to make for someone who hasn't even been in chins near as long as some of the long timers who recommend and use this feed. Perhaps you should read through this thread where people tried to educate you on it...maybe you conveniently missed it. If I could still get Tradition easily my chins would still be on it.

http://www.chins-n-hedgies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43538

From JAGS:

Tradition feed is one of the best feeds out there. It was developed by Jim Ritterspach who still controls the set formula which ingredients are not varied according to what is cheap today but is held to the formula no matter what the cost of the ingredient may be at the time of milling. If you can find this in any other chinchilla or rabbit feed I applaud you! It is also why the price changes on it almost every time its milled.

The reason the tag says byproducts and such is that they have to put something on the tag that covers whats in it with out giving out Jims proprietary formula and ingredients. The animal protein in it is a very low percentage of animal fat to help bind the pellet together.

To see how I really feel about feed tags and whats really in the bag I would highly recommend anyone truly interested in their animals nutrition read the thread I am posting a link to below. Read it all if you would like to learn about feed.


http://www.chins-n-hedgies.com/forum...ad.php?t=38037

 

[tunes]

I think after akane made her statement in the other thread, she went back, read the comments, and then chose not to post again. Even though people tried to educate her, she's going to continue to slam Tradition in every thread she can. I'm going to say AGAIN, that you don't know what you are talking about. You've had chins for 15 minutes, the person who developed Tradition and the people who use it have used it longer than you have even known about chinchillas. Their show results prove its efficacy.

 

[ticklechin]

Just because people put two chins (four chins six chins eight chins) together and make babies does not make one a expert on all things chin including food.

 

[AZChins]

I'd stick to ordering online or find a feed store that has an acceptable alternative. Kaytee isn't a good option at all and I would avoid it at all costs, along with several of the other popular petstore brands. There are some feed stores that sell feeds in bulk and you can buy things by the pound...that would be great if you could find one of those, a 25 or 50 lb bag of feed will be way too much food to have to use up before it goes stale!

 

[Chinmama]

We sell several brands of good quality chinchilla feed in 10 pound increments, and our shipping is a flat $5.50 - or free if your order is $50 or more. http://chinchillacity.com/hay_food_treats/food.html

 

[TessVH92]

Thanks for the feedback on food brands

But can I just up and switch her food ? Won't that make her sick? Everywhere I've read says that once they have a type of food they should stay with that or they get sick.

And Unfortunetly I cannot find a brand that has been mentioned in here as good in my area. And I can't order online because I do not own a credit card (yes call me crazy but it keeps me out of money troubles)

 

[Narcissus]

Do you have any ranch and farm stores in your area? Most sell mana pro or Purina rabbit pellets.

 

[Smidgeyy]

Tess, don't you have a debit card? Or even a bank account? You can use debit cards to order things online. If you have a bank account, you can get a debit card easily.

If you want to switch food, do it gradually. Simply add a bit in ever week until you're fully converted to the new food. She should only get sick if you do it too quickly or if she has a reaction from the food(ex: mazuri can sometimes give them soft poos, etc...).

 

[Amethyst]

Thanks for the feedback on food brands

But can I just up and switch her food ? Won't that make her sick? Everywhere I've read says that once they have a type of food they should stay with that or they get sick.

And Unfortunetly I cannot find a brand that has been mentioned in here as good in my area. And I can't order online because I do not own a credit card (yes call me crazy but it keeps me out of money troubles)

No you can't just switch, you have to gradually transfer over to the new food, ideally slowly add more and more over a few weeks until you are just feeding the new stuff.
As to the lack of a credit card, if you also don't have a visa or mastercard debit card, which most banks have gone to now for their debit cards, you can go the route of a prepaid gift card, they have visa and mastercard, they work just like a credit card anywhere online that accepts visa or matercard (whichever you get) then you can only spend what is on the card, so no running up debt.