Is flavoured still water okay to give to chinnie?

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Skippy

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I have to hand feed my chinchilla some water every day but she will not take just plain water on its own. I have been putting some apple juice in it but for obvious reasons, I do not want to do this long term. She also will not take any of the herbal teas so I was wondering if the flavoured still water that you buy in the shop is okay to give her? I bought an apple and cranberry flavoured one to try but I have not given it to her yet until I know if the ingredients are safe. Here are the ingredients:

Spring Water
Natural Flavourings
Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid)
Preservatives (Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzoate, Dimethyl Dicarbonate)
Sucralose

Any thoughts on this would be great!
 
Sucrose is a sugar, and chances are the natural flavors are fruits that are sugared as well.

I would check the sugar in it.

Most flavored waters here are sweetened with a sugar alternative, which I have no idea how that would affect a chin.

What is wrong with Skippy? Why are you hand feeding water? Are you feeding CC as well?
 
Sucrose is a sugar, and chances are the natural flavors are fruits that are sugared as well.

I would check the sugar in it.

Most flavored waters here are sweetened with a sugar alternative, which I have no idea how that would affect a chin.

What is wrong with Skippy? Why are you hand feeding water? Are you feeding CC as well?


It's not actually sucrose, it's sucralose that it has, which is a sweetner.
I checked the sugar content and it is 0. That's why I thought it might be okay.

To make a long story short (I shall elaborate in the health section!)
Skippy has what the vet thinks is mega colon. She has only found it in dogs and cats before. She is not pooping as much as she should and the pieces she does are larger than normal. She got an ultrasound and it showed that her gut is not contracting as fast as a normal gut should. She is also not as active in her cage at night

I give her a syringe of water in the morning and evening because she has never been one to drink a lot on her own and we want to keep things moist in there! I am giving her a syringe of critical care (approx 16ml) and some lifeline in the evenings because she wasn't eating her full amount of pellets

Anyway! I appreciate any further thoughts on the flavoured water situation!
 
Sucralose is an artificial sweetener, hence the 0 sugar content. Personally, I would be inclined not to use sucralose, as I am not a huge fan of ingesting it myself. Besides being chemical in make, there have not been enough studies to show whether or not it is safe to ingest on a regular basis. Not only that, the "studies" that they have are contradictory! Some state they cause brain damage and cancer, while others state that they are "harmless" (who knows what they mean by "harmless"...?). Therefore, I usually tend to stay away from it and other 0 calorie sweeteners, for myself and my animals. Also - I don't like the fact that the flavored water has preservatives in it, though they are hard to avoid in this day and age.

All in all, it really is up to you as to whether or not to use it. In the human world, it's like drinking diet soda. Some believe that, due to the fact it has a 0 calorie/0 sugar content, it's all together fine to drink on a daily basis. Others believe that, due to the chemical and preservative content, it's better to ingest sugar. (Or for me, try to stay away form both!) Sorry I couldn't be more of a help... it seems as if sucralose is more of an opinion than subject matter.
 
No, I would not feed flavored water. Something is added to make it flavored, which I would not give my chins.

She is getting water in the critical care. You could also grind up pellets and add water to make a paste, giving her more water.

What kind of pellets are you feeding her?
 
Most of the weight of the CC you're feeding her is water, you could find out the more exact by measuring it when you give it!

I would not force more water if she is drinking and taking the CC okay.
 
Being diabetic, I tend to stay away from sweet stuff. Artificial sweeteners (though pushed as "safe substitutes" for people with sugar issues) tend to be passed by the FDA without being properly tested, or tested by the manufacturer only (as do many things).

Most artificial sweeteners (aspartame, etc.) actually break down into formaldahyde in the body. You know what formaldahyde is... that chemical they fill dead bodies with to keep them from decomposing... yeah, ew.

They may not have any calories, but they don't help you lose weight. Actually, a lot of people who ingest only "diet" food/drinks tend to gain weight, or at best remain the same no matter how hard they try to lose it.

So I tend stick to natural alternatives, and stay away from anything man-made (which is a good rule of thumb in most cases anyway...)

But I did some research for you and found this...

http://www.holisticmed.com/splenda/splendud.pdf

Excerpt:

Sucralose (aka Splenda) is an artificial sweetener. It actually averages at 600 times sweeter than sugar

Few human studies of safety have actually been published on sucralose. One small
study of diabetic patients using the chlorinated artificial sweetener showed a statistically
significant increase in glycosylated hemoglobin (HgbA1c), which is a marker of longterm
blood glucose levels, and it is used to assess long-term glycemic control in diabetic
patients. According to the FDA, "increases in glycosolation in hemoglobin imply
lessening of control of diabetes.”4 This fact alone should give us pause, because so many
of us are either already diabetic, or right on the verge of becoming so.



Research in animals has shown that sucralose can cause many problems in rats, mice,
and rabbits, such as:
Shrunken thymus glands (up to 40% shrinkage)
Enlarged liver and kidneys
Atrophy of lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus
Increased cecal weight
Reduced growth rate
Decreased red blood cell count
Hyperplasia of the pelvis
Extension of the pregnancy period
Aborted pregnancy
Decreased fetal body weights and placental weights
Diarrhea


According to one source, concerning the significant reduction in size of the thymus
gland, "the manufacturer claimed that the sucralose was unpleasant for the rodents to eat
in large doses and that starvation caused the shrunken thymus glands.”5
The Toxicologist Judith Bellin reviewed studies on rats starved under experimental
conditions, and concluded that their growth rate could be reduced by as much as a third
without the thymus losing a significant amount of weight (less than 7 percent). The
changes were much more marked in rats that were fed sucralose. While the animals' growth rate was reduced by between 7 and 20 percent, their thymuses shrank by as much
as 40 percent.6
A compound chemically related to sucrose, 6-chloro-deoxyglucose, is known to have
anti-fertility and neurotoxic effects, although animal studies of sucralose have not shown
these effects.7
According to the FDA's "Final Rule" report, "Sucralose was weakly mutagenic in a
mouse lymphoma mutation assay." The FDA also reported many other tests as having "inconclusive" results. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone I care about to be
consuming a “weakly mutagenic” artificial sweetener.
 
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Wow!

That is certainly informative. Thanks for the information.

She is on Oxbow pellets and hay.

I am at a bit of a loss however as to what to give her now. I know some of you have said that she is problably getting enough water in the critical care but to be honest I am afraid to stop giving her the extra water in case she gets worse. I don't think she drinks a whole lot from her bottle so I wanted to be sure she was getting enough.

She does seem to be a unique chinchilla when it comes to problems!
 
Does the vet have you give her water or are you doing it because you're worried? If the vet is having you give her water, maybe it would be better to give her subcu fluids every couple days, rather than trying to get her to take it by mouth. Would that be an option?

I also have to agree. I definitely would not give her the water. That was an excellent article provided up above on sucralose and really gives you something to think about. I use drinks sweetened with Splenda all the time.
 
i am drinking a flavored water right now and after reading this and checking the label i almost wish i didnt drink it!
my chin with malo hardly ever drinks (at least i havent seen him), but he is handfed several times a day and the food is mixed with a good amount of water i also give him lifeline in a syringe that is mixed with water. and he pees A LOT! i monitor his urine by keeping the bottom of his cage lined with white paper towels.
maybe you could water down the lifeline. another solution you could try is to grind up some rosehips into a powder and put a little of that in a syringe with water.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. My vet had said to keep giving her water so that is why I was doing it. Last night I didn't give her as much. I am going to slowly cut back and see what happens. If it doesn't make any difference and if it doesn't make things worse I might stop it all together. As you said, she is getting water in the CC. I guess the sub-Q fluids is an option if I find that she does need extra water.

I don't think crushed rosehips would work because she doesn't like rosehips (I have one strange chin!) Also, I am already mixing the lifeline into the critical care because she would not take it in powder form
 
If she's taking it well, you could always make the Critical Care more liquid - automatically extra water!
 
We actually have been making the critical care more watery too. She used to love it and eat it willingly but now, she won't always eat it on her own and we have to catch her to give it to her. That said, once we do catch her, she eats it without a fight so it is not too difficult.
 
I'm going to throw this out there because this is usually something you don't want to do, but what do others think about like feeding some lettuce. Usually you don't do it because they don't need it, and it disrupts the homeostasis, particularly providing too much water. But what if a chin needed more water...

I'm not saying this is a good idea or not, I'm asking if other people think this might be an option. Iceberg lettuce basically contains nothing...except some cellulose material and water.
 
It is an idea. I think I will wait and see what opinions other people have.

For now, I have stopped giving her a syringe of water in the evening. I am going to monitor her urine and see if it makes a difference. Hopefully it won't and therefore, I will not have to give her so much. I will keep giving her a syringe in the morning until I see how things work out. If there is no difference from stopping the evening one, I will cut down on the morning one and see how that goes
 
If that is true I will definitely stay away from it! She has had problems in the past getting gas when she is constipated so I definitely do not want to aggravate the problem
 
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