leafy greens

[sandycandy135]

so i was at the vet the other day with my 3 chinnies, and she's a new veterinarian about 5 years out of school, and she told me all of these things about chinchillas that i wasn't really aware of. She sent me a handout from one of her classes at PennVet about chinchillas and i wanted to ask how much of it was true. I consider you guys the experts haha. A lot of it seems pretty accurate to what i already know such as do not keep the dust bath in the cage and keep lots of fresh timothy hay available. But i was curious about this part in particular:

Fresh vegetables: You can offer your chinchilla a small leaf of fresh greens once to twice daily. If your chinchilla has never had greens before, make sure that you introduce it very slowly - giving only a small amount of one new green a week. Fresh greens include romaine lettuce, red/green leaf lettuce, parsley, carrot tops and cilantro.
 Treats: As a treat, you can offer your chinchilla a small piece (no larger than 1 cm) of a carrot or an apple. They should not receive more than one treat per week.

I am NOT here to start any sort of debate about whether or not treats are okay to give to chinchillas, I recognize that there was just a forum on here the other day about that. I am simply asking people what they thought about the attachment/fresh vegetables thing.

As for my care with chinchillas, I give my girls a bottle of water and change it every 2-3 days, and they have constant access to Mazuri pellets but they don't eat too much of them (a bowl usually lasts 4 days to a week) and i give them dust baths 2 times a week. They also live in a huge ferret nation cage where they have constant access to fresh timothy hay.

thank you for your thoughts or for just reading all of this

 

[Pikaia]

Pellets are not required? That seems kinda odd to me. You can't feed a chinchilla on timothy hay alone, I know ticklechin tried and it doesn't work. You shouldn't ration out pellets, but freely feed.

The wooden shavings thing isn't right either. You can use kiln dried pine or aspen shavings- but I would never use shredded up paper towels or newspaper- way too much risk for impaction there. Plastic wheel is usually no good, but I guess if the chinchilla doesn't chew it, could be okay ( I wouldn't do it). Plus, those plastic wheels are too small for them anyway.

You can handle a chinchilla by the base of the tail, breeders do it all the time while grooming and it is safe. I agree you should never grab a chinchilla's tail or handle them roughly- they could easily get injured. There is a proper way to do it.

They do have a lot right, especially about the signs to watch out for. The fruits and veggies are way wrong, but a lot of vets think that for some reason. I guess we know why now. They are educated about this in vet school! Thanks for sharing this! It was interesting to see how vets learn about chinchillas!

 

[Dreamlite]

It amazes me how much wrong information even vets have. Nothing fresh or fruits ever! They just are not made to digest it. Common sense will tell you that. High elevation desert.... um what are you going to find even close to lettuce there? If they were from central america like guinea pigs then fine but a desert?

 

[Claire D]

Well, I'm going to be controversial & say that's probably THE best vet care sheet I have ever seen - I agree with the vast majority of it, including the bit about pellets & fresh veggies.

*waits for forum mebers to spontaneously combust*

Having said that, let me try to explain why.....

A really important paragrah was missed from the OP:

Inappropriate foods: You should NEVER offer your chinchilla other treats such as seeds or sugary stnacks. This are not appropriate and can upset their stomach
Remember that any diet changes MUST be made slowly. If it is too fast, this can upset the gut and cause bacterial imbalances and that can kill your chinchilla. It may take up to 1 week to introduce a new vegetable, hay or brand of pellets.

That's bang on the money - it's what we post time & time again on this forum - that chins have a delicate gut & any changes must be made slowly.


Are chins really designed not to have fresh foods? I'm not so sure. If you look through the nature of foods available to chins in the wild then they do eat seasonal fresh greens - the differences between the fresh 'greens' they would get in the wild & the fresh greens we have are water content & nutritional value - chins in the wild have a very sparse diet due to their environment.
They live off a seasonal variety of seeds, grasses, cactus fruits ..... some will be dry but some will be fresh.
*I can't find the research paper I've read about this but I'll keep looking & add it later*



This paragraph is interesting - (from: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/biol/5090/boyd/Captivity_effects.pdf)

Many diets fed to captive animals have been formulated to provide the nutritional requirements for growth, but they often lack texture and interest (Lindburg, 1998).

This is interesting. Let's explore......

When the first captive chins were brought across to America by Matthias Chapman there were no chinchilla pellets. The diet for chins has been made up ever since - have the pellets we have today changed much? No.
Think about it, one of the keys for chinchilla ranchers was profit. That's a given; whether you like fur farming or not, it was the number of chins which could be successfully bred to make the greatest number of useable pelts.

Feeding fresh foods was just not economically viable or pratcical (some ranchers don't feed hay now - that always sparks debate) & no rancher would want to lose a whole load of chins because they reacted to fresh foods, had raging diarrhoea & died.

Pellets are easy to feed, relatvely cheap, convenient, &, when the nutirional values are 'right', the chins grow fast, strong & can support multiple kits with milk.

Get pellets wrong & fur quality is affected, dental issues crop up, gut problems are rife, kit production is reduced, survival rates drop ........

Also, one of the first bits of advice anyone gives to a forum member who has a chin with soft droppings/diarrhoea is ..... cut out the pellets & free freed good quality hay for a couple of days ..... have a ponder on that.
The rationale behind that is the relatively high carb, high protein, low fibre pellets are replaced with high fibre roughage to bulk out the gut contents - giving the gut something bulky to move along & slowing absorption/fluid loss etc.

Am I saying there's anything wrong with feeding pellets? Nope, I'm not.


I'm just throwing this stuff out there for thought & discussion.

Also, in the wild food is often not as highly nutritious and contains abrasive particles such as grit or phytoliths.
The lack of abrasion in captive diets, resulting in reduced or abnormal toothwear, has led to problems of malocclusion in herbivorous animals, such as rodents, lagomorphs and elephants, which have teeth designed to be worn down by chewing throughout their life.
Studies of both equids (Groves, 1966) and chinchillas (Crossley & Miguélez, 2001) have shown that an insufficiently abrasive diet can have serious consequences for an animal’s oral health. In the case of the equids, the increasing height of the maxillary and mandibular molars led to the incisors being held apart, so that the animals were unable to graze effectively (Groves, 1966). Like the equids, the tooth crowns of captive chinchillas were found to be significantly higher than those of wild chinchillas, which led to difficulties in chewing and, in some cases, the tooth roots protruded into the nasal cavity (Crossley & Miguélez, 2001).

The whole paragraph is significant. David Crossley is well known for his work on dental issues in chinchillas - the lack of tooth wear is one of the reasons why some of us do restrict pellets but free freed hay - because pellets were designed for growth, not dental wear.
I free feed hay but restrict pellets to 1-2 tablespoons per day because I want chins chewing high fibrous forage so that they wear the coronal surfaces of the teeth.



Would I feed fresh veggies? I did - when I first had Monty & before I found the joys of internet forums, Monty enjoyed a tiny bit of fresh veg each day. I introduced it slowly, found out what he liked, & watched his droppings for signs of problems. Did he ever react? No. Did he like it? Yes!

Now I have far too many chins to feed fresh stuff & keep an eye on their guts - instead I feed a variety of dried forages daily & I give dried herbs as treats a couple of times per week. Hay is free fed, pellets restricted.
Very occasionally I will give some of my more spoiled chins a teeny piece of fresh apple skin (thumbnail size piece or smaller) or a little fresh/pear apple twig.

I know of chins who have been fed fresh foods (alongside a small amount of pellets plus good quality hays/forage) their entire lives & have had no issues at all - a pair of chins my friend had returned to her at the ripe old age of 10 had been fed this way for years & were very healthy & happy.


The addage applies - just because you can, doesn't mean you should (& I am NOT advocating people feed their chins fresh stuff) BUT I do think that some of the apparent logic behind the 'no fresh food' rule is spurious & parroted without thinking it through.



Discuss .........opcorn:

 

[sandycandy135]

wow!! all of that's pretty interesting stuff. I have only owned my chinnies since June and i have been steadily learning more and more about them. I was genuinely curious about the fresh foods part because I have honestly never heard of anyone giving chinchillas fresh foods. It seems like you've done a lot of research on it, Claire. Thanks for that response

 

[Dreamlite]

My concern would be what natural foods are in their native environment and what water content/sugar content is in it? I'm not sure how to compare a piece of an apple to whatever native plants would be in Chile. The high deserts in Chile only get about 4 inchs of rain a yr so how many fresh plants are available for a normal diet? My assumption would be most of them are at least partially dried out, not fresh like a leaf of lettuce. My other problem would be life span. Has there been any studies on the long term effects of veges? You mention a pair of 10 yr olds but that's not old for a chin really. Wild chins only live so long due to injury, preditors, and other things. But could feeding a balanced diet of pellets inclease life span?

 

[Claire D]

Seasonal food habits of the endangered long-tailed chinchilla ( Chinchilla lanigera): the effect of precipitation

A. Cortés, E. Miranda, J. E. Jiménez
Mammalian Biology - MAMM BIOL 01/2002; 67(3):167-175.

http://www.chincare.com/HealthLifestyle/JEJ/JEJSeasonalFoodHabits2002.pdf

Chins in the wild adapt to their environment & seasonal variation of available food sources. So they will eat succulants (for example) as a source of food & also probably of water. They also eat cactus fruits but the majority of their food is highly fibrous & dry (see article).

If you read my post above I was very careful to say that the difference between our feeding fresh veggies (note: I never suggested fruit) & the wild diet would probably be nutritional value & water content.

Our chins always have a supply of fresh water available & so they do not necessarily need foods high in water content. In fact, when fed foods high in water content, they rapidly develop gut upsets. It's the reason why a chin doesn't drink by themselves when they are being syringe feeding - they don't need to.

As for longevity - my example of the 10 year old chins was just that; an example. There are chins who live to be in their 20s who never have hay but only pellets. There are chins who live into their late teens early 20s who have been fed on a muesli mix their entire lives - we don't advocate that either. There are other chins who have what we would advocate as 'the best' diet of good quality pellets & hay & they only live a few years .... it's no different to any other animal - some live for ages, some don't.

Pellets are more nutritionally rich than the majority of plants chins consume in the wild - because pellets were designed for growth - this is another reason why feeding treats upset chin's guts - too much rich food.



The point of my original posting was to try to get people to think & stop parroting the usual blurb which gets trotted out every time someone dares to mention feeding fresh veggies to chins - does anyone actually bother to read the research that's out there, think about it, apply it to the chinchilla's physiology, & then make up their own minds?

I sometimes think forums have made people lazy & they just don't bother doing any work or thinking for themselves. opcorn:


Also, to be clear, I am not suggesting people stop feeding pellets & start putting hunks of fresh veggies in cages instead. I'm simply playing devil's advocate to provoke thought & discussion. :innocent:


One of the things reading the research into wild chinchilla diets show is that chins are opportunistic feeders - a natural behaviour for them is to forage for what's available. Taking that principle then - a simple adaptation (which is advised for poorly chins to tempt their appetite) is to scatter healthy, high fibre foods around the cage - so that the chins come across it when they are mooching round. Often poorly chins will take an interest in little bits of scattered forage & will start to eat by themselves.
This is one way in which we can adapt natural behaviours for our domesticated pets.

.................


A couple more articles:

http://www.infochinchillas.com/comida.html


http://chinchilla-scientia.de/index.php?id=chinchillafrischfutter

 

[Mt. Zion Chins]

Ok since Claire has made interesting points it is time to confess. I have been feeding my chins a small amount of kale or other greens such as that or dandelion greens once a week for a long time. It has never been a problem and they certainly have enjoyed it. I feel it is healthy for them. Remember I said 'small' amount. I would never give fruits.

 

[kickster]

Claire, I like your point of view in this.....

 

[tunes]

The problem with Claire's post is this - she writes "sparingly" and new people or as Claire says "lazy people" see GIVE TRUCKLOADS OF ICEBURG LETTUCE BECAUSE IT'S CHEAP AND EASY AND THEY DON'T NEED PELLETS. Trust me, I guarantee that is what will happen. I've seen it with raisins. "Well, someone told me it's fine to give raisins, so I give 15 a day." I even know a breader who gave four or five raisins a day to kits as soon as they could hold them.

Every breeder is going to end up with malo in their herd at some point, it's inevitable. I don't believe though, that it's a rampant issue because they aren't given fresh veggies. I also recommend pulling pellets when a chin has diarrhea to give their stomach time to rest. It isn't because hay has magical healing properties - it's because they have to eat something and hay is pretty much just roughage. A person with diarrhea is recommended to do the same thing, cut back to next to nothing and let their stomach rest. Ticklechin did try to do a hay only diet and her chins did meh on it. They were healthy enough, but if I remember correctly their fur suffered greatly - wasn't as full or healthy looking. (Even pet owners want their chins fur to be pretty, so this isn't a fur farming point of view because I don't pelt.)

Claire - I know you've mentioned to me that malo is a huge issue in England. I also know from reading the forums there that many, many people feed large amounts of fruits and vegetables. Any thoughts on that?

 

[Amethyst]

OK I think I'll throw my two cents in here too. If you read the original post's linked care sheet it doesn't say fresh veggies are required, it says you can give them, and it says a small leaf, I'm not sure about the lettuce but it never said iceberg (which is not actually a true lettuce, is mostly water and isn't even good for humans, lol) it says green or red leaf and romaine all of which do have good things in them. Also parsley and cilantro I consider herbs, which are good for chins, in small amounts. As for the pellets not being necessary, I've heard that before about most commercial food for pets, however if you don't feed the pellets you can't just do hay only, they need the nutrients that you find in the pellets so you need to add them to their diet some other way, which would include small amounts of fresh herbs and greens.
I think in a lot of ways it's like feeding raw food to your cat or dog, kibble isn't necessary, but is a easy to feed balanced diet, if you don't feed kibble you have to research to come up with and make a balanced diet yourself. Also it does say if you are going to feed pellets that adults should only get 2 spoonfuls a day, that seems to be the normal amount, hay should make up the majority of the diet. I know I've read several times of people having to stop free feeding because the chin(s) decided to be pellet hogs and ignore the hay. I'm not saying and the care sheet never said to restrict food to baby/young chins, pellets work well for grow, but for adults who are no longer growing pellets should be more of a side dish then the main meal.

Personally at this time I don't think enough research has gone in to pellet free chinchilla diet to be able to get a way from pellet food completely. The pellets have been researched, tested, and the balance tweaked for decades, and so at this time they are still a better option then trying to create your own balanced diet. Most of the research so far though has been by ranchers, so of course they are going to try to come up with the best easily fed food that produces the best results on a large scale and that the chins will eat. They can't afford and don't have the time to be feeding fresh foods, or in some cases even loose hay. I think that now that chins are becoming more popular in the pet world that more research will go into creating a more natural diet, since pet owners don't have hundreds or thousands of animals more prep time and money isn't as much of an issue.

 

[Claire D]

:hilarious: Sorry, Peggy, I write sparingly because most people don't read posts properly (jumping to conclusions that aren't there to make) & also because I could bore everyone for hours!

Claire - I know you've mentioned to me that malo is a huge issue in England. I also know from reading the forums there that many, many people feed large amounts of fruits and vegetables. Any thoughts on that?

Strangely enough, I don't know of many people in the UK who feed large amounts of fresh fruits & veg - some feed veg sparingly BUT the whole fresh foods thing is hotly debated here in the UK as well.
Vets seem to recommend fresh greens (like we are seeing on CnH lately) but not many people do it.
As for malo - IMO that is more of a breeding issues .


FaceBook seems to be full of Europeans who feed fresh greens though - it's part of the reason I've posted, to be honest. The debates on some pages get pretty heated.

*shrugs*




As I said in my posts, it irks me that people will spout things parrot fashion without doing their own research & without thinking - take the whole raisin debate for example - raisins used to be an accepted treat but now we steer clear of them because they are full of sugar ..... the debates about that rage on..... but how many people actually bother to try to understand WHY raisins are not an accepted treat any more?


It also bugs me beyond belief that people will read something & then jump to completely the wrong conclusion (usually an extreme conclusion!) - as in Peggy's prefect example of feeding tons of iceberg lettce - WHAT???


NO-ONE is saying chins don't need pellets or that they should have tons of veggies instead ......


What I'm saying is that the old trotted out "wisdom" that chinchillas are not able to process fresh greens/food is incorrect. Chins can have fresh greens/veggies - I have suggested that in the wild they are known to eat fresh foods & linked an article to show this - BUT it's up to each individual to look at the research & then decide what to do with it.

As I am so often found posting - Just because you can doesn't mean you should - this applies to the current topic!


Do chins need fresh foods/greens? No, no they don't. Their guts are designed for foods which are nutritionally poor & are high in fibre (see the article posted above). In the wild they are opportunistic, seasonal feeders - the closest we ever get to that in captivity is when a chin finds a treat pot while they are out for a run!

 

[Claire D]

Missed my edit time but I want to add this:


It is 100% correct to say that feeding chinchillas too much rich foods lead to digestive upsets.
Feeding fresh/leafy greens (or fresh fruits) can lead to diarrhoea, bloating, & death. Not always but why take the risk?

Digestive upsts are more often than not caused by incorrect feeding.

I've treated chins with boat - it is a horrible condition for both owner battling it & the chin suffering with (& often dying of) it. It is not something I would wish on any chinchilla (or owner).

Bearing all that in mind I don't feed my chins fresh veggies. I also don't give them raisins.