Why give few treats?

[pm4k]

Why is it recommended to only give 1-2 treats a week? Is this so they don't get fat? I actually need to fatten my chin up. We tried to get him a cell mate but none worked out, our maybe dwarf chin thinks he is a dog tamer, well while the rescue lady was handling him she said he was quite thin. He always has as much fresh hay and pellets as he wants.

 

[javachin]

If you want to supplement the diet for weight gain, treats isn't the way to do it. You'll have to get some kind of grain supplement, maybe alfalfa, or other herbal supplement to do it. I haven't had to do this myself, but I'm sure someone else could chime in with some good info.

 

[Gnoller]

A chins body isn't set up to handle too much sugar or fat, it can cause diabetes or make their GI tract go haywire at the very least. If you need to fatten them up, then a diet supplement like javachin said above is the best option. If you've only recently gotten him, just feeding him on hay and pellets could result in weight gain, depending on where he was before you got him...

 

[akane]

We give treats twice a day but it's stuff you'd find in their pellets. Oats, plain wheat cereal, a single cheerio, plus different types of hay and apple branches. We also make sure they still eat their pellets.

 

[ashleynicol3]

My chin gets a treat once or twice today. I only give him a small bite of the horse cookies you can buy for chins - he loves those! Or one rose hip per day - usually if he's gone back inside his cage after playtime like a good boy - or if I don't have time to let him out to play, he still gets his rose hip. I don't give him anything else other than hay and pellets, but he is just as happy with a new stick or toy as a treat too!

I agree with the others - I wouldn't get him/her to try to gain weight by giving him/her treats as it could make him/her sick!

I weigh my chin on a kitchen scale every couple weeks. I usually can't get him to sit still on the scale itself, so I'll put his dust bath house on the scale and tare the weight of the house so that when he jumps in, I can see about how much he weighs. You could try monitoring your chin's weight that way if you supplement to see if he/she is gaining weight.


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[akane]

Oats are the highest fat of any grain. For rabbits and horses we use sunflower seeds and a soy and flax horse supplement. I don't know if either is safe for chins.

 

[Dreamlite]

The question should be why is he thin? Is he not eating enough? Does he have parasites? What are you currently feeding? How old is he? Do you weigh him?

 

[Chinmama]

Some chinchillas are just naturally smaller than others. Our ZZ weighs 611 grams and is tiny when compared to Marble, who weighs 926 grams.

ZZ was bred to be sold to a pet store, and Marble was bred by a hobby breeder who was breeding to better the quality of chinchillas, not to just mass produce. You can really tell the difference in the two when you see them side by side. There's nothing wrong with ZZ, he just wasn't bred for size or quality.

 

[Pikaia]

Yep, I agree with Ann. My Chichi is only 560g. She eats, drinks and poos good. She has always been small. I switched to Kleenmama's hay and she is gaining weight because she enjoys the hay a lot more. I'm hoping she puts on more weight. Her kids, weigh anywhere from 725-740. You can so see the difference in the quality of them. Her kids could be in shows, I swear Maybe some day I will enter them. Chichi is just small and mousy looking.

You do need to figure out if he's just a small chin or has a health problem. A chin shouldn't need supplemented under normal circumstances. Dreamlite has the right idea. Answer those questions and maybe we can help you more.

Just an FYI: A good quality chin pellet shouldn't have anything in it. No oats, no seeds, nothing. Just pellets.

 

[pm4k]

Well we never weighed him before but my gf stopped by walmart and got an analog scale, yes i know, I told her digital. The scale said he is about 400-430g. He's 7-8 months old and very rather small compared to the ones she had. I feed him oxbow deluxe but ordered tradition last night. we got a 10 lb bag when we got him in June and there's only 2 lbs left. He is eating less then he was 2 or 3 months ago but I assumed that was because his growth spurt was over. He is defiantly not eating more now that he got his spin back. He spends at least a total of 30 min - an hour running on that thing ever day, maybe more. I would say he is eating a healthy amount. He defiantly has an appetite.

We haven't had him tested for parasites. He did have mush wet poop about 3 months ago but that was after my gf put a bag of willow sticks on top of the cage and he got to it and went on a binge fest. It stopped a little bit after we took the sticks away. I haven't really noticed anything with his poop except every now and then they get skinny but not different length. There really needs to be a sticky on the art of poop reading. I feel like a wizard looking at bones to tell the future when I read his poop.

The rescue lady also said he has the face of a dwarf chin(I'll post pics). Also that his teeth look really healthy. We believed her since she used to have 40 chins in her rescue and she was very concerned that we be knowledgeable if we wanted to take one of the chins home with us. Which she really wanted to do since we are apparently excellent chin parents from examining Rory. Although she does see the worst of chin parenting.

 

[becky12883]

He doesn't look like a dwarf to me, but I'm no expert. If he's only 7-8 months old then he's likely not done growing yet. I have one chin that is a healthy 530 grams. When I hold him I can't feel his bones and he has a nice squishy tummy. I also have a rescue that came to me anorexic, he was 450 grams when I weighed him last. He is extremely bony and noticeably small for his frame. I had him up over 500 grams for a short time by giving him a supplement, but as soon as the supplement stopped, he dropped the weight. He's got a list of issues, but my main point with him is that he looks skinny and feels skinny. Your boy doesn't look skinny to me, just not full grown yet. Give him some time before you start stuffing his face with junk. You wouldn't feed a kid a bunch of candy to make them grow big and strong. I don't think the rescue lady is right about Rory at all, although it does sound like she got the great chin parents part right.

 

[Riven]

I've owned many dwarves and your chin does not have any dwarf traits. They are small and compact, with short smooshed noses and very wide ear set with either very small ears or very large ears. They have a distinct hobbling gait when they move and have very long lower back legs, what most people call the feet.

Unfortunately the number of chins owned or rescued does not always equal knowledge.

If you can not feel is ribs, spine, and hips in you place your hand over his back then there is no need to worry about his weight. There is not "perfect" weight for chins. I've had chins that appear larger than others but weigh less by 200 grams or more. It depends on muscle mass and bone density.