A high quality Chinchilla pellet is the staple diet for your pet. We recommend either Mazuri Chinchilla Pellets or Traditions Chinchilla Diet or a high quality rabbit feed such as Purina Advanced Nutrition Rabbit. For our herd, we actually mix the three of these feeds together to offer the best quality feed for our chinchillas. All of these brands provide essential nutrients and are milled regularly to ensure freshness. Most Chinchilla pellets sold in pet stores are past their freshness date, so be on the look out when purchasing a feed through a pet store. Another problem when purchasing pet store brand chinchilla food is that the companies add treats into the feed - as we like to say, these brands are too “colorful”. A chinchilla deserves plain, high quality pellets without all of the junk in it. Although they may claim a longer shelf life, the pellets start losing nutritional value after about 3 to 5 months. Please check the bottom of the bag for the mill date and only buy enough to last your pet 3 to 5 months. Some say that by storing your chinchilla food in the freezer, it will help keep its nutritional value. Chinchillas love to munch all day and night. Make certain that timothy hay is available to your pet at all times. We use both loose timothy hay and hay cubes. It provides your chinchilla the extra roughage that they need and satisfies the munchies! Please stop by our supply store to purchase these items for your chinchilla.
Chlorinated water can be harmful to your Chinchilla. Bottled spring water is the best and second is un-chlorinated well water. We also highly recommend Reverse Osmosis (RO) water. Be careful not to give your chinchilla over processed water because the trace minerals that would be taken out are beneficial. Wash out your chinchilla’s bottle with hot water and brush daily. Chinchillas are very sensitive to bacteria. The most common disease that is found in tap water is giardia and can be fatal to any small animal.
We also recommend using glass water bottles. Chinchillas can easily chew a tiny hole into a plastic water bottle that is hanging on the side of their cage. As soon as there is a hole in a water bottle, the water bottle will not work and need to be replaced. It can also leak all over the cage and get your chinchilla wet.