Greenwood Chinchillas
Feeding Grass
All chinchilla need daily roughage in order to assist in the natural wear of their teeth. Being rodents the teeth continually grow throughout there lives, insufficient roughage and fibre can lead to over grown teeth or roots which can in extreme cases lead to the teeth of t animals.
A constant supply of good quality roughage enables the animal to continually rind down the surface of the tooth, keeping them healthy.
Most chinchilla keepers provide permanent hay for their animals, however this can be very messy and often ore hay ends up on the floor of the cage or room than inside the chinchilla.
An alternative to this is feeding dried grass products as created for horses. This can easily be fed in an additional bowl within the cage and minimises a lot of the mess that is associated with the hay. I do however not remove hay totally from their diet - but provide grass daily and hay twice weekly.
It is much quicker and easier to top up a food bowl with grass in each cage than hay racks - ad far less messy. I tend to have a jug of pellets and a jug of grass and just top up each at the same time.
From my own experience and the research that i have down with manufacturers and other long term chinchilla keepers and rescue centres, most dried grass products appear to have the same calcium to PH balance as hays, common ones being used by large breeders already being GrazeOn, Readigrass, Justgrass and Supaforage.
When selecting a grass yourself go for the one which has the most fibrous feel to it - after all the main purpose you require it for is the wearing to the teeth.
Most grasses can be bough in bales intended for horses - generally 18kg - for approximately £7 from horse feed suppliers, or smaller packets can be obtained from pet shops if you only have a few chinchillas. When storing grass it should in air tight a container as possible to retain the vitamin and nutrients for as long as possible. If stored well then the grass can last 12 months from date of manufacture.
NOTE: Grass must be introduced slowly into a chinchillas diet!
Due to the different type of product that it is, grass has to be introduced slowly into a chinchillas diet of a period of about a month - it is a richer product than normal grass and could cause mineral imbalances if introduced too fast. Start off by feeding grass a couple of days a week for two weeks, then alternate days for two weeks, then each day should be ok with no upset stomachs or mineral imbalances occurring.
