Feeding.
Mixed Food
Unfortunately in my experience a common cause of a range of intestinal problems ranging from diarrhoea to prolapsed intestine. The most commonly used mixed feed (name not used for legal reasons) is a treat based food as it contains items that most sensible owners would feed only in moderation, nuts, raisins, corn etc. It has been found that over time this sort of food will cause build up of excess fats around the major organs leading to fatty liver disease and eventual organ failure. Corn should not be given to chinchillas at all. These sort of foods also encourage selective feeding with the chinchilla picking out the treats that it wants to eat, and leaving the more nutritious, though probably not so nice, foodstuffs. Despite what certain companies will lead you to believe, chinchillas like any animal will selectively feed to the detriment of their health. Imagine if you were given the choice of spinach or ice cream which one would you choose, probably the ice cream, and if this was all you ate you would be well and truly sick !!! The manufacturers claim that these feeds are nutritionally balanced, but I have to say that I would think that they would be only in one situation, that the chin ate everything in the food bowl.
Also, a chinchilla does not have a gall bladder, as such the liver has to work double time to produce fat-digesting bile and to store excess fats/lipids which tend to build up on the vital organs - which may make the chin more prone to hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease).
About 50-70% of the weight of nuts and seeds consist of fat as the table below illustrates. For example, 100g of almonds has a fat content of 57% .
| Name |
% Total Fat Content Per 100g |
| Almonds |
57 |
| Brazil Nuts |
68 |
| Cashew Nuts |
51 |
| Chestnuts |
6 |
| Hazelnuts |
63 |
| Peanuts |
50 |
| Pinenuts |
69 |
| Pistachio Nuts |
55 |
| Sesame Seeds |
58 |
| Sunflower Seeds |
47.5 |
| Walnuts |
68 |
If pellets are fed, then the chin has no real choice but to eat them, i.e. no selective feeding, and as the pellet contains everything that is required then their will be no ill effects on their health.
If you should buy a chinchilla that has been fed on this type of food I would seriously recommend changing them over to a pellet diet. This must be done gradually over a period of weeks. As the saying goes, you have to be cruel to be kind. Your chin will not be very happy with you when you remove their sweets, but it is for their own good.
One thing I will say on the plus side for mixed feeds they make an excellent treat, and should be fed on that basis, very rarely and only in small amounts.