Can chinchillas eat Kleenmama pellets?

[TwinkieSlug]

I'm trying to research chin diets but I'm getting confused. The consensus about veggies is definitely NO. But what about pellets? I hear "don't feed a guinea pig chin pellets." But it seems like people feed GP and rabbit pellets to chins, and of course chin pellets. Kleenmama said she has many chin customers that feed their chins her pellets. So that would be the same pellets GP's eat. Any comments on the best pellets for chins?

[CavyKeeper]

I don't know anything about using Kleenmama's pellets for chins, but I think the general rule of thumb is that you should avoid feeding one critter another critter's food. However, there are supposed to be pellets designed for both GP and chins (American Pet Diner, I read, being one of them http://www.americanpetdiner.com/Merc...de=Chinchillas ) so Kleenmama's might very well be fine. I would research the nutrition values and so forth to get a better idea.

If you're looking for good quality chin pellet, Tradition and Mazuri seem to be good brands, and then of course there's Oxbow. Supposedly, the first two are more common and less expensive so you might want to check them out.

Good Luck

[TwinkieSlug]

I did some research: in my own refrigerator! I have both Oxbow Chinchilla Deluxe and Oxbow Cavy Cuisine. How silly I forgot about that. So the ingredients are almost identical! The main difference is that the Chin food is alfalfa based and the pig food is timothy based. I know that may be an important difference, and it's reflected in the higher Calcium and protein in the Chin food. Besides that, there is only one other difference in their long lists of ingredients: In Chin food it goes limestone, salt, vit C, cane molasses. In the pig food it goes cane molasses, salt, vit C, limestone. So the cane molasses and limestone swapped places. On both bags it says 75% of the pet's food should be grass hay. So I'm thinking that while I don't want to feed the pigs the alfalfa based diet, the chins should have no problem with the pig diet since they should be eating mostly grass hay anyways?

Kleenmama's pellets are similar, just small differences in nutrients from Oxbow. I'm going with my own theory that both these are quality pellets (from what I read on this forum) and so the minute differences aren't significant. I'm going to start using Kleenmama's timothy pellets for both the chins and pigs.

[TwinkieSlug]

CavyKeeper, I do want to mention that I agree with you that critters shouldn't eat food made for other critters. Just seems in this case it might work?