I have recently been asked as to why I use rabbit feed and not chinchilla feed because they are two totally different animals. This is a very good question to ask because feed can be very important to healthy chinchillas. The feeds that I used in my research analysis was Mazuri Chinchilla feed and Manna Pro -Rabbit Pro.
After doing research on the different ingredients in the chinchilla and rabbit feed I came to a very interesting conclusion: Each feed has 30 of the same ingredients! The only different ingredients that the different feeds have is that the chinchilla feed has two more 'filler proteins' and they each use different types of oil (chinchilla feed uses Soybean oil and rabbit feed uses vegetable oil). In all the rabbit feed has 36 ingredients while the chinchilla feed has 42 ingredients. The overall different analysis' in the feed are a lot the same besides the protein. Chinchillas need to have 20-45% protein in their diet. The rabbit feed only has 16% and the chinchilla feed only has 20%. Both feeds should most likely be supplemented, especially the rabbit feed, but both are very low.
As you see there are 30 of the same ingredients and I only named 1 ingredient from the rabbit feed and 3 from the chinchilla feed, there are still some feed ingredients that are missing. The chinchilla feed has some probiotics along with some acidophilus, a lot of 'gut' health supplements. On the other hand the rabbit feed lacks the 'gut' health supplements but has several more vitamins and minerals than the chinchilla feed.
My conclusion to the research that I did is that they are both suitable feeds, neither is better than the other because they both weigh each other out with the extra vitamins or gut supplements. I do feel though that both feeds should have a protein supplement because they are low in protein levels. The feed that I would recommend to supplement for protein would be Calf Manna. I have found it to work well.
"Remember that scientific feeding is only one phase of successful chinchilla production. Controlled breeding and practical ranch management are just as important. Without practicing all three one cannot succeed."
Chinchilla Rancher's Handbook
