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08 Sep 2014

Dangers of Feeding Dry Food To Guinea Pigs, Rabbits & Chinchillas

Posted By : Guest

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You should never feed rolled oats, wheat, crackers, weetbix or any breakfast cereals to chinchillas, rabbits or guinea pigs as it affects their calcium and phosphorus ratio and reduces the absorption of essential nutrients from hay, depleting calcium in their bodies and causing digestive, dental and bone problems.

Rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas should have a diet high in fibre, and fairly low in calories (especially fats and starches). And we not referring to Crude fibre because it is poor measure of plant lignin and cellulose, but rather digestive and indigestible fibre, which is only present in high quantities in hay. Over time pellet diets have been sold as the mainstay of their diet, but pellets was originally formulated for non household pets (i.e. laboratory or farmed rabbits and chinchillas).

Some of the problems associated with feeding too much lucerne based pellets are:

Obesity

Dental disease

Soft stools (with norm stools)

Periodic bouts of anorexia (not eating)

Heart and liver disease

Calcification of blood vessels

Bladder and kidney stones

Fresh Hay (or grass)

Should always to be available. This is the most important of a rabbit, guinea pig or chinchilla's diet.

Young baby bunnies, piggies and chinnies should be exposed to hay as soon as they can eat on their own.

Mixed grass hay is better than alfalfa as it is lower in calcium and calories

Store hay in a cool, dry place in an open bag to allow circulation. Discard damp hay.

Rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas on 100% alfalfa hay should not get any pellets.

Prefer loose long strands of hay compared to chopped hay

Food to avoid

Avoid starchy foods or high sugar content foods such as; legumes, beans, peas, corn, bananas, grapes, oats, wheat, crackers, weetbix, chips, bread, nuts, pasta, potatoes, chocolate, cookies, rolled oats and breakfast cereals. There is research suggesting high starch and low fibre diets may contribute to fatal endotoxaemia.

Feeding dry food mixtures is a ticking timebomb

The key scientific results from the University of Edinburgh research study were as follows:

Feeding dry-food mixture foods, with or without hay, is linked with abnormalities that can lead to painful dental and digestive problems that require veterinary treatment, such as;

Slower gut motility, which can put rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas at a high risk of gut stasis, a condition which is often fatal as they depend on a constantly moving digestive process which is maintained through a high fibre diet.

Eating less hay, which can lead to abnormal growth of teeth. This often develops into painful dental disease, or in extreme cases ‘roots’ so large they penetrate the jaw or eye sockets.

Urinary tract problems, as eating dry food reduces their water intake.

Dermatitis (inflammation of the skin) and flystrike as dry food leads to rabbits not eating their caecotrophs – soft moist droppings that they eat directly from their bottom and which are an essential part of their diet. This can in turn lead to flies laying their eggs in the soiled and matted fur under the tail. Maggots hatch out 12-24 hours later and then burrow into the living flesh. This is known as flystrike.

an imbalanced diet lacking in vital vitamins and minerals, due to selective feeding ( picking their favourite parts of the dry food mix) and not eating all their caecotrophs.

eating dry food mixture foods (also called muesli style foods) without hay causes rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas to become overweight or obese

The message is slowly getting through to pet owners all over the word, the lastest PDSA PAW Report shows that the portion of owners feeding dry food mixtures/muesli in UK dropped from 49% in 2011 to 34% in 2013, but that’s in UK. There are still too many South Africans feeding their bunnies, guinea pigs and chinchillas dry food mixtures and rabbit pellets because it’s cheap.

Tags : Feeding Rabbits , Guinea Pigs & Chinchillas Dry Food in South Africa , Dangers of Feeding Dry Food To Guinea Pigs , Rabbits & Chinchillas in South Africa