Comparative analysis on nutritional composition of commercial pet chinchilla food

Abstract

The recent arrival of the chinchilla as a pet in our lives and clinics, as well as its growing demand, requests greater efforts when it comes to specifying its nutritional needs and not using the values of other similar animals or values for chinchillas in the fur industry. The lack of knowledge about their nutrition can lead to avoidable diseases and pain, it is necessary to review and scrutinize the existing information, and agree on values, food, and presentation to be used in our pet's food. With the present study, we want to look for the most beneficial commercial chinchilla feed (muesli and pellet) in the Spanish market, as well as to find inconsistencies in labeling and see in which nutrient the worst formulation failures occur. For this purpose, ten different commercial feeds in terms of nutritive value, origin, presentation, and ingredients are examined in the laboratory to find inconsistencies concerning the official results designated in their commercial labels and, at the same time, with the results recommended by different authors. The feeds are analyzed to the different procedures according to the AOAC (2000) and Van Soest et al (1991), with which dry matter, moisture, ash, crude protein, fiber, and carbohydrates of all of them are obtained; however, fats and Ca:P ratio were not possible to evaluate due to different reasons. As the result of the evaluation of ten feeds, were obtained, namely, 10% lab-calculated protein, 20% label protein, 20% fiber in the lab, 30% crude fat, 50% Ca: P rate, 10% lab-calculated ash, and 40% label-ash, did not meet the necessary health requirements according to the literature review. Finally, only 40%, between pellets and high-quality mixtures, turned out to be beneficial. The growing demand for the chinchilla as a pet, together with the scarce literature on its nutrition, highlights the need for more studies on the subject that concerns us.