What Do Chinchillas Eat? Hay, Pellets, Treats and Unsafe Foods

Author: Elliott Garber, DVM

Chinchillas eat grass hay. Not mostly hay, not hay plus a scoop of something: grass hay is the diet, available at all times, in unlimited amounts, with a small measured portion of a plain high-fiber chinchilla pellet (about one to two tablespoons a day) and clean fresh water alongside it. Everything else, the greens, the fruit, the bag of colorful mix at the pet store, is either a tiny extra or a real health risk.

That sounds austere until you look at the animal. A chinchilla’s teeth never stop growing, and its gut runs on fermented plant fiber, so long-strand hay is doing two jobs at once. The Merck Veterinary Manual puts it directly: hay from long-strand grasses like timothy “encourages the animal to chew and grind down its constantly growing teeth, and it provides fiber for proper digestion,” while pellets “crumble easily and don’t help wear down chinchillas’ teeth.”

Diet mistakes here are quiet. Merck publishes a second, more technical chinchilla chapter written for veterinarians, and that clinical chapter notes that chinchillas often keep eating and hold decent body condition until dental disease is well advanced, so the first real signal is usually a drift rather than a crisis: a bit less hay disappearing, smaller droppings, a few grams off the weight. That is invisible across a cage and obvious in a record. Weighing a chinchilla weekly and logging it, along with what it actually eats, is the cheapest early-warning system there is, and every animal on Creatures gets a free profile with health and medical records built for that. The Creatures chinchilla guide covers the rest of the care picture.

Why hay does almost all of the work

Two pieces of chinchilla anatomy explain the whole feeding plan.

The first is the teeth. A chinchilla’s incisors and cheek teeth grow continuously through life, and they only stay the right length if the animal grinds them down. Merck’s clinical chapter reports that abnormalities related to subclinical dental disease have been found in one-third of apparently healthy chinchillas presented for a routine physical exam, and it names two kinds of proposed cause, not one: nutritional causes such as a less abrasive diet in captivity, and genetic causes. Merck’s routine health care page puts the second half more bluntly, saying dental issues can be hereditary and that affected chinchillas should not be bred. Diet is the half you control, which is why this article is about it, but no feeding plan makes a chinchilla immune. The sharpest evidence comes from a 2001 study in Archives of Oral Biology, which measured cheek teeth in wild-caught and captive chinchillas: wild-caught animals averaged 5.9 mm, clinically normal captive animals 7.4 mm, and captive animals with dental disease 10 mm. The authors suggested that the physical form and composition of the diet is the main factor behind dental disease in captive chinchillas.

The second is the gut. Chinchillas are hindgut fermenters. What they cannot digest themselves passes to a large cecum where bacteria break it down, and a 2024 study in Veterinary Sciences describes that cecum as accounting for up to 22 percent of the entire gastrointestinal tract. Like rabbits, chinchillas produce two kinds of droppings and re-eat the nutrient-rich ones, so a chinchilla eating its own droppings is doing something normal and necessary. That fermentation system needs a steady supply of coarse fiber. Merck’s clinical guidance is blunt about what happens without it: a sudden change in diet or “a diet insufficient in dietary fiber and roughage” can produce dysbiosis, gastroenteritis, ileus, and a drop in fecal output.

So chewing long hay is not a nutrition preference. It is dental care and gut maintenance in the same mouthful.

What to feed each day, in real amounts

Hay: unlimited, always there. Refill the rack so it never empties, and give fresh hay daily rather than topping up the same handful for a week. Store it somewhere dry and well ventilated, and feed it fresh daily, both per Merck. NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine gives the share twice on the same handout, as 80 to 90 percent of the diet in its food and water summary and as 75 to 80 percent in its detailed diet section, and says hay should always be available. Take the spread rather than the winner: somewhere between three quarters and nine tenths of what a chinchilla eats should be hay.

Pellets: one to two tablespoons. Three veterinary sources land on that same daily portion independently. Merck’s diet page pairs unlimited timothy hay with a small amount of pellets each day, one to two tablespoons. NC State says pellets should be measured and that most adult chinchillas should get about one to two tablespoons per chinchilla per day. Purdue Veterinary Medicine limits pellets to one to two tablespoons per day. Measure it rather than pouring, for two reasons: it keeps a calorie-dense food from crowding out hay, and a measured portion tells you the moment your chinchilla stops finishing it.

Water: fresh, daily. More on the bottle below.

Greens: a small amount, and here the sources disagree. Merck’s diet page allows a handful of dark green lettuce such as romaine or green leaf, plus vegetables like bell pepper, carrot tops, and celery every day. Merck’s routine health care page is more conservative, putting a small amount of fresh vegetables, about a teaspoon, on the daily care checklist. The NC State handout works from bodyweight instead, roughly half a cup of greens per two pounds. Given that spread, the safe way in is the low end: start with a teaspoon-sized piece, add one new item at a time, and stop at the first sign of soft droppings. A chinchilla that has never had greens has a gut flora that has never had to handle them.

Choosing hay, and the one to avoid

Timothy, orchard grass, and meadow hay are all grass hays and all work. What Merck names specifically is long-strand grass such as timothy, because strand length is what forces the side-to-side chewing that wears the cheek teeth. Rotating two types is common, since hay crops vary batch to batch.

What matters more than the species is the quality. Hay should smell sweet and dry, feel springy rather than dusty, and be free of mold and insects, a point Purdue makes explicitly. Damp or musty hay is not a minor flaw. Merck’s clinical chapter reports that gastric ulcers are common in young chinchillas and are frequently caused by feeding coarse, fibrous roughage or moldy feeds, and that prevention includes decreasing dietary roughage. That last clause is the one line in any source here that cuts against unlimited hay, and it is worth stating plainly: it is written about young animals, and the same chapter says a few paragraphs earlier that chinchillas have a high requirement for dietary fiber and that their diet should consist mainly of high-quality grass hay. On the moldy feed there is no disagreement anywhere. If a bale or bag smells sour, throw it out.

The hay to keep off the daily menu for an adult chinchilla is alfalfa. It is a legume rather than a grass, higher in protein and much higher in calcium. VCA Animal Hospitals treats it as an occasional item rather than a staple; Merck goes further and advises avoiding alfalfa hay along with high-calcium vegetables (kale, parsley, dandelion greens) because they can cause bladder stones, and its clinical chapter notes that urinary calculi in chinchillas are typically calcium carbonate. That same chapter is careful about how far the calcium logic goes, and so should we be: unlike rabbits and guinea pigs, it says, chinchillas hold a stable calcium level in their urine even when dietary calcium rises, and it calls it questionable whether cutting dietary calcium prevents stones from recurring in a chinchilla already diagnosed with them. So the case rests on Merck’s own avoid-list rather than on a settled mechanism. The NC State handout reserves alfalfa for chinchillas under six months old and for lactating females. Either way, it is not the hay in the rack. This catches people coming from rabbits, where those same greens are everyday staples.

Choosing a pellet

Look for a plain, hay-based chinchilla pellet where every piece looks identical. The cleanest test is NC State’s wording: plain hay-based pellets, “with no seeds, nuts, or dried fruit.” Purdue gives the numbers to check on the label, about 16 to 20 percent protein, 2 to 5 percent fat, and 15 to 30 percent fiber.

That rules out the muesli-style mixes: the colorful blends of flakes, seeds, corn, dried fruit, and pellets sold as gourmet or deluxe. The problem is selective feeding. A chinchilla offered a mix eats the sweet, fatty pieces and leaves the fibrous pellet behind, so the food in the bowl and the food in the animal are two different diets. The controlled evidence is rabbit research rather than chinchilla research, which is worth knowing plainly: a 2014 trial in the Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition found that rabbits fed muesli with hay ate a smaller proportion of their diet as hay than rabbits fed an extruded diet with hay, and a companion study on dental outcomes concluded that muesli diets cannot be recommended. No chinchilla trial of that design exists, but the mechanism and the veterinary advice are the same.

If chinchilla pellets are unavailable, Merck notes that guinea pig or rabbit pellets have been used successfully, while recommending chinchilla-specific pellets first.

Treats: how little is actually safe

Start from the position VCA Animal Hospitals takes: chinchillas do not require treats at all. Nothing in the diet depends on them. If you give one anyway, and most people do, it should be a pinch rather than a handful, and plant fiber rather than sugar or fat.

The occasional treat Merck allows is a slice of fresh apple or pear, with fruit staying under 10 percent of the diet, and it puts carrots high enough in sugar to give only rarely. For what to skip, NC State names high-sugar commercial treats such as yogurt drops, plus bread and cereals. Dried rose hips and plain dried herbs are popular in the chinchilla community. None of the veterinary sources used here names them either way, so this guide makes no safety claim about them in either direction. Worth noticing before you reach for the jar, though: a rose hip is a fruit, and a dried rose hip is dried fruit, which is the exact category Merck tells you to avoid and the one the never-feed list below already covers.

This is a point where good current sources genuinely disagree, and you deserve to see the split rather than a tidy consensus. Purdue’s handout, last updated in June 2026, calls nuts and dried fruit excellent treats inside a one-tablespoon daily allowance. NC State sits in the middle: fruits and nuts are okay as occasional treats, it says, but only in very small quantities. Merck and VCA are at the strict end and they are strict. Merck says to avoid dried fruits, grains, seeds, and nuts because they can upset a chinchilla’s stomach, and VCA says seeds, nuts, and grains should never be offered. This guide follows the strict end, for one reason: when sources disagree about a treat, the conservative reading costs your chinchilla nothing, and the permissive one has no upside a chinchilla needs.

Chew wood belongs in this section too, because chinchillas gnaw whether or not you provide something. Merck’s page on housing a chinchilla publishes a table of both lists. Safe: apple, ash, birch, elm, hazelnut, manzanita, maple, pear, and pine without phenol oils. Unsafe: any pressure-treated wood, cedar, cherry, citrus wood, oleander, fresh pine, plum, and redwood. Oleander is worth a second look on that list, because a branch that arrives from a garden rather than a pet shop is exactly how an unsafe wood gets into a cage. The pine entry is about kiln drying: the same page explains that pine shavings must be kiln dried because untreated pine carries oils that can harm a chinchilla’s lungs. Purdue’s shorter list agrees on every wood the two have in common. Untreated willow and pumice stones are the other standard chew items. Any wood treated with chemicals or sprayed with pesticide is out regardless of species.

The foods that genuinely cause harm

• Fruit beyond an occasional sliver, and any dried fruit. Drying concentrates the sugar, which is why Merck separates an occasional fresh slice from dried fruit and puts dried fruit on the avoid list.
• Nuts and seeds. Too high in fat for an animal built to ferment grass, and on Merck’s avoid list with dried fruit and grains.
• Sugary commercial treats, yogurt drops, bread, cereal. Named by NC State as foods to avoid.
• Large or sudden servings of fresh greens and vegetables. Merck warns that new foods introduced too quickly cause wet or sticky droppings and gas, and its clinical chapter notes that bloat can follow sudden dietary changes, especially overeating.
• High-calcium vegetables and alfalfa for adults. Kale, parsley, and dandelion greens are named by Merck as bladder-stone risks.
• Animal products of any kind. Merck’s clinical description of the species is one word on this point: vegetarian. There is no version of a chinchilla diet that includes meat, dairy, or eggs.
• Anything moldy, musty, or stale. Merck advises throwing away uneaten fresh food daily to prevent mold growth.

Weight is the thread running through most of that list. Merck’s clinical chapter records a few cases of apparent type 2 diabetes mellitus described in overweight chinchillas, treated by reducing obesity and feeding a diet high in protein, low in fat, and high in complex carbohydrates. Those are individual reports rather than a common outcome, and the practical lesson is ordinary: a chinchilla that fills up on sugar and fat eats less hay, and less hay is where the dental and gut problems start.

Water, and the bottle nobody cleans

Fresh water should be available at all times. Bottles stay cleaner than bowls, which is why Merck prefers them, with one caveat worth knowing: not every chinchilla knows how to use a bottle, and for an animal with dental pain, drinking from a bottle can be more uncomfortable than drinking from a bowl. Watch a new chinchilla actually drink before you assume the bottle is working. A glass bottle with a stainless steel spout, hung outside the bars with only the spout reaching in, survives a chewer. Exposed plastic does not.

Then clean it. Washing the bottle every day to prevent bacteria is Merck’s instruction, and the clinical chapter gives it teeth: Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been isolated from 40 percent of healthy chinchillas as part of the normal gut flora, and contaminated drinking water is listed among the things that tip it from resident to disease. A bottle brush and hot water once a day is the whole job.

Changing food without triggering a gut problem

A chinchilla’s stomach is sensitive, and its fermentation system needs time to adjust to anything new. New foods go in slowly, over several days, and Merck warns that introducing them too quickly causes wet or sticky droppings and gas. Purdue is firmer still: abrupt diet changes can cause anorexia or intestinal problems, and gradual change is always best.

In practice, switching pellet brands or hay suppliers means mixing. Start with mostly the old food and a little of the new, shift the ratio over about a week to ten days, and watch the droppings the whole time. If they soften, go back a step and move slower. The same rule applies to the first greens a chinchilla ever gets, and to a chinchilla you have just brought home. Ask the breeder or shop what it was eating and keep feeding that at first.

What soft droppings or a skipped meal mean

Droppings are the best daily readout you get. Healthy chinchilla droppings are firm, dry, and consistent in size, and there are a lot of them. Any change to that is worth acting on.

Call an exotic-capable veterinarian promptly if you see soft, sticky, or wet droppings, droppings that are smaller or fewer than usual, or none at all. Constipation is more common than diarrhea in this species, per Merck’s clinical chapter, which lists dysbiosis, ileus, dehydration, anorexia, and dental disease among the causes of decreased fecal output. The sharpest line of any source here comes from NC State: not eating for more than 12 hours is always an emergency.

Watch for the dental pattern too, because it hides in plain sight. The signs Merck lists include decreased food intake, a shift in preference toward foods that are easier to chew, weight loss, reduced fecal output, wetting and crusting of the chin, discharge from the eyes, and poor coat condition. A chinchilla that has quietly started leaving hay and eating only pellets is telling you something. This is exactly why a weekly weight and a note about what actually got eaten are worth logging: the trend shows up in a record weeks before it shows up in an animal that still looks fine.

Frequently asked questions

What do chinchillas eat in the wild?
High-fiber plants in a harsh environment. Merck describes wild chinchillas as living in relatively barren areas of the Andes in northern Chile at 3,000 to 5,000 meters, where they are vegetarian and eat plants high in fiber. Captive diets try to reproduce that fiber load with grass hay.

How much hay does a chinchilla eat per day?
You should never be measuring it. Keep the rack full, replace it daily, and treat a sudden drop in hay consumption as a warning sign rather than a saving.

Can chinchillas eat fruit?
A thin slice of fresh apple or pear occasionally, with fruit staying under 10 percent of the diet, per Merck. Dried fruit is a different thing and belongs on the avoid list, because drying concentrates the sugar.

Can chinchillas eat vegetables and lettuce?
Small amounts of dark green lettuce such as romaine, plus vegetables like bell pepper and celery, are accepted by Merck. Avoid kale, parsley, and dandelion greens for their calcium load, give carrots only rarely for their sugar, and introduce anything new one item at a time.

Can chinchillas eat rabbit or guinea pig pellets?
Both have been used successfully according to Merck, which still recommends chinchilla-specific pellets first. Treat them as a stopgap, not a plan.

Why is my chinchilla eating its own droppings?
That is normal, and Merck says so plainly. Chinchillas produce two types of droppings and re-eat the nutrient-rich ones, which is how they finish extracting nutrients from fiber.

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