Can Chinchillas eat Celery?

Many chinchilla owners like to offer their pets fresh foods or greens as a treat or just a way to enrich their diets such as apples, grapes, blueberries, carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato, alfalfa and celery. Giving vegetables to chinchillas is a subject most debated on, particularly when it comes to celery – opinions are divided right down the middle, ranging from safe to dangerous. So which is it?

Avoid giving celery to your chinchillas

Celery is not a “safe food”, giving it to your pet chinchilla is very dangerous and you should avoid it because it can cause bloating, diarrhea or even death.

Owners do give their chinchillas celery in small doses once a week as a treat, but even this can still have painful results like bloating, with such serious consequences and health concerns you should simply choose to opt for other chinchilla-safe fresh foods, which are risk-free and just as tasty if not even tastier to your pet.

Celery the Enemy

Since celery is not a poisonous treat for chinchillas and they do like the crunchy fresh taste of the vegetable, most owners assume that this is a perfectly acceptable treat, but this is a dangerous assumption.

Chinchillas come from a place where fresh foods and vegetables are scarce, they evolved eating dry leafs and plants, so their digestive system has adapted to high-fiber foods.

Any food that is low in fiber, like celery, will add stress to your pet’s stomach, but the danger is actually in the high-water content of this vegetable, which will cause a runny stool. Also, because celery contains sugars and fibers that your pet cannot digest it can cause a buildup of gasses and bloating.

Celery does have an impressive dose of micronutrients but given the fact that this is an easily digestible vegetable, your pet’s guts will be just a passage for the vegetable since it will not be able to absorb much of the nutrients because chinchilla’s intestines are designed for a high-fiber longer-digestion diet such as hay.

Balancing chinchilla’s diet with hay, pellets, and treats

Although chinchillas are picky eaters, they will look forward to novelties in their diet such as different kinds of treats. Giving your pet fresh vegetables as treats is more of your desire than it is a necessity since chinchillas are content with their regular diet of hay and pelleted foods.

By choosing a specialized chinchilla food brand, which offers a complete and balanced nutritional formula you will not have to supplement your chinchilla.

Obviously, there are occasions where your pet absolutely deserves treats because they are a very good boy or girl. In these cases, you would have to do your research and find safe treats that your chinchilla can consume like rose petals, rosebuds, dried goji berries and oat groats.

All treats should be given in moderation as part of chinchilla care and for bonding with your pet, training or on its birthday.

The ultimate treat – Apple tree sticks!

Although at first glance it will seem that you are very limited to the type of treats you can offer your pet chinchilla there is actually a wide range of products that are perfectly safe and that your pet will enjoy.

A healthy treat for your pet does not have to be fresh food or a high-sugar treat it can actually be something that does not look at all appealing to us like apple sticks. Not only is this a wonderful, healthy treat that will enrich your pets diet, but you can also offer this treat as much as you want!

Your chinchilla will enjoy eating the smaller twigs and chewing the bark off the bigger ones, it will help keep its teeth trim and will provide hours of fun.

When choosing the appropriate brand make sure you find organically grown trees, which means that they were not treated with pesticides or any other adulterated methods.

The sticks should be washed and baked to remove any dust, pollution, bacteria or fungi. It is best to find a seller that offers various sized sticks in a package, which you would offer to your pet and try to find bigger packages because this is something that you would not want run out of once you see your pet being excited for receiving them.