Following our Excel feeding plan will ensure that your chinchillas get the correct balance of fibre, vitamins and minerals. 85-90% of a chinchilla’s diet should be high quality, dust extracted feeding hay. This should be supplemented with a small portion of Excel nuggets, the occasional Gnaw Stick, Excel Country Garden Herbs or Excel Mountain Meadow Herbs, a small handful of fresh greens and plenty of fresh water.
Chinchillas are herbivores who live on a plant-based diet, however we like to call them ‘fibrevores’ as fibre is by far the most important part of their diet and is essential for their gut and dental health.

Chinchillas always need to keep their digestive systems busy with a mix of two kinds of fibre moving through the gut. These types of fibre are called digestible fibre and indigestible fibre. Chinchillas get this fibre mainly from good quality hay – we’d recommend Burgess Excel Feeding Hay!
Chinchillas can’t get enough nutrition from fibre when it passes through their gut the first time. So chinchillas excrete soft, sticky-type droppings, called caecotrophs. They then re-eat them for vital nutrition. Burgess Excel has been specifically formulated to have all of the vitamins and minerals your chinchillas need.
If chinchillas don’t get the right amounts of both digestible and indigestible fibre, it can rapidly lead to serious health problems. At Excel, we call the correct ratio of these two types of fibre ‘Beneficial Fibre’.
Sticking to The Excel Feeding Plan will ensure your chinchillas get the right amounts of fibre in their diet. The Excel Feeding Plan was developed in conjunction with one of the world’s leading small-animal vets, to provide a perfect daily balance of fibre and nutrition.