Friday, March 11, 2011

Chinchilla treat recipe

So long story short, I wanted to get a puppy, but my landlady was so not up for that. After giving it some thought, a chinchilla seemed like the perfect pet. Cuddly, fluffy, and also doesn't bark. :)

So I adopted a chinchilla named Boba, he's a black velvet, which for those of you who understand what Boba (tapioca pearls in pearl milk teas) means as well as what a black velvet chinchilla is will be able to make the correlation. If not you can always check him out on Twitter: @BobaMonster.

Reason for the post is that when I adopted the little guy, the lady at the shelter had given me some home baked biscuits that he can have as a snack once a day. Once I ran out of course I wanted to bake my own! I figured going online to find a recipe should be pretty easy, but it was actually sort of hard! Seems like chins are way more common in the UK, and people care to post about their chins and chin care alot more out there!

So I put my sourcing skills to good use, and did find a recipe, which I used last night. Boba is now enjoying healthy, organic (buy your ingredients from Whole Foods or other organic markets!), homemade oat and fruit biscuits. He loves them! :)

For anyone else who may have a chin, or have a friend with a chin, feel free to share this recipe! I've already adjusted some measurements and times based on my own experience. Thanks Tabitha from Pets Hub!



Ingredients:

1/3 carrot (finely grated)
1/3 of an apple (finely grated) - including the juice
1/2 cup of oats
1/2 cup of chinchilla pellets (blended into a powder in a food processor)

1 large, or 1 1/2 medium bananas (mashed)

Method:

Put the first four ingredients together in a bowl. Add about 3/4 of the mashed banana and mix well. The mixture needs to be moist and hold itself together. If it doesn't mix easily, and feels too dry - mix in some more banana.

Cover with Clingfilm, and leave in the fridge overnight (up to 24 hours).
This will allow all of the moisture from the fruit to soften the pellet mixture.

Pre-heat the oven to 250F.

Roll the mixture into treat-sized balls, and place on a non-stick baking tray (you can flatten them into small disks if you want to, but you won't get as many on the baking tray).

Cook in the oven for 1.5 hours (you only want to dry the mixture out, you
don't need to cook it).

When the cooking time is up check to see if the treats are done by cutting the largest treat in half. If the middle is darker than the outside, it hasn't properly dried out all of the way through, so put them back for another 15 - 20 minutes.