Capybaras follow a vegetarian diet, more accurately known as graminivores, primarily consuming grass. Much like wild rabbits and guinea pigs, they graze and occasionally snack on fruits like apples or squashes they stumble upon. They also engage in coprophagy, which means they consume their feces. This complex digestion process helps maximize nutrient absorption by passing the food through their digestive system twice, thus allowing gut flora to break down the grass efficiently. Here, I’m referring mainly to wild capybaras. In captivity, these rodents, like others, will consume almost anything they can find.
Hibby chewed a peek-a-boo hole in his blanket. Insisting this was accidental would be futile.
Although I wish I could say capybaras in captivity only go after healthy items such as watermelons and squashes, they often display rather picky eating habits. What I really mean is, they will chew on various non-food items, like hoses, doors, walls, boots, bedding, toys, car upholstery, and even costly objects.
Princess Chili Bean and Twinkie avoided the watermelon while Alaska focused on perfecting the entrance. She ended up quite sticky, but it was bath day anyway.
Rodent teeth grow incessantly, necessitating constant gnawing and chewing to prevent overgrowth. Tiny gerbils are especially known for shredding paper, particularly toilet paper tubes. My latest rescue, “Gerbs,” enjoys having her tubes stuffed with timothy hay, which she then skillfully transforms into a cozy nest. Although the video I’m sharing isn’t hers, it rightfully highlights the use of toilet paper tubes—a good reason to include it.
Veterinary Practice News organizes an annual contest spotlighting unusual items pets have ingested. While it may seem a bit macabre, it serves as a crucial reminder to monitor what pets might get into. Garibaldi, a capybara once owned by Melanie Typaldos, devoured an entire loaf of bread, plastic bag included. Although bread might not be particularly harmful, the plastic was a significant concern. Whether he ate the plastic bag remains uncertain, as the loaf vanished without a trace.
“What the fork?” Submitted by Diane Streiff, DVM, of VCA Elgin Family Pet Center, Elgin, Tex.
Hibby chewed through so many items that listing them would be exhaustive. He bit into the bedskirt on my bed, ate several boots, chewed dozens of blankets (I spent countless hours mending them until I learned new ones only cost $1.99 at Goodwill Outlet), and even severed a heater cord. At one point, he took a chunk out of my rosewood Eames chair.
- Hibby destroyed his white rabbit rugs, necessitating a couple of replacements.
- Observe the pool noodle. Hibby chewed it up and spat out the pieces. Notice the decreased pool water level? That’s because he also chewed the pool, and it took days to locate the bite holes.
- A typical Dobster blanket—this one was too full of holes to repair.
Rodents persist in their incorrigible behaviors, and rabbits are no better, despite not being rodents but having similarly continuously growing teeth. I owned a hamster that chewed tiny holes in every item of my dirty laundry. My rabbit stripped the wallpaper and chewed through the sheetrock. I also had a chinchilla that nibbled on the books on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. To protect the books, I moved them back but allowed him to destroy one book he had already started on—it kept him entertained for several years.
An impressive example of the meticulous work of a young and eager pet rat. (photo: Mil Scott)
Mil Scott, surrounded by pet rodents, shared some outstanding examples with me. The book shown above was chewed by a pet rat who lacked any understanding of the selected volume’s worth. At least my chinchilla nibbled just the margins.and he refrained from actually eating words. He, however, gnawed the covers off some cookbooks, a task that was ultimately completed years later by a rabbit.
I don’t see any chewing, do you? Ah, but rodents are sneaky. (photo: Mil Scott)
Mil transitioned from dealing with rats to groundhogs, amplifying the extent of the destruction. I’ll let her share the story: “There are two photos for the second example of chewing… this particular handiwork was accomplished by our incredibly ingenious pet groundhog, Maude. The bookcase in the (no visible chewing) photo conceals the (approximately 8″ wide, 15″ tall) entryway that was gnawed into the wall, granting access to the closet. Once inside, she chewed another hole into the wall separating this closet and the adjacent room’s closet, where she dragged clothes, papers, and plastic bags to fashion a snug nest that has turned into the official groundhog burrow ever since.”
Maude’s handiwork was hidden behind the blue bookcase. Rodents work quickly and with stealth. (photo: Mil Scott)
I know you’re eager to meet Maude. Here she is, sitting in her food bin:
Maude. All that food available and she ate a wall.
Poor Mil, discovering that hole must have been quite a shock. That brings to mind a joke:
JoeJoe, however, perfected the art of vacuuming up treats, as if he were a charitable rodent rather than a holy terror. Hibby was notorious for pulling bags of birdseed off the shelf, but he’d spill the entire bag, eat a few mouthfuls, and then leave. JoeJoe is employing the Montessori method here, very neat and tidy.
- Cheerios and raisins . . .
- going . . .
- going . . .
- almost gone.
Here is Joejoe in action:
And to show that we are up to date with current events, here are a couple of Cheeto photos.
- Nobody is eating Cheetos here.
- Even capybaras know better.
- Twinkie, again, this time with carrot juice on her chin.
I’ll leave you with a couple more Joejoe videos where he displays what suburban capybaras do eat.
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A special thanks to Mil Scott for her prime examples of what rodents consume. If you enjoyed those, you will love The Rodent Reader Quarterly, a magazine dedicated to pet rats.
As always, I am grateful to Cody Kennedy and JoeJoe for the use of his photos and videos. Check out Cody’s shop and Patreon.
The guinea pigs are former residents at Stacy’s Funny Farm. You can support the current resident Guinea pigs, Brutus, Cookie Monster, Danielle, and little Gerbs by shopping at Georgia Dee’s Gift Shop or donating directly to Stacy’s Funny Farm, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
