Recovery feeding after dental work is not a place to improvise. Her mouth has been treated for a specific problem, her vet has seen the teeth, her weight, and her condition on the day, and the discharge instructions from that visit outrank any general guidance, including everything that follows here, whenever the two differ.
Your job at home is faithful delivery of that plan, careful watching, and prompt reporting, while her mouth settles and her normal hay eating returns in its own time.
The Discharge Instructions Come First
Follow the treating vet's discharge instructions exactly for what she eats in the first days, how it is prepared, and how often it is offered. In general terms, vets often direct softened or soaked versions of her normal pellets so she can eat without hard chewing, and any support feeding only in the amount and rhythm the vet directed, never as an extra you add because she seems hungry or a feed seemed small.
Keep the written instructions where every helper can see them, and ask the clinic before substituting anything, swapping pellet types, or stopping a directed feed early. If an instruction is unclear once you are home, a short call to clarify is part of following the plan, and it is far safer than guessing beside a recovering animal.
Hay Returns as She Can Manage It
Hay still matters during recovery, because her teeth and gut are built for it, yet it returns as she can manage it rather than on your timetable. Offer hay within easy reach from early on unless her vet said otherwise, starting with softer, leafier strands she can handle, and refresh it often so the smell invites her, while keeping harder, stalkier hay available as her chewing strengthens.
Notice how she eats, not just how much disappears. A chinchilla that picks up strands and drops them, chews on one side, or takes far longer over a mouthful may be telling you her mouth still hurts or the plan needs review, and that observation, passed to her vet, is more useful than a cheerful report that the bowl looks emptier.
Watching Weight, Droppings, and the Trend
Weigh her at the same time each day on the same scales, and write the figure down, because a trend across several days guides decisions far better than one reading or a guess by eye. Track her droppings alongside the weight: smaller, fewer, or drying droppings, or food left untouched across a full cycle, are reasons to update the vet promptly rather than to wait and hope.
Update the vet on the trend at the intervals the discharge plan asks for, and sooner if intake stalls, weight slides, or droppings shrink. Report what she actually ate, what she left, and how she handled hay, since those specifics let the vet judge whether recovery is on course or whether she needs to be seen again.
Set the recovery cage up for eating rather than exercise while her mouth heals: food and water low and close to her resting place, hay within reach of where she sits, and handling kept to what her care truly needs. A quiet, cool, familiar space lowers the energy she spends on everything except eating and resting, and keeping other pets and household noise away from the cage during feeds helps a sore-mouthed chinchilla concentrate on the slow work of managing each mouthful.
During recovery, KinsLe supports the routine with Care Teams, so directed feeds, weigh-ins, and vet updates can be assigned and stamped as each one is completed.