E Coli Outbreak

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Toffeewoffee

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Gave my piggies some cucumber and brocoli yesterday morning and some cucumber and celecry last night, both times they hardly touched their cucumber which is very unusual for them, my partner said their had been some cucumbers come in from spain which had been contaminated....(is this true?) i instalntly panicked and took all of the cucumber out of their cage.

Would this be a reason for them not eating it? And if they were contaminated would this affect them or make them ill? I dont know if my partner is winding me up saying cucumbers had been contaminated so i am asking you guys.....

Thanks
 
There have been cucumbers from Spain contaminated so be sure to wash all veg carefully.

I wouldn't panic if they didn't eat any and there have only been a few people affected by the outbreak.

We have had a spell of sickness in our gerbils and thought it was e.coli but it is actually a viral infection. Anyway, the things to look out for are runny diarrhoea poos, any wobbles or unsteadiness, dehydration - the kinds of behaviour that would make you worry anyway.

To be on the safe side I would disinfect where the cucumber was, but like I say don't panic, to be honest I doubt the supermarkets are selling anything from Spain right now as it's a bit of a media frenzy. Do you still have the packet the cucumber came in?
 
We buy all of our piggy veggies from Lidl..... they dont come in any packaging at all. They seem to be fine, i'm thinking they are just going through one of their "i'm bored of this food" phases.
 
As a precaution I would just wash any veg anyway, a lot of the time they clean them with things like chlorine or use pesticides. My piggies do that too with food :))
 
My Mum comes at the weekends with a bag full of veg for the piggies and buns and she said she didnt get any cucumber this week as she had heard about the problems. Bless her.

Checked the cucumbers at Asda and they are all from Lincolnshire so we are safe here.x)
 
As has been previously said by the BBC and on here, cucumbers were found NOT to be the source of the problem.

Veggies from Spain ARE still in supermarkets, my guinea pigs just ate a load of Spanish celery and have been for the past two weeks. They are fine.

Just make sure you wash everything in cold RUNNING water and keep good hand hygeine yourself.

You do not need to disinfect the bit of the cage the cucumber was. This is just going over the top to be very honest.
 
your pigs have been watching too much TV or reading the tabloids at the bottom of their cage! :))
 
I would recommend checking where you cucumbers/tomato's were from, if they were from the UK, no worries (considering you live in the UK). If Spain.. chuck 'them!

I doubt you did have contaminated cucumbers, but you can never be to careful! ;)

___

Best regards,
Isabella, Tallulah, Penelope & Lily.
x
 
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