Help i think I'm allergic to my guinea pig's hay!

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tigger102

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Hi all as you know I only got Alice and Treacle yesterday, and they are setting in.
Since they have been here my eyes have been very itchy and I have been constantly sneezing.

I found a website that says it could be the hay that they have in their hutch is this true?

does this mean I'm going to have to take hay fever tables for the rest of my life or should I get rid of Alice and Treacle :{ ?

HELP PLEASE!
 
hi what do you bed them on? i found when i had them outside the wood shavings affected me (i now keep them indoors on newspaper and vet bed and no more problems so far, you could try different types of hay dust free is a good one, see if any of them help first. :)
 
i dont think its the bedding as i use the same type of bedding for my hamster and its not effected me.

They have newspaper, wood chips on the floor (from the pet shop- have used this for hamster)

Recycled paper and soft wool (again from the pet shop- have used this for hamster too but this is Guinea pigs)

Will try different hay though thanks.
 
do you know if your allergic to anything else animal wise?
 
you could maybe be allergic to your pigs? I used to be and had to dose up on Piriton every time i handled them, touch wood I'm over it now!
 
no I don't know if I'm allergic to anything else :{

I hope I'm not really, I'm going to try different hay and see if that helps, if not then I don't know what to do as I don't want to be taking allergy tables so I can handle my Guinea's :(.
 
i did it for 3 years, then luckily when they were both poorly earlier this year i stopped being allergic and could handle them a lot, thank god as they needed lots of cuddles etc

Its still worth it! :)

what type of guineas have you got? the worst one for me was a rex agouti
 
i come out in a rash if i hold my two rex's to so maybe its that breed, i take hayfever tablets anyway, it might just be the dust from the hay. it will just be trial and errors until you find out.
 
I don't know what breed they are at the moment as they are still settling in... haven't seen much of them.

I will see if changing the straw helps as everything is the same as a hamster so... cant be any of that.

Its either the Hay or the Guinea Pigs :{
 
ok if you can get pigtures someone should be able to tell you what breed they are, also by straw i assume you mean hay.
 
I am allergic to my piggies and it has always been difficult for me to handle them. For the last month though since I got Ruffle who is some sort of mad haired peruvian cross (the others were short haired) I have been a lot worse and I am now thinking that I have a difficult decision to make 8...

I did improve when I stopped using woodshavings - megazorb was better, and fleece even more so.
 
If you do figure out it's the hay causing your allergy you can always try stuffing it into a rack or toilet tubes to minimise the amount thats airbourne rather than bedding the piggies in it. That way they can eat it, but it's not everywhere getting up your nose.

My husband was allregic to our piggies when we first got them, but now he isn't at all! It took a few months for him to de-sensitise. Strangely enough I foster piggies from time to time too and he always seems allergic to them, but is fine with our 10 (probs just discouraging me from keeping any more!).
 
thanks all for your help.

I did mean hay not straw before!

I will see if it gets any better after a few days, and think about changing their hay etc.

If that doesn't work then i do may have a decision to make 8...
 
have you tried taking hayfever tablets? just to check they do work.

all you can do is try different things :(
 
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