midwesternrodent
Forum Donator 2026/27
Howdy you'll,
I have recently had reason to get an allergy test to see if my suspected guinea pig allergy was possibly their timothy hay, and I did indeed find out that I'm allergic to timothy hay!..... I also learned I'm pretty seriously allergic to my guinea pigs. Also I'm allergic to my brand new cat, I'm allergic to two animals and they're both my pets, wonderful.
At the moment, my pig allergy is not serious enough to warrant getting rid of them but it might progress if I don't start doing something about it. I have an epi-pen now out of an abundance of caution, but right now we're in the "take Zyrtec and monitor your symptoms" phase and Zyrtec seems to be helping quite a bit! I will eventually build a dedicated room for my pigs with a min split AC / heat pump system and a bathroom fan to make negative air pressure during cleanings but that's probably a year out.
For now, what I can do is reduce my exposure to all my other allergens. Besides my guinea pig allergy, my next most serious reaction was to timothy hay and removing that should reduce my respiratory symptoms quite a bit.
I have fed my pigs nothing but timothy hay for their entire lives. Occasionally, I've bought a bag of Orchard or Alfalfa as a treat, but I stuck with timothy because I had heard it's the most well rounded for them. I am planning on switching them to pure orchard hay, while occasionally mixing in alfalfa as a treat. I've read that this shouldn't be too much of an issue for them, but wanted to hear from anyone who's had a similar issue to me or who feeds something besides timothy.
My three long term piggies have always been on a diet of unlimited timothy, a little less than 1/4 cup of pellets per day (shared between all 3), and 3 cups of assorted veggies per day (again, for all 3). They've all been maintaining a weight of about 1kg with little variation in that time.
I do have 1 new acquisition that I'm currently doing a diet change on. She is a 5 year old piggie who used to be my coworkers. She was also on unlimited timothy, but she was free fed pellets as well and only given lettuce and carrots a couple times a week as a treat. I am working on upping her veggie intake and reducing her pellets to see how she responds, she will get timothy for a little while longer until I confirm the first change is going OK for her. She has not been introduced to the other pigs yet, and we're going to wait to do introductions until we have their diets matched up (they can see each other through the bars though, and that has helped her bereavement quite a bit).
I have recently had reason to get an allergy test to see if my suspected guinea pig allergy was possibly their timothy hay, and I did indeed find out that I'm allergic to timothy hay!..... I also learned I'm pretty seriously allergic to my guinea pigs. Also I'm allergic to my brand new cat, I'm allergic to two animals and they're both my pets, wonderful.
At the moment, my pig allergy is not serious enough to warrant getting rid of them but it might progress if I don't start doing something about it. I have an epi-pen now out of an abundance of caution, but right now we're in the "take Zyrtec and monitor your symptoms" phase and Zyrtec seems to be helping quite a bit! I will eventually build a dedicated room for my pigs with a min split AC / heat pump system and a bathroom fan to make negative air pressure during cleanings but that's probably a year out.
For now, what I can do is reduce my exposure to all my other allergens. Besides my guinea pig allergy, my next most serious reaction was to timothy hay and removing that should reduce my respiratory symptoms quite a bit.
I have fed my pigs nothing but timothy hay for their entire lives. Occasionally, I've bought a bag of Orchard or Alfalfa as a treat, but I stuck with timothy because I had heard it's the most well rounded for them. I am planning on switching them to pure orchard hay, while occasionally mixing in alfalfa as a treat. I've read that this shouldn't be too much of an issue for them, but wanted to hear from anyone who's had a similar issue to me or who feeds something besides timothy.
My three long term piggies have always been on a diet of unlimited timothy, a little less than 1/4 cup of pellets per day (shared between all 3), and 3 cups of assorted veggies per day (again, for all 3). They've all been maintaining a weight of about 1kg with little variation in that time.
I do have 1 new acquisition that I'm currently doing a diet change on. She is a 5 year old piggie who used to be my coworkers. She was also on unlimited timothy, but she was free fed pellets as well and only given lettuce and carrots a couple times a week as a treat. I am working on upping her veggie intake and reducing her pellets to see how she responds, she will get timothy for a little while longer until I confirm the first change is going OK for her. She has not been introduced to the other pigs yet, and we're going to wait to do introductions until we have their diets matched up (they can see each other through the bars though, and that has helped her bereavement quite a bit).
