Can guinea-pigs be allergic to hay/sawdust?

[Hannahspanner]

My piggie Lulu has recently been to the vets because she has had a snotty, muscasy nose for a few months now and it always gets crusty and blocks her nose! Luckily for her there were no mouth abcesses and the vet said it was probably just a small nasal infection and he gave us some banana flavoured medicine similar to baytril and said that should clear it so fingers crossed!

However it has crossed my thought that maybe she has an allergy and it is not something that medicine will change?

Is this possible? Have any of your pigs had allergies to their bedding?

Thanks

 

[mikulinek]

Hi Hannah,

My first instinct would be that it may well be a URI (infection). These can reccur if the bacteria isn't taken care of properly the first time. Sometimes normal, borad-spectrum anti-biotics aren't enough... anyway, let's cross that bridge if we come to it (hopefully we won't).

It is possible for guinea pigs to be allergic to hay and sawdust. You might try changing the bedding to something more hypoallergenic like fleece, vetbed etc.

You can also try different hays and there are some dust-extracted hays out there.

I would alwys assume URI first however and treat accordingly. These symptoms also seem to be more indicative of a URI but I'm not a vet so don't want to give you bad advice.

 

[piggyfan]

Shavings do cause allergies in guinea pigs. I would switch to fleece.