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Can rabbits be allergic to hay?!?!

Alleycat

Alpha Buck
After monitoring King carefully yesterday, it seems he only sneezes when he is eating hay, or right after he is eating hay - the vet suggested that he might be allergic to hay, but is this even possible?

And if it is, he is a HUGE hay eater, so what on earth would I feed him as a replacement in order to ensure he still keeps a good diet? :roll:
 
If the hay is dusty, it may just be the dust getting up his nose. Have you tried dust free hay?
 
One of my rabbits was diagnosed with a respiratory infection, and the other is awaiting test results - the inside of her nose apparently looked like she had an URTI - but they do sneeze more frequently around hay.

Rabbits *can* have allergies, but I get the impression that it's not very common, and that some non rabbit savvy vets may say a bun just has an allergy if a mild-ish URTI hasn't responded to antibiotics.
 
Earlier this year we rescued a little girl bun (who later died in a tragic accident at home). When we had her she was very poorly and for want of a better term - snotty!

Our very rabbit savvy vet advised us to soak her hay in water for an hour before we fed it to her. Then we were told to shake off the water as much as possible and then feed her.

Lily was on anti bs as well and although we will never be sure what 'cured' her, soaking the hay certainly seemed to help immediately although when were first told to do this I was very sceptical!

This might be a way forward. Perhaps you could ask your vet or someone with more knowledge may come along on here in a bit. Apparatly there are spores on the hay.

Good luck

Ruth :wave:
 
Our old bunny Tommy was sneezy when you shook the hay up, he was a snooty bunny anyway but he used to sneeze like mad when i did the hay
 
it's possible but very rare our vet said. could be an uri or just dusty hay. bisc and matt have 'snuffles' and we used to use dust free hay but the quality changed and even that started making them sneeze. now we use hay from hay for pets and that has no dust at all. i think that one should be called dust free hay! :lol: the timothy and rye is especially dry. :wave:
 
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