Help Please: Allergies

[SD-rabbit]

Hi everyone,

We are new to the world of rabbits and I’m hoping for some help and advice. We adopted a rabbit about a week ago. My 9yo son has been wanting one for a long time and after much research and preparation, we pulled the trigger. The rabbit is staying in his bedroom. Unfortunately, I (mom) seem to be having a severe allergic reaction to either the rabbit or to the hay in his area. Yesterday we switched from Timothy Hay to Orchard Grass and again the same reaction (shortness of breath, wheezing, sneezing, etc) after going into his room for 1 minute. I’m not even touching the rabbit at this point so it’s really hard for me to believe I have a rabbit allergy. As a background, I have no other allergies of any kind so this is very surprising. My son is in love with his bunny and he’s a really sweet little guy so we want to keep him but I’m just looking for some advice on what else can we try. Is there any other type of grass we can give him? Is it possible for him to survive without the hay? Has anyone experienced this before, any ideas you can share.
Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[Hermelin]

Maybe you can try giving the bunny fresh grass or compressed hay into cubes.

 

[Preitler]

I would do an allergy test anyway, now that you know that there is something.

 

[Apollo’s Slave]

Hi everyone,

We are new to the world of rabbits and I’m hoping for some help and advice. We adopted a rabbit about a week ago. My 9yo son has been wanting one for a long time and after much research and preparation, we pulled the trigger. The rabbit is staying in his bedroom. Unfortunately, I (mom) seem to be having a severe allergic reaction to either the rabbit or to the hay in his area. Yesterday we switched from Timothy Hay to Orchard Grass and again the same reaction (shortness of breath, wheezing, sneezing, etc) after going into his room for 1 minute. I’m not even touching the rabbit at this point so it’s really hard for me to believe I have a rabbit allergy. As a background, I have no other allergies of any kind so this is very surprising. My son is in love with his bunny and he’s a really sweet little guy so we want to keep him but I’m just looking for some advice on what else can we try. Is there any other type of grass we can give him? Is it possible for him to survive without the hay? Has anyone experienced this before, any ideas you can share.
Thank you in advance for your help.

I have the same situation but I’m the kid. My mum has asthma and has since she was a kid but she loved me enough to get my-animal-addicted-self a bunny. Apollo is in my bedroom.
My mum has to look after him every second weekend (one of them being this weekend).
What helps for me is: I try to keep my room clean, the hay stays in a hay rack that I made with some ikea thing we had in our kitchen. After a few months she said it got better but I still try to do this. Hay is most of a rabbits diet and I don’t think it’s possible for them to live without it.

It may be that you are allergic to the hay rather than the rabbit but you should get an allergy test. Ironically, I have hay fever and have since I was a kid but it’s never been severe (just sneezing). On some days, generally in summer when my hay fever can get quite bad, I take an allergy tablet and it usually calms down.

I hope this helps! You probably could ask your doctor for advice maybe too!

 

[SD-rabbit]

Thank you for the suggestions. I have an allergy test scheduled. We tried couple different types of hay over the weekend and Oat Hay seems to generate the least severe response. It's nice to hear your take from the other side Apollo_Slave, I'm going to try a similar setup to keep the hay enclosed.

 

[Blue eyes]

I had been feeding bermuda grass hay and dealing with sinus issues, but never connected the two. An allergy test I had was positive for bermuda. Now I feed timothy only. So, yeah, different grass types can cause different reactions.