Hi everyone,

I picked up two new female rats from the pet store to raise for breeders. They were on Cell-Sorb at the pet store, but now here on aspen they haven't stopped sneezing for 3 days since I brought them home (I'm fairly certain they were at least reasonably healthy when I bought them). I am thinking the aspen is the problem. Not to mention, I cleaned cages over 14 hours ago, popped two Claritin, and I am still sneezing and coughing from the dust. This is supposedly a "dust free" brand as well.

I exchanged their aspen for the small amount of Carefresh bedding ($$$) I had laying around a few hours ago. The two sneezing rats have totally stopped sneezing after the switch to Carefresh.

Question: Have other people and their rats had allergy probs with aspen?

Question: What would be a good bedding that isn't too terribly expensive? Can you find Cell-Sorb or Carefresh in bulk? Maybe some type of horse bedding is out there?

Any input would be *sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, cough* appreciated. Thank you,

JonV