Rats and I have allergy problems with Aspen?

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

I buy cellsorb in 50 lb bags from a local feed store for 20$.

Oh nice, I will look for it!

I use pine and don't have a problem. I know it's not the bedding of choice for some but it is reasonably priced and I've not had any issue with the rats being on it.

Yea, cellsorb is bought for just my two pet rats, I couldn't afford to spend 20$ a week for all of my feeders. I go through a 40 lb bag of wood pellets a week.

Thanks, I'll look into pine as well. I have heard of big name rodent breeders using pine for decades without problems. Thanks for the information!

JonV

I acctually use a mix of pine/aspen. So yeah use pine. It's cheaper than aspen too!

I have used pine, but trust me, pine is worse for allergies than aspen.
At least from my experience, pine can cause sneezing in the rodents and you.

I guess it just depends on the person. My husbands allergies go crazy with the pellet bedding so I can't use it in the house anymore. When I switched back to pine he was fine. I only have 4 pet rats in the house so I just have to clean a little more frequently to keep the smell down.