Chinchilla Community Forums
Chinchillas => General Chat => Topic started by: luvears on March 16, 2010, 09:12:54 PM
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Recently read where the hays (timothy/alphalpha) contain mites in some areas. Does anyone know just how widespread this is or recommend brand(s) that you are most successful with of "mite free". I keep my hay for my chinkin and rabbit in a feeder and not create a "bed" of it..but that's not 100% preventive. Is this really "common"? All the years I have used hays in past for all the rabbits, never had an issue, but that was years ago. Now that my chinkin is part of equasion and a bit more sensitive, mommy's a bit more concerned ::think::
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I am in South Carolina and haven't had this problem. What areas are seeing this?
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let me go back thru all the things I marked and I'll show ya :)
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started browsing thru everything I marked to see if I could find where I stumbled across what they contributed a mite outbreak to timothy/alphalpha hay and can't find specific location without reading rest of night. I stumbled across that topic by accident when searching mites and parasites!
Anyway, I did find this: Also, sometimes there is discussion about the possibility of getting mites or other "bugs" or parasites from hay. Hay does NOT harbor mites. Mites need a living host to survive.
I just did a search on "mites in timothy hay" and first one to come up was a site around guinea pigs/rabbits, but the hay industry and good qualities, etc. and found the above statement! So, that's good to know! I do know when I saw that "outbreak blamed on hay" it wasn't anyplace that quickly came to mind...definately not SC (we vac. there every summer, that would have stuck out!) I want to say another country, but don't hold me to it ::shrug::
If I find the specific region, I'll post it. I thought maybe it was a common thing I didn't know about. I guess not :)