Re: Hay

by extralizard13 Tue 30 Mar 2021, 2:28 am

Good day, ya'll!

I'm a new time mouse owner; we're receiving ours (0.3) next week, but I'm trying to prep everything before hand. Quite honestly? I'm often an over-researcher type. I work in the animal care field as a zookeeper volunteer & vet tech student, so... Comes with the territory? (Currently obsessing over diet plans, omg.)

Anyways, I saw that hay was listed as a parasite risk. I currently keep 2.0 guinea pigs, so we feed out a fair amount of timothy & orchard (& some rare alfalfa blocks for enrichment), & I was mostly wondering if I could give some hay for the mice as well/how to mitigate any parasite risk. I've never seen that as a mention before & if anyone knew what sort of parasites to look out for!

by River Fri 02 Apr 2021, 2:32 am

I think the parasite they're referring to is mites. Not an uncommon issue at all with these guys, but I personally never did anything to my hay. I've heard you can freeze it but I never have. The same mites can also come in on bedding. Bleh! I don't have a freezer for all of that, so I take the risk. Laughing

They don't eat hay when offered it in my experience but they do love to forage in and nest with it. It's a very fun toy!