Hey, I love my reptiles but lately I've started to crave for a more interactive/playful pet to keep me company during the day so I was wondering if you could recommend some pet species that are at least a little compatible with allergy sufferers and asthma? I'm always home so I have plenty of time for pets and their care, though space is a little limited but I'm willing to make it work with a bigger cage if necessary. Thank you! :)
Hmmm. Honestly, I think it partly depends on what allergies you have and how bad they are. If you’re allergic to fur/dander, that rules out a lot of small mammals. I wouldn’t recommend rats as they seem to be one that people often develop allergies to, even if they don’t start out with them, and it’s the urine that seems to be the issue, I think. Other small mammals like gerbils, mice, hamsters, etc. need burrowing bedding, which can set off allergies/asthma for a lot of people. And birds are a bad idea due to feather dust, though some species are less dusty than others. But parrots are really a huge thing to take on, so I’m not sure I’d necessarily recommend them to anyone anyway.
Depending on the space available, you could try looking into skinny pigs - hairless guinea pigs. I’m not sure if the urine or their hay could still cause issues for you, but it’d at least lessen the dander issue, and you can use fabric/fleece for their bedding instead of loose bedding. But they do need a fair amount of space, and preferably on one level since they don’t really do climbing/jumping. You could do a small second level to add to their space with a long ramp, but it all needs to have walls on it.
If you do want to try something like gerbils, hamsters, or mice, there are other things you can do to help protect yourself during cleaning/interaction and lessen the effects - wear a mask during cage cleaning, put an air purifier with a HEPA filter in the room where their cage is, and keep things extra clean in that room (maybe vacuuming more & such). One of my friends is allergic to their rats & used allergy meds (I think both over-the-counter & prescribed) for a number of years to help manage symptoms while caring for them. But they have unfortunately gotten to the point where it’s just not manageable anymore, so you do have to be very careful with that and have a backup plan for the animals in case it gets to that point faster for you.
Unfortunately I can’t think of many other things to recommend… I don’t know if my followers might be able to recommend some other options?
