Possible breathing issue?

[Jodipher]

I have a female winter white dwarf hamster who is roughly 10 weeks old, I bought her home on the 12th October and she was completely fine, but when the evening came around I noticed she was what sounded like coughing.

She appears to be coughing whilst awake and making rasping squeaks whilst she's asleep. She is however active in her cage, goes on the wheel and scampers around, eating and drinking just fine. But she coughs and sometimes squeaks, I've only had her a day and she showed no signs when in the pet store and her sisters were fine as well. She is not gasping for breath at any of these times and seems bright and alert.

I checked for runny eyes and nose and there's no leaking at all, she's not too hot or cold and she's able to fall into a deep sleep but she rasps and squeaks every now and then. I have been burning tea tree oil next to her cage and the raspy squeaks (whilst she is asleep) have stopped or a lot quieter, I have to really listen for the rather than hear them in my room from my bed.

She's still a baby and I don't want to stress her out with vets if this is nothing serious, could it be new home jitters? Or maybe something in her bedding that's causing this? I want to try adding thyme into her bedding due to other owners trying this and its worked for them.

Any advice is appreciated, I just don't want to stress her out with a vet visit that may not be needed, thank you!

[cypher]

What substrate are you using & is it different to what she's been used to?
Breathing issues are unlikely to be anything to do with settling in, they can be very squeaky when they sleep so that's not necessarily anything to worry about but any audible breathing noises when awake would be a cause for concern.
Hams can be allergic to things so it could be a substrate change possibly or anything else she may be unused to, even a different food, it's hard to guess really.
I really wouldn't put thyme in the cage, it's too strong for such a sensitive small animal & I wouldn't use essential oils close to the cage either personally.

[Jodipher]

I was using sawdust from our local big chain pet store, it was different to the sawdust she was in when I bought her however. I have temporarily used toilet paper as bedding and she actually seems a lot better, I've ordered some Carefresh bedding in case she is sensitive to dust.

Would it be better to give her the thyme in tea form? Obviously I'll let it cool before I give it to her but changing out the sawdust for TP seems to have made a difference.

[cypher]

It does sound as though it is most likely a dust or allergy problem then hopefully she'll do better with the carefresh although some hams do still have problems with that too, if she isn't completely better with the carefresh you might need to consider a paper substrate, in the UK Fitch is the best virtually dust free & very economical too in the long run.

I wouldn't bother with the thyme at all, if it's a dust issue then it's not going to do anything & you need to be very careful using herbs with tiny hams.