Allergic to Megazorb?

[Gizmodo ^_^]

Has anyone had a hamster allergic or irritated by Megazorb?
Would changing to Carefresh help? or be worse

[souffle]

I have heard some breeders comment that they some bags of megazorb did not agree with their hamsters mainly because they had quite a lot of black gritty ash in them. This is formed during the processing and it can make the feet sore and also stain the coat.
We had a bag that smelled terrible once - like sick I think it must have been stored damp and this had caused the problem so I expect there might have been fungus or bacteria in in to cause that which could have caused a reaction. We never used it.

[fluffymunchkins]

yep - had an awful blistering rash all up my legs and stomach once after using it
I'd reccommend trying to switch to something with less dust, I use just aubiose for the hamsters now and megazorb for the gerbils. Which don;t need cleaning very often so its not much of a problem x

[SnickersTheFirst]

I'd think that switching to Carefresh would be worse, I used it once (instead of the usual Megazorb) and it had so much dust.
-.-

[racinghamster]

Having tried both megazorb and carefresh in the past, I never liked either of them and when I had the mice, carefresh made them very ill and wheezy. I vowed from that day on never to touch the stuff again. I now use Aubiose. I also bought a bag of Snowflake shavings to try for my syrian (can`t use shavings for my chinese as she`s quite a sensitive wee thing) but I air out the shavings in BINS a month before use. This allows the aroma to fade.

Zooplus sell a hemp bedding to Gizmodo in smaller bags, so maybe have a look at that? Might be worth trying out if you have one that doesn`t do well on the other substrates.

[Pompompoms]

yes, Whizzbit as well as being allergic to pine shavings is I have now discovered allergic to megazorb too. He has switched back to carefresh which keeps him super fluffy and itch free