mice people, i need your help
miceblr, mouseblr, whatever it’s called, I’m having some trouble working out what is wrong.
The mice at the store I work at are coming down with some illness that is causing them to die off within a couple days of symptoms starting. If anyone thinks they might be able to tell me what is going on and if there’s anything I can do about it I am including videos and further details under the break.
These mice are feeder mice so unfortunately they don’t really take priority in the store, so it’s unlikely they’ll get much medical attention if it requires much money and attention to fix, considering we have 30-80 mice at any given time and we just don’t have the time to medicate every single one.
However, if what is wrong is something that is easily fixable I want to know. I seem to be the only one at work who really cares about the mice and I want to help these guys if I can.
The symptoms start as generally just rough fur, ears back, and a hunched posture. Their eyes usually seem a little duller than all the others as well. They seem to get around fine, they eat, they drink, and seem generally okay besides the above symptoms. They may look like this for a couple days, slowly looking more and more rough, getting sluggish as the days go on. They get a little skinnier over the time too.
It didn’t seem particularly severe at first because I saw quite a few mice do this without seeming to actually get worse, and since they’re feeders they get sold pretty quickly, so I guess I just never got to see one get bad.
But yesterday I noticed one of these hunched mice gasping for air. I pulled her out and looked her over and found no sign of any other problems besides what I’ve already described above, she was just weak, skinny, and gasping. I put her in her own little critter keeper (our backroom mice are kept in 30 gallon tanks, there are four tanks total), washed my hands, and looked in all the tanks for more of the hunched mice since I figured this was going to happen to more of them. I found three more in the same tank she came from and put them with her, left them alone with water and some food, and went home, hoping for the best.
I came back this morning and found the gasping one dead. The other three weren’t gasping when I left today, but when I arrived at work they were considerable weaker than they were yesterday. Still hobbling a little, and eating and drinking some, but obviously worse than yesterday. Over the next six hours I watched them slowly degrade into skinny, cold, weak little things that couldn’t keep their balance properly while walking (if they would walk at all, I only saw one move more that a couple steps all day). I had to leave them alone at the end of my shift, fully expecting them to have died by the time I work again (Monday).
This is a video I took of them probably 2-3 hours after my shift started.
http://vid1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg515/IshkieGav/IMG_3484_zpsczdxxmfm.mp4
When I got to work I also checked the tanks again for more hunched mice and found three more that were definitely sick with whatever this is. Here is the first one I found before I moved her to a critter keeper. I could tell she wasn’t right by her posture, fur, and ears held back, as well as her slightly dull eyes and wobbly walk.
http://vid1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg515/IshkieGav/IMG_3481_zpsj7vuxiwf.mp4
Here the three of them are shortly after I moved them into the keeper. They just seemed to be acting off when compared to the other mice. They’re still active, curious, eating, drinking... but they just don’t look right.
http://vid1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg515/IshkieGav/IMG_3486_zpst7hqxvnc.mp4
Later in the day they were considerably more sluggish. I’d like to hope they won’t die before I come in on Monday, but that seems very unlikely right now.
Some notes about their care.
- They are kept in 30 gallon tanks, generally 20 mice or less per tank. It is crowded, but these are feeders and they get sold quickly.
- Each tank has a couple handfuls of crinkle paper for them to nest with and usually either an igloo house or a couple cardboard tubes.
- Bedding and tanks are cleaned once per week, spot cleaned daily.
- They are kept on a pine-based cat litter as bedding. It is made up of very compacted pine pellets and seems to disintegrate when significantly wet. I am aware pine is not ideal bedding for them but this is actually not very dusty at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bedding may be the cause though, I know they’re sensitive to the pine chemicals. The store has apparently kept the mice (and all the rodents) on this bedding for years without significant loss, but I’m not sure what “significant loss” is for feeder mice that cost less than a dollar each (when bought in bulk).
- They are fed a combination of a block formulated for rats/mice and a seed mix formulated for hamsters. They do seem to eat more of the seed mix than the block (understandably, it probably tastes a lot better).
- They’re all albino/PEWs, if that is relevant at all.
- We do not breed our own mice, we order from an outside provider.
- All our mice are female.
I am not very familiar with mice illnesses. I have had fairly extensive experience with rats but I’ve never seen these specific symptoms in rats.
If you need any other information please ask, I’d like to know if there’s anything I can do for these mice.
