Orphan baby mouse w hamster?......

Question
Hello Natasha! First n for most I want to thank you ever so much for all your information and insight all over this site! !!! About 4 days ago I found a baby orphan mouse wiggling around in the middle of the hot hot,busy school parking lot. Barely missing cars here n there! Luckily my 7 yr old daughter just happened to spot her right before driving away. We scooped her up,headed straight home and went right to Google. A shared link to you was the first thing I found and was lucky enough it had ALL the info I needed!! We set her up a warm home as directed. The baby took to the formula instantly. Her eyes happened to open the next day n by the third day her eyes where fully open and she went from fumbling around to being able to dart around fairly quick. Ive still been following all your advise to a T on feeding,housing, belly and bottom massages,ect....I have now come to a point where I have a few questions and concern.....

1. Durning almost ever feeding, DeeDee, (the orphaned baby mouse) will start to choke on the formla. She absolutly loves feeding. Whether it be the formla,water, or the pedialite.she will start to "nurse" from the paint brush perfectly fine, no worries. But usually by the second time I need to re dip/refill the paint brush and continue to feed her again she will start to choke. Whether I feed her from the paint brush, Q tip, or tiny syringe. The same issue.I try barley filling up the tip of either feeding divise but she still manages to choke. So I try even less liquid but then she can't get anything from it. Every feeding is a quite long n timley process. With these long feeding she seems to get very worked up and agitated from me trying to work with herso long. I want to make sure she gets the nutrition she so desperately needs and wants. But she either qets so worked up from only eating a droplet at a time or she very badly chokes. During a choking episode she will easily continue to choke without being able to catch her breath for almost a min. There was one moment when choking she was flailing all about then suddently just stopped and fell to the ground. My heart sank. I started to lightly tap her back. Trying anything. Out of no where she vomited then began to wiggle back to life. Im so lost at how to handle this... all this made me really realize how much I've come to really care for this tiny critter. I don't want to lose her by either not feeding her enough or too much. And I'm ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED to try infant rice cereal mix even though I think she may be at yhe aqe for it to be introduced.

2. Oh goodness,and yes my other question! I apologize greatly for incessant rambling. My daughter has a basic hamster we bought from Petco, the Syrian breed I believe. I understand mice having each others company is very beneficial. So would it be safe to introduce DeeDee with our hamster?

   Any information on eithet topic would be very much appreciated! Im not going to try anything drastic just yet. She is a very loving active baby still. I just want to make sure she's also happy n hralthy. Thank you so very much for your time and patience with my long drawn out questions followed by a timely story!!!!

P.s. It wad so latr while I was writing this last night that I guess I never got around to actually sending it. Well in between then n now we had a bump in the road. Some how she got out of her cage over the night and when I went to check on her for her next feeding she was missing. A whole 6 hours went by wout her getting to eat while tucked back in a cold cold corner. So now it seems like were back to square one on the situation. Im feeding her the pedialyte now but we're still going through the sever choking.....

Answer
Dear Eileen,

Over the years and most recently from other experienced people I have learned much more than is in previous answers. I wish I could change them all!

I have learned recently that straight formula can be too thick and cause choking. The formula is best watered down by half. It can be diluted with pedialyte for extra nutrition. This is what I recommend.

Mice don't actually vomit but they do regurgitate.

**

Are you on Facebook? I run a small group for people with orphans and with oops litters, rats and mice, called Oh, No, Babies! It wouldn't be just me answering questions; I might assign you to someone else who knows as much or probably more than I do. I will still be available though. It will be far, far quicker than here.

Friend me at

https://www.facebook.com/natasha.millikan

and message me and tell me who you are :) ; and I will add you. You will also be able to see other people's experiences, and once I have time (I also run a 6300 member mouse and rat group!) there will be a ton of links and extra information as well. I had made it with another profile, which was attacked and deleted, so we lost everything. Thank gosh I had made other people admin or we would have lost the group entirely!

If you are going to do that, send me a photo here or there so I can head your post with it. If you don't have one don't worry about it.


Best of luck and health to the little thing!

Squeaks,

Natasha

Oh, fogrgot the hamster. No, it will eventually decide to bite it and kill it. :(