Three sick mice died at the same time

Question
Hi Natasha,
I just sent you an email about two sick mice about an hour ago, and I'm just writing to tell you that they are both dead now, after contracting a disease about two hours ago. I was just wondering if you knew anything that would kill three mice in close proximity in under three hours?

Get back to me,

Thanks,
Emily

Answer
Dear Emily,

As I read your first letter (too late of course), I knew they would die very soon. The simplest explanation for a cage death is poison. It could be something in the air (a spray) or, more likely, something they ate. This is common.

Other than that, I can't explain why sick mice sometimes have exactly the same reaction time to an illness, but it has happened to my mice too. I once had five mice die within under two hours when they had contracted the illness four days before. They were exactly the same age and basic genetic type, and had been exposed exactly the same amount at exactly the same time (I didn't know I had a dreadful bacterial infection at the time that I held the mice-- mice get our bacterial infections). Still, four days later? My theory is that because they were all sick, they were kind of sharing the illness among themselves and thus were at the same stage.

I am very, very sorry for your loss. Losing one mouse is hard enough. Losing three is awful. Besides that one incident, I have had two cage poisonings, and it is absolutely devastating to lose everyone at once.

I will mark the other question as a duplicate.

So very sorry.

squeaks,

Natasha