I know what was wrong with Bella Vita!!

Question
QUESTION: Hi again Natasha,

This will be quick so I don't bug you, but I know what (WAS) wrong with Bella Vita. :)

She's tiny as a skeleton, and I was hesitating, but when I saw the huge red scratch marks on one of the other 2 girls, I knew Bella just had really bad mites and she was dying from it. This is probably elementary for you since you've had them for 38 years, but I just had a few thoughts. :-)

I always buy my (female) mice from one Pet Smart since their mice are amazing in so many ways. They're smart, very sweet in even just a few days, and never ever ever ever have bit me.

But these particular mice always come with... "silent" mites. The mice don't scratch, bite, bleed--but just one day they get weak, their eyes get crusty, pale... and they die overnight. But with Bella, this is what I did, because she was going down the tubes:

I treated all of them with 8-in-1 bird Mite treatment, and I swear to god it saved her life, and the other two got calmer. She got pinker, more active and ate tons more within a day. I only gave her in particular a very small first treatment, so I treated her again, and with this and the lamp combined she is doing AMAZINGLY well.

So here's my theory: They're all born with it within their litter, but it kills the weak ones with no signs, but eventually.

What do you think on all this? I'm so curious now!!

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

~Lydia

ANSWER: Dear Lydia,

No, no, you aren't bugging me! I beg people to write back! Both so I know if the mouse is OK, and so I learn from their experience.

This is certainly very interesting. It is true that almost all mice have standard mites. They don't bother them until there is a factor or factors which depress the immune system, or there is exposure to another source. So that's not new to me...

But what is new is that a mouse who is wasting away can be treated for mites and recover. That is fascinating. I of course hope that it never happens to my kids again, but if it does I will certainly try that instead of just thinking it is genetic as my breeder has surmised. He has thought that because it is only very occasional and no other mice nearby have ever been affected, which is not true of traditional mites. With traditional mites, sometimes others are affected and sometimes not; in his plenitude of experience he has seen countless examples of both.

I have to wonder: is it the same parasites which cause the usual mites symptoms? The fact that your others got scratches and got better when treated suggests maybe yes. However, infestation with these sleeper mites may also be enough to cause the usual mites to cause a problem as well or instead.

I will have to ask him if he knows if his skinny girls have been treated for mites. He rarely has mites but he also treats pretty regularly preventatively. So it is likely that his skinny girls had been treated, which would be evidence that some skinny girls are more likely to have a genetic defect. It is also possible that those ones have another illness that only affects the occasional mouse, but that is irrelevant here.

Something different is that his and my mice who have wasted away did so gradually and without the other symptoms such as the crusty eyes.

You were the one with multiple mice who died the same way, right? Or was that someone else? If it was someone else I"d like to find that person's question so I can write and suggest mite treatment.

It is also really interesting that the other mice grew calmer.

If you get other mice from Petsmart and they start to waste away, treat them and let me know what happens. However, you might want to pre-emptively treat for mites as soon as you get them.

Keep in touch. Love to Bella Vita. I would wish her a long bella vita if I knew what long is in Italian!

squeaks n giggles,

Natasha

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hey Natasha,

Yeah, it was truly fascinating. She's improved even more, and, of course she'll stay a skeleton for a while, but I can only do so much for something that tiny. She's been wheeling at even more heavy speeds.

Hmm. I still can't figure out where the crusty eyes come from then.

I think they became calmer because the 8-in-1 wiped out all of those THINGS crawling in their fur--I'd go insane too! So glad I don't have fur!

And yes, I lost... three mice and almost a fourth to it. Three were from the same Pet Smart, the last one was already about a year and a half old, but healthy, VERY healthy. And she was one of our own mice. (We got 2 accidental babies in 2009. :))

ALL of them, the one I saved last minute, had a bloody ear, crusty eyes at one point except for Sparkles, lethargy, and scratched a lot near the end, but only near the end and that's why it was harder to tell what was wrong.

The ones who died were the mother of the seven babies, which was devastating, truly, for the babies to not have their mom anymore, and her sister Poptart. (They were definitely related.) Then Sugarplum went down. And then Poptart, you know, the one who got eaten (GOD I hate those mice!), and finally, Sparkles, also possibly a cousin, had the red spots and a bleeding ear. But I treated her just in time and she's luckily still with us.

--
Off the subject, it was very weird--the babies obviously did not do anything to Poptart, because they had normal stools and were drained of energy. The feeders we rescued did. They had terrible diarrhea and were completely energetic, and this was DISGUSTING. I avoided holding them too much when I dumped them at the field, because if they pooped on my hands I knew I'd be holding Poptart as well. I put Poppy back in thinking, she's definitely dying, so she should die with her buddies, even the new ones, who she might have infected actually. But of course not.

I'm not insane, technically, for trying with the feeders--Sugarplum was the daughter of 2 feeders, two incredible feeders. And we had 14 other rescued feeders that stayed with each other until their last SECOND on earth. I thought it would be the same, but obviously not. One of the feeders we still have--and I might be repeating myself--Gingerbread, the dad of the 7 babies, is 2 and a half. So I don't know what was wrong with this batch of mice, whether eating an infected corpse is right or not in mouse world, my mice didn't do it. They didn't do that to Sugarplum and they barely knew Sugarplum. I just find the difference in energy and stools to be the proof. I don't know.

But now those babies, including Sparkles, won't eat anything pink in color anymore. They used to LOVE it. They won't eat chicken, lunchmeat turkey, even the plain flavor, anymore. Does this have anything to do with seeing Poptart's body?

Thanks so much, and good luck with your kids too,

Lyd & the meece

Answer
Dear Lydia,

Oh you mustn't hate any mice!!  Let's imagine it went like this:

Fancy mice:  Oh no, our friend is dead! Whatever shall we do!

Feeder Mice: Oh this is terrible! But if we leave the body it will rot and make us sick!

Fancy mice: So what do we do? This is terrible!

Feeder mice: Well, in the wild they eat the dead body. But that sounds awful!

Fancy mice: Oh no, we could never do that! Whatever shall we do? We are all going to die!!

Feeder mice: We love you fancy mice so much that we will (ugh) take care of it!

Fancy mice: oh, our saviors!

Feeder mice: This is going to be gross, and sad. But we must save our beautiful friends!

[they eat the body]

Feeder mice: That was horrible!

Fancy mice: Ohh thank you for saving us all! You are heroes!

Feeder mice: it was horrible but someone had to do it!

See? All wonderful, lovable mice.

If you have a Facebook account and would like to see my mice and rats and share yours with me, I am the only Natasha Millikan on there.

Preview:

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150280127649803

There are also awesome videos of the rats. I have dwarf rats not all that much bigger than mice. There is a video Meet the Rodents 1 where they are still smaller than mice.

squeaks n giggles,

Natasha