Mice eye infection

Question
Hi,

This morning i have noticed that my mouse Titch seems to have some kind of eye infection, the side of his face is swollen an his eye is covered in a green-yellow crust.

Have you got any suggestion on what i can do with him until i can afford to take him to the vets.

Thank you

Sara

Answer
Hi Sara,

Is this a sudden happening?  Usually, it takes several days for an irritation to get bad enough to crust over the eye, but it could have been a result from an allergy or an injury that might have moved more quickly.  If it was indeed very sudden, then the best thing to do is to look at his environment and remove anything suspicious - is there anything sharp in the cage that could have hurt him?  Did he recently receive any new treats, bedding, or toys?  Try removing anything suspicious and keeping his cage and diet as basic as you can until you can get him to the vet.

If it may not have been as sudden, it's time to look for other causes - are there any bugs or chemicals near his cage?  Does he have scabs, missing fur, or seem to scratch his ears a lot, which might indicate mites?  Does he have scratches on his face or eyelid?  Does the swollen area look like a lump, which might be an abscess/infection, or just reddened and irritated, which might be a reaction?  Does the eye itself and eyelids seem swollen or just crusty (if the eye itself is the source of infection, immediate treatment would be necessary).  No matter what the cause may be, you can help the crustiness and some of the irritation around his eye by dipping a cotton swab in a saline solution (mix a small amount of salt in warm water, make sure it completely dissolves easily or it's too much salt), and then very gently dabbing the eye.  This should dissolve the crusties.  It should only take a second and you can do it a few times a day, but be careful not to poke the eye.  It's better to leave crusties than to accidentally hurt him!

Hopefully you can bring him into a vet in the next couple of days.  Without knowing the cause it can be hard to fix, and there is always a chance of losing vision in that eye or opening the body up to systemic infections.  If it's impossible to see a vet (and I know sometimes it just is), please write me back with the answers to some of those questions in the previous paragraph and I'll see if I can help a bit more!

Best of luck, and I hope he feels better soon!
-Tam