Week old mouse with air bubbles

Question
Help! I have a week old orphaned field mouse. Pretty sure it's a girl. I am feeding her puppy replacement formula with a very tiny syringe. She eats hungrily, but has swallowed a lot of air. I can see it through her belly. Is there anything I can do to help her get rid of it? My local vet says no, but I am desperate. She has been doing very well up to this point, I can't stand to lose her now! Also, do you have a better suggestion for feeding? I can't find a soft-tipped syringe anywhere, and all the nipples I find are too big. She is only about an inch long. Thanks in advance for helping us!

Answer
Hi Bethany,

Are you sure it's air?  When an infant mouse is well fed, the full tummy is visible through the skin as a white spot, called a milk spot.  That's normal and means she has a full tummy!  There isn't a whole lot you can do while you still have to feed her through a syringe, since you can't too much pressure to the flow of milk without risking getting it in her lungs, but trying different positions might help.  If you have a nearby pet or feed store, you can usually find smaller nipples or kitten feeding kits that you can at least modify (tiny feeding kits are tough to find in general, but kitten ones are your best bet), but if she's eating that's a good thing and I'd worry about her not accepting a new method.  When she gets a little older you can try placing her tummy-down in the palm of your hand and drip milk through the cracks of your hand - it's hard to keep it off their body but it allows older pups to drink as much as they want without having to gulp (because they can lick it up with their tongue instead of suckling).  There are places online you can order hand-feeding nipples and syringes, but I'm not sure they'll get there in time to do you much good.  Might be worth checking out, though!

If you do notice she has swallowed too much air and is uncomfortable, try placing her belly down in her bedding and placing a heating pad on its lowest setting beneath half of it.  Gently stroke her from shoulders to booty on her sides using two fingers.  Sometimes this small amount of warmth and massage after feeding is just what a painful tummy needs.  Are you helping her to go to the bathroom, too?  This could also calm her down and make swallowed air easier to deal with.

Raising mice that young is hard, pretty much period.  Hopefully this link can help you out, too:  http://www.rmca.org/Articles/orphans.htm

Let me know if there's anything else I can help with, and best of luck!
-Tam