Mice die after bite wounds

Question
QUESTION: Hey Natasha.

How have you been?

you may remember me.. i was the person who caught the wild mouse and was asking questions about her about 2 months back. She's doing fine at the moment. Was just one thing i was concerned about and that's that when i put my finger through the bar of her cage she bats it with her feet and nibbles my fionger but i dont hold it there long enough to see if it draws blood. So i put a rag on my finger and she really does go for it!
I was wondering what kind of behaviour this is and what i would need to do to prevent it. I thought if she thought it was food she would give up on the 2nd nibble but it's continous. She is very tame..like she'll still crawl into my hand happily but a few times she tried to have a little bite at my hand after crawling into it. Why would she be doing this?

Thanks very much Natasha.

Mart.

ANSWER: Hi,

When you put your finger through the bars, you are entering her space.  It is natural that she will nip you, and the answer is not to put your finger through the bars of the cage.  

If she nibbles your hand when you hold her, she's being friendly.  If she nips it, the first question is what is on your hand.  You should always wash your hands with mild soap before holding a mouse.  If she nips you often enough or hard enough for it to be unpleasant, then you can try to train her out of it.  When she nips you can give her an extremely gentle tap on the top of her nose. It's not supposed to hurt, it's supposed to insult her!  Most mice will stop nipping behavior when you do this a few times.

I have never worked with wild mice, so it is possible that they are simply nippier than show mice or pet store mice. However, it doesn't sound like she does it a lot, so this method will probably work.

I'm so glad she is doing well.  Have fun with her!

squeaks n giggles,

Natasha



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

QUESTION: Hi Tamarah

Just to let you know.

All baby mice are doing extremely well!
The mother (Carol is taking very good care of them) i was wondering when i'd need to pull carol out and separate the males from females? How many weeks would this be?

They are all dark grey at the moment, if they were to be a different colour would they have done so by now or should i be giving them more time to get a different colour?

Been a bit concerned recently also about my wild mouse collection. 2 of my wild mice (not molly!) have been very slow the past 2 days. Very sluggish. I think it may have been down to the fact they were kept with 2 bigger mice but i had no idea there was fighting going on until i opened the cage to see a few nasty cuts on them. Anyway i took the wounded ones out (feeling very bad/upset/guilty) andp ut them in a new cage where they were both sleeping snuggled with each other. Since moving them out they were very sluggish and slow responsive. Today i have gone to clean them out to find them close to death. Laying down, cold and lifeless. Very occasionally they would wriggle their legs, Was a horrible thing to see to put them out of their misery very quickly and got rid of them into the bins. I was wondering what usually causes mice to do this? (just die suddenly like that) i say it was sudden though! They were very sluggish towards the end. I thought maybe the stress they had from being with the other bigger mice? Is there anything i can do (apart from not putting them with the bigger micei n the first place of course!) is there anything i can do to prevent thme dying (if it's an illness maybe) some sort of tablet? Do you know any other reaosn as to why they could have died apart from the other mice hurting them?

Thanks Tamarah :)

Mart.

Answer
Hi,

I'm glad the babies are doing well.  They need to be separated at age 4 weeks. Carol can happily live with the girls.

I don't know how old the babies are.  If they are the color of the mother already they will stay that way.  If mom is brown and they are less than 10 days old, they may just have their undercoat and will become her color later. I had hybrids-- wild boy snuck into the cage with my little virgin show mouse girls!-- and they started out black but ended up brown just like their dad (not that I saw him personally!).  

The two mice who had wounds most likely died from infection.  When a mouse gets infected from a bite, it can seem totally fine for over a day after the bite as the infection spreads. Then they can die suddenly.  There could be another reason- if the cage was in contact with chemicals, or it was too cold or too hot. If it was disease and hit them that fast, the others would probably be sick too.

The only way they could have been saved from infection-- and you had no way of knowing they were even infected-- would have been to give them antibiotics. It is possible to do this with over the counter fish antibiotics. If you ever need to do this it's easy enough to search here under Natasha-Mouse-Mice-Tetracycline-Dose, or ask me.

I'm sorry about your two mice.  Have fun with the babies... you'd better start handling them now or they are going to be wild.

squeaks,

Natasha