mice illness

Question
QUESTION: Please help right away!I have six female mice all living together in a 30 gallon tank and they all seemed happy for the 4-5 days i had them. I woke up this morning to find 2 semi lethargic mice and 1 mouse that is so lethargic he only moves when i pick her up. Please help i am a first time mouse owner. I use mixed pine bedding and hey for their sleeping area. I am very concerned and fear that time is of the essence. Could this be because of the pine or is it that i have a water bowl instead of a bottle. I also only feed them twice a day for an hour is that hurting them. Please help!

ANSWER: Hi Bob,

I'm so sorry to hear that!  Both the pine and the water bowl could have caused the problem, or it could be something completely unrelated.  Pine can cause respiratory problems in some mice, so something like aspen or paper based beddings are more recommended.  Water bowls can cause wet bedding if hay or pine fall into it, and can increase the humidity in the aquarium (which are notorious for retaining humidity) that can also aid in infections.  If you need help attaching a water bottle to the aquarium, I get mine to stick using velcro tape, which sticks very well to glass.  Water bowls are also very hard to keep clean in my experience, so your mice could be dehydrated and might just need a fresher water source.

Mice won't usually overeat, so you can leave a bowl of mouse food in there 24-7 to make sure everyone is getting enough, especially since they usually eat at night.  A mouse seed mix or lab block diet would work best, and you can give them treats no more than once a day - like yogurt chips, bananas, cheerios, stale bread, or crackers spread with a light layer of peanut butter.

You say you've had them for 4-5 days, so they could have come to you already sick and just taken some time to show it.  If you can, isolate the lethargic mice from the active ones, to try and minimize any spreading of the problem.  If nothing improves within a day after changing all of this, you should try and take one of the lethargic mice to the vet.  They can give you a more definite answer of what the problem might be, and can provide the right medication if necessary.  I strongly recommend a vet visit if at all possible.

If not possible by any means, and if no improvement is shown, you can try an antibiotic (see instructions in the answer here:  http://en.allexperts.com/q/Mice-3824/2009/4/mouse-injured-cat-antibiotic.htm).  If you opt for this method, remember to treat all of the mice, even the ones that look healthy, since they were all exposed to the ill mice.

Best of luck!
-Tam

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

QUESTION: I was thinking of changing the bedding. I have eliminated dehydration as a cause because I change the water in the bowl twice a day and make sure that at night it is clear of any bedding. I also change the wet bedding out every day. I find it probable that they are lacking in food. I will begin to feed them three times a day as I am working on a science project and the feeding must be controled. Starting Monday they will have free acess to the food. I was wondering if reptile dirt bedding would be a good choice as it allows spilt water to evaporate and would consequencially lower the humidity. THis bedding I use for all my repiles and arachnids and therefore I know it is safe if swallowed during feeding. I have other questions as well but due to my lack of time right now I can no longer continue at this moment. I look forward to your response and Thank you for your help.

         Bob

ANSWER: Hello again, Bob,

I actually respectfully disagree with you both about the water and the bedding.  The water bowl will increase humidity even if it never seeps into the bedding, and mice are much more reluctant to drink from it.  In the wild, there is no water in the mouse's den, so they usually try to cover it up with bedding to dry it out.  A bottle solves this problem, as well as providing a measurable way to see how many milliliters of water are consumed each day.

When bedding evaporates water into the tank, that actually raises the humidity.  The humidity is a measure of the moisture in the air, and the glass walls of the tank tend to trap it in more than other cage types.  Therefore, it is best if you eliminate the source of moisture to begin with, since breathing wet air can aggravate infections.  It is also important to note that what is safe for tarantulas and snakes to ingest might not be safe for rodents.  I still recommend aspen, as it seems to cause the fewest problems.

If you need to strictly control the diet you could separate all of the mice, provide a measured amount of food on a free-access diet, and measure how much has been eaten each day.  Unfortunately, restricting it in any way will affect the mouse's health and habits, which are likely to skew your results greatly.  It would be a good idea to isolate all new mice for 3 weeks prior to relying on their health, as even mice from pet stores tend to carry numerous problems.  As a control, you could also consider freezing any bedding you pick prior to using it, as bedding of any type can sometimes carry mites from the factory that could also affect their health.  May I ask what your experiment is?

I look forward to hearing back from you,
Tam

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

QUESTION: I would first like to tell you thank you. Your effort has really been appriciated. I would also like to let you know that although my information about humidity may have been said differently than I ment, I agree with you. The water bowl, glass walls and bedding will trap humidity. The repto bedding I was insisting apon using was only because I needed it ergently. I had no time to go out and get other bedding as I was just about to leave for school.

Also I am happy to inform you that I have figured out what was causing the health issues. After carfuly reviewing the simpoms of the mice I noticed a connection. The mouse that was very ill was acting strange since the day I had her. She was very timid and kept to herself as well as being slower to move about the cage. I notice this connection and, although I had already removed that mouse, I made sure to clean the whole cage as to not spread this any further. This must have been a virus that started with this one mouse and spread.

I am very sad to report though that the badly infected mouse has passed. She had brought in the viris and she had it the worst. I ham happy she is not suffering anymore.

The viris though seems to have calmed down. I will still watch it in the coming weeks though.

I am no expert in mice nor in many other pets. I am just a regular person who loves animals. I have grown up with them. I am 13 and in my life I have had about 60-70 pets. I usually help kids at my school with pet problems and I recently broke my friends fear of dogs. I am no expert on this by any means. I have experience for my age and that is all. I thank you for your help because you sertainly know much more than I do. Now, you wanted to know about my project.

I would like to let you know that this project was not intended to starve or hurt mice. I am testing their intelegence and memory. I am basing this on articals I have read and my knowlage of mammals. My project, in a nutshell, takes the same principal as training a dog. And I know what your thinking. Mice anrent anywhere near as smart as dogs. But, that is wat where testing. So the basic idea is that for a week I feed the six (now 5) mice twice a day on two different groups. Three mice feed at one time and the other three right after. This is done at the same time each day. They are put in a sepperate tank for a half hour and feed untill that time is up. The first group to be fed is a group which simply feeds in the seperate cage for a half hour. The next group however is swapped witht the first group and a pattern I made is in vissable sight. The idea is that they wil associate the pattern with reward like a dog and a treat/trick. After a week of this I will place them in the maze, one at a time, and time them. The ones that ate without the pattern pressent will just go through the maze with a seed at the end as an insentive. The other three mice, with the pattern, will do the same but the pattern will be tiled on the floor of the maze in the correct path. We will then see if the times are better for the group with the pattern or vise versa. Then I write a report and present it at the science fair and im done.

After the project is over I will keep the mice as pets and thats when they will have 100%, 24/7 acsess to the food. Like a regular pet would. I love them and dont want to hurt them. I would never do that, i lovce animals to much. In fact 85% of my pets have lived longer than life expectancy. The vet has told me that as I usually bring them there in old age. So please dont think im trying to hurt my mice. Im not that kind of person. This is y i asked of your help.

Thanks for listening, please reply with any advice and after my project is over i will be sure to tell you the results. I look forward to hearing from you.

         Fellow mouse lover,
         Bob  

Answer
Hi Bob!

I definitely did not mean to sound like I was against your project, heh, I used to work in a mouse lab and know better than most that it doesn't always mean torture.  :)  Good deal about the bedding, I'm glad we're on the same page.  After about 2-3 weeks with no symptoms in your unaffected mice, you can assume they are more or less in acceptable health.  This is the usual isolation period, give or take a bit, that most mouse hobbyists use when bringing home new mice.  It takes a while, but it keeps big things from spreading and that's always worth it!  I'm sorry to hear about the sickest mouse and I hope the rest stay healthier.

Mice are certainly intelligent!  I would love to hear the results of your project when it is through, if that isn't too much trouble.  May I make a few small suggestions, though?  First, consider peanut butter as the reward at the end of the maze, as it makes a quite noticeable aroma to the mouse and can be spread across a cracker to make a perfect treat that no mouse can resist.  I'm concerned they might not smell the seed from the other side of the maze.  Second, you might want to consider observing your mice and seeing when they naturally eat before you begin the project.  Most mice are active at night, and therefore do most of their eating at night - feeding them during the day might alter your results if they don't eat as much simply because they are tired.  Lastly, do make sure they are in perfect health when you start, as controlling their diet when they most need the nutrients (if any are still sick, that is) could wind up stopping your experiment right in the middle.  Oh, and also you also don't have to just rely on times, as a second form of measurement you could record the paths they take on printed pictures of the maze, so the reviewers can see if the conditioned mice follow a more direct path.

I don't think you're cruel to mice or animals, ha, and I really didn't mean to come off that way.  It's good to meet a fellow animal enthusiast, especially one involved with science!  :)

Good luck with your experiment!
-Tam