My mouse keeps sneezing.

Question
QUESTION: Hi Dawn,

I have a female albino mouse. Well I think she is albino..white with pink eyes, anyway. She has been sneezing a lot for the past 2 or 3 weeks I'd say. I don't think it's her bedding because I use shredded newspaper and her cage is clean. She doesn't do anything else, just sneezes and then cleans off her nose. But she sneezes a lot so I thought there might be something wrong. Is there anything I can do for her at home. I can not take her to the vet. Please help. Thanks!

Brittany

ANSWER: Thanks for taking the time to use all experts.

Rats sometimes have allergies or "cold" like any other animal. What you need to look at is the breathing that she is exhibiting. Is it clicking sounds when she breaths? This may show that she is having congestion. If there is a gurgling sound then she is probably congested in the chest and needs a vet. If her breathing fine and she is eating/drinking well then you can keep a close eye on her.

There are some things that you can do to make her feel better and have the sneezing stop.
1)What you can do to help, is give the rat one *chocolate chip ( they are known to help with these problems and studies have proven that chocolate is not harmful on rats like it is on dogs) just one not any more. Giving one chocolate chip a day won't even hurt your rat, but it has no nutritional value to your rat.

2)Another thing that works great is echinacea, rats like the taste of it, which makes it easy to give. Just open up the capsule and let them eat some out of it, or if you have the liquid echinacea you can add a couple of drops to their water bottle. It has been know to treat rats with great success.

3)Another thing is give your rat rags or old towels that are washed in ABC (original), or ivory snow to sleep on if you suspect allergies.
***PLEASE DO NOT use PINE or CEDAR shavings they are dangerous on rats or any other small animal, which could be the cause of all this.

4)Also, if you find your rat got bad after you washed the floor with something or used a air freshener, try something else that is mild. I find that my hairless is very sensitive to what I use on the floors.

**If your rat has lots of http://www.ratballs.com/RatTails/Tails081.html(mucus) in it's eyes you could use a clean cloth that is wet with saline solution or just warm water and clean the eyes, after they are clean you can put a small amount of polysporin in each eye, which will help if any seem to be inflamed.

I hope that this helps and here are some site that may further help:

http://www.trifl.org/cedar.shtml

http://www.rmca.org/Articles/herbal.htm

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Pet-Rats-3537/2009/1/chronic-sneezing-rat.htm




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

QUESTION: Hi again,

I do not have a rat, it is a mouse. Can I still do the same things for my mouse as you said for the rat? I noticed that she was making a clicking sound when she breathes but that has stopped. That was happening around a week ago. Also, I have 4 other mice in the cage with her. It is a 55 gallon fish tank so it's big enough but will they get sick from her too?

Answer
I am sorry I have a habit of writing rat instead of mice. I would separate them if you can to prevent anything from spreading. As far as the same things mice and rats are usually hand in hand with same treatment just consult your vet because you always want to be doing the safest thing you can being mice are so small.

I am glad to hear that the clicking noise seems to stop. Just keep a close eye on her. Mice(all rodents) tend to hide being sick as much as possible because it is instinct because they are prey. Make sure to find a good vet that knows about rodents and here is site that may help in that search.

http://www.bmslab.com/index.php?pid=213

Thanks for following up and for asking.