# Eye issues?



## Athiena146 (Jun 1, 2016)

My male pew seems to be loosing his fur around his eyes. Nothing seems to be bothering them that i can see, but his cagemate does seem to be cleaning them often. I did change their bedding 3 weeks ago to aspen chips but this just happened recently with his eyes. Could this be over grooming or something else?


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

antibiotic drops for eye infection are readily available under various brand names the active ingredient being chloramphenicol.You can safely use if you want to err on the side of caution. https://www.google.co.uk/aclk?sa=L&ai=D ... IJQ&adurl=


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## Athiena146 (Jun 1, 2016)

So eye drops for people can be used for them with the antibiotics? There's no way in telling what it could be though?


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## Miss Mousekewitz (Jul 15, 2016)

It is true that antibiotic eye drops for humans can also be used to successfully treat eye infections of mice. You just have to adapt the daily dosage and be careful with the time span over which you apply the drops. Beside chloramphenicol, there are also drops available with ofloxacin, for mice I prefer the second one, because of milder side effects.

However, if your mouse looses fur around its eyes this is not a symptom for eye infection.
Pulling out fur at one site can be a sign of stereotypical behaviour which developed because of boredom or other wrong housing conditions.
...but I think that it is more likely that your mouse is bothered by some fungi living on its skin.

Do you observe that the mouse is cleaning or scratching himself more often than usual? Does the bald spot get bigger?
If yes, this could be a sign for some kind of fungi. Mice can get them from all kinds of sources and they can be hard to get rid of and a danger for your mouse's health.

:!: In any case you should take your mouse to a vet, he/she will be able to get you appropriate medication and advice for disinfection of the cage :!:


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## Athiena146 (Jun 1, 2016)

He hadn't been scratching more than usual just his cagemate cleaning around his eyes. His cagemate hasn't had any issues and no other fur loss anywhere else. Most of the vets here won't look at mice because they are so small.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

you are right about the vets, mostly an expensive pointless trip .My vet won't see them,have to go to an exotics,waste of time though.Chloramphenicol is for any eyes,not just human.The vet will prescribe exactly the same for dog,mouse etc but obviously not branded as optrex just the generic.No need to worry about adapting the dosage either one or two drops per eye is all you can manage to get in.As you say it's probably nothing at all to worry about.If you want to treat for fungal infection buy imaverol but it is rather expensive for just one mouse,a cheap over the counter alternative again marketed for humans is cream with the active ingredient clotrimazole marketed for the treatment of thrush and athletes foot.Body fur can be treated with the powder version.


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## Miss Mousekewitz (Jul 15, 2016)

Sorry to hear that the vets in your area don't care to treat mice :shock:

But I don't exactly understande why you think that there is an eye infection. As far as I understood there is only fur missing around the eyes and nothing else so far!?
In this case this is a skin issue and not an eye issue or am I not getting something obvious here?^^

If you want to treat against dermal fungi, I just posted the medication used for a mouse with dermatophytosis in another thread. 
It could be also mites, in this case stronghold is an effective classic.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

Yes you are missing that I didn't say it was an eye infection,I said if you WANTED to err on the side of caution medication is available (without the cost of a vet).


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## Athiena146 (Jun 1, 2016)

I wasn't sure what it was. I was trying to cover everything it could possibly be and ask for advice since I never had a mouse have an issue like this before. Thank you for everyones advice though. I'm gonna try for the foot powder treatment first to see if it will help out.

Wouldn't mites affect all mice? Although it would be hard to tell if the cagemate does have the same issue since she is a fuzzy


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

It sounds like its possible the others are just over grooming, I had two does together and the dominant one groomed the others face so much around her eyes that the skin was bare, split them up and the hair grew back straight away


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