# Mouse Is Turning Color Please Help!



## fancy-mouse-for-life (Apr 3, 2016)

Alright, so one of our mice (my boyfriends moms white mouse, Nester) is turning dark in some areas. She was completely white with a little siamese brown spot on the bridge of her nose when we got her, but now she is turning dark behind her head on her neck, on her back, and on her thighs. She has no hair loss but she does have a small sneeze. I want to separate Nester from my mouse (her sister Ellie) because of the sneeze, but I would feel bad because they already lost their other sister (Angel got loose from her rollie ball and the cats got her), and I hear that it's always best to buy 3 sister mice in case one dies so that they will still have each other and not fall too badly into depression. So I am worried that splitting up Ellie (my mouse) and Nester (the mouse with the sneeze that is changing color) will put a lot of stress on them since they will be alone. Or if Nester recovers okay that when I go to put them back together, they might not remember each other and may possibly attack each other. I am new to owning mice, so I am not sure what would happen.

So I went on google real quick and all I really found on the issue was this post: https://mysmelly.com/Archive/ColourChan ... j/post.htm
Nester is turning dark in the same U-pattern on her bum/hips (that is the darkest area, her back is starting to darken out but very lightly) as the mouse in the above post. The mouse from that article died and the owner noticed that when she removed the body, there seemed to be small splinters on the bottom of the mouse. I have inspected Nester thoroughly since our mice are used to me handling them, and I see no splinters, though they do have two wooden hides available to them that they love to gnaw on. I change out all the bedding once a week and once a month I scrub down the entire cage with "All Living Things Cage Cleaner & Deodorizer." They have access to two wooden hides, two large running wheels, a large nesting area, a small nesting area, and a horizontal tube roundabout. The cage is plastic with lots of air flow available. They also always have fresh water available through a despensor, and fresh food. Something later mentioned in the post I linked is that the posters friend of a friend has owned rodents for a long time and mentioned one of their rats having the same problem. It turns out that rat had cancer, and tumors were growing under the darkened areas of the fur.

Also, I don't think her fur is stained. I gave her a very short bath the other week (she was sneezing before then, I used warm water without soap) and nothing washed out.
Their bedding has not changed, but I have been slowly changing their diet to a new brand of food for about a month now. All of their stool is solid and normal.
We've had the mice since January 2nd, and Nester started changing color around March 20th.
The people at the store said the mice were 3 months old when we purchased them, so if they are correct about their age, then that would make our mice 6 months old now.

So I want to know if you guys know anything about this, or if you can find anything about this, and your opinions on separating Ellie and Nester so Ellie doesn't possibly start getting the sneezies? It would be a big help, thank you!









Circled in red is Nester when we first got her. The other pictures were taken April 3rd, 2016.


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## WoodWitch (Oct 18, 2009)

Hi...

Can you please post a picture of the mouse, we would have a much better idea if we could see. 
How does the mouse seem, healthy and in decent condition, or wasting and fading? It sounds, initially, like there is not too much to worry about, it sounds like you have a siamese mouse that is naturally moulting into a darker coat. This happens and can be quite an astounding change in colour.

With the sneezing, it could be anything and her condition will tell what needs to be done. I wouldn't seperate them as the other mouse will likely have it too (symptoms or not) and the stress of losing cagemates might be enough to exacerbate the situation. You might like to try antibiotics.


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## fancy-mouse-for-life (Apr 3, 2016)

WoodWitch said:


> Hi...
> 
> Can you please post a picture of the mouse, we would have a much better idea if we could see.
> How does the mouse seem, healthy and in decent condition, or wasting and fading? It sounds, initially, like there is not too much to worry about, it sounds like you have a siamese mouse that is naturally moulting into a darker coat. This happens and can be quite an astounding change in colour.
> ...


Sorry, this was my first post and I was in a hurry to post it so I overlooked the image option. I have edited the post to include pictures. I hope it is just her fur changing naturally, like you mentioned. I am really knowledgeable about horse genetics, and know some dog genetics, but I know nothing about mouse genetics yet so I had no idea that Siamese turned darker with age. As for Nester, she is active and normal. She is eating, drinking, cleaning herself, using the wheels, and cleaning Ellie as usual. Both mice are acting like their usual active selves. When I took those pictures of Nester she had so much fun running around that she didn't want to go back into her cage, she kept crawling out to explore more.


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## WoodWitch (Oct 18, 2009)

You can relax, that is definitely just moult


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## fancy-mouse-for-life (Apr 3, 2016)

WoodWitch said:


> You can relax, that is definitely just moult


Thank you very much!  
I'm glad that it is nothing harmful for little Nester, and am happy to gain the new knowledge about mouse color!


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## DaTank (Mar 29, 2016)

I have the exact same type of mouse going through the exact change, no worries!


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