# What could it be? (random death)



## Kitei (Feb 4, 2013)

Was checking my mice this evening, as I tend to do before I sleep, and I came across my siamese girl dead in her cage. No visible clue to how she died. Her current cagemate, my himi doe that she came with, was cold and unresponsive on the floor. In my (very novice) opinion, she was showing signs of dehydration, but I'd seen her drinking this morning, the bottle is working fine, and it must have only been 7 or so hours before I saw them drinking.

Managed to bring my himi around, and she's perked up considerably; she's no longer staggering when she walks, she's a lot warmer, and she's eating and drinking now. I've given her a shallow bowl of water on a shelf, so it's easier for her to reach, next to her food. Fingers crossed that she'll survive the night. x.x (she doesn't want to get off my hand at the moment, so I reckon she's still feeling cold)

I have no idea what went wrong; none of the other cages are affected, and as I said, Hwin has definitely perked up. They're on aspen shavings, dust free, with some sort of shredded paper bedding. Can't remember which without looking at the packing, but it's the same as the others anyway. There's no mites on her, nor on the dead siamese, or any of the living mice, and she had food and water available.

Has anyone got any ideas as to what could have caused this?


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

Sorry to hear of your loss.

Is it just me or has there been an increase throughout the UK where mice are being found dead for no apparent reason.

Possible causes drafts, wild rodent access, heart failure, shock.

Prolonged exposure to drafts will cause the mice to become sick not mormally a problem if kept indoors but there may have been a draft which affects one cage but not others.

Wild rodent access to food or bedding either at current location or distributors or manufacturing, the latter two obviously have no control over but may have contaminated some part of food or bedding which the mice have eaten, some illnesses can take upto 4 weeks to show symptoms but is lethal usually death within hours of spotting.

Heart attack usually associated with older animals but can also happen in young just like any other animal, cause can be anything from genetical defect of the heart to extreme stress.

Shock, this is not very common but can caused by car lights as they go past the window unexpectedly, or by loud noises modern day fireworks are a major cause of shock related symptoms at certain times of the year.

Without full autopsy being carried out one will very seldom know the exact cause of sudden deaths. As all mice are individuals what may be lethal to one mouse in a cage may not be as lethal to another.


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## visitor (Jan 8, 2011)

Is there a heater/fire nearby? I just wonder if carbon monoxide poisoning could be a possibility.
Failing that check the bedding to see if the water bottle leaked as the mice may have been lying on wet bedding, hence the chilling. It seems odd that warming her up brought her round, and only mice in one cage were affected.
Aerosol sprays need to be ruled out too.
Hope it proves to be a one off and your mice stay healthy and well from now on.


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## Kitei (Feb 4, 2013)

She lasted the night and is looking a lot perkier this morning, though still not 100%. She's also missing her friend, I think. Hopefully I'll have myself some more siamese girls soon, and they can go together after quarantine.

I think if it were a draft causing sickness, I'd probably see other symptoms? They literally went from being healthy to dead and half-dead within the space of 8 hours. And again, with a lot of the others, I'd be wondering why it was only one cage effected. They're all in the same area, though she was on the higher shelf.

Carbon monoxide could be a possibility; they do have fresh air coming in, but if the wind was fairly still, I guess you could still have a build up. No sprays have been used near them that I know of, though again, I can't be certain and will definitely be asking around.

All the others are still fine today, so it does just appear to be a one off. Hopefully she recovers fully; she's quite important to my breeding plans, aha, and she's a sweet little girl.


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

If it were carbon monoxide poisoning all the mice would be affected and not just the two. Carbon monoxide also more common with flame based heating systems that are faulty. Drafts are weird as can be very directional. Be worth checking to see if any drafts coming into the room when the window is closed, especially around the framework.

As stated in previous post wild rodent access to feed beyond your control is also a possibility, must update my post on my colony that got wiped out. All died through contaminated feed, lucky for me I disposed of the current feed and used backup feed from different supplier after the death of the first mouse in the colony.

As per my post on sudden death was healthy upto 2 hours prior to showing signs that something was wrong and then died. It would appear also that not all the feed was contaminated but just a small pocket as if a wild rodent had just urinated the once but that was enough when fed to my colony. Contamination was in the bag so must have occurred at manufacturers rather than distribution warehouse, I no longer use that brand of feed but have changed over to bucktons hamster food as base mix as found it to be alot cleaner than other feed although slightly more expensive.

All you can do is keep her warm and quiet and away from others at the moment unless you want to place a cage mate that is something you do not mind losing to keep her company whilst she recovers back to health.


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## Kallan (Aug 16, 2009)

Was she actually getting water when she was at the bottle? Sometimes mine get airlocks, and I can tell because the bottle sounds noisier than normal when the mice are trying to drink - they may be at it and moving the ballcock but not actually getting any fluid from it.

A mouse should be able to go 7 hours without drinking and not be dehydrated.


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## fancyteddy1 (Mar 14, 2013)

Sorry about your loss 

Mice are prey animals, which means if they are sick they will hide it very well for as long as they can. I find that in pet store mice, especially, there are lots of "unexplained deaths". They could have been sick for a while without you knowing, which would account for them taking such a turn for the worse in such a short time. Again, sorry for your loss. Sometimes we just can't explain these things  Hope the surviving girl pulls through. <3


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