# Brain damaged mouse seems to be recovering



## silverdawn92 (Jan 13, 2013)

Just today, I ended up saving a nearly dead mouse by putting her in with my gerbils. The mice they are with have quickly adapted their behaviors to help this mouse. The one that nearly died (named "Ashhe") shakes and wobbles when it walks now but doesn't seem to mind and walks around and cuddles the others and eats and drinks normally. Watching them, I've noticed that they don't leave her alone and hold her up when she eats and drinks so she doesn't fall forward. They did this with the deformed arm mouse ("Kevin", a female) until she got used to holding herself on her hind legs to eat with one paw. They hold her up by standing on either side of her and leaning into her, keeping her upright. They don't leave her alone at all and at least one mouse or gerbil follows her wherever she goes. As long as she doesn't act as if she is in too much pain and the other mice continue to help her, I will watch her and let her live out her last days with them (I don't expect her to live much longer after being so close to death) Right now, she doesn't seem to be hurting, just scared and confused and weak. She's calmed down a lot in the past few hours and regained more control over herself and doesn't wobble as much. She's even starting to act like her old self, pushing the others on top of her so she has warmth to sleep in and tunneling all over the cage. I think she is like this from trauma and loss of brain cells from being so close to death. As long as she continues to calm down and recover (although a full recovery will be impossible if I am right about the brain damage), I will leave her as she is until she passes.
*edit: a few hours later and she's not shaking when stationary and barely wobbles when walking. I think she could pull through if she doesn't get sick.


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## madmouse (May 19, 2012)

This is a very intriguing story! How did the mouse get the brain damage? A stroke, an injury? And have you kept mice with gerbils before? I keep a couple of bucks with ASF does, but I've never heard of gerbils and mice living together. Either way, I'm glad your girl is doing well. It's very interesting to hear of the animals' seemingly altruistic behavior!


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## silverdawn92 (Jan 13, 2013)

This particular baby didn't make it, I think she had a heart attack or something to cause the damage, I wasn't there when she had it, I came home to her nearly dead. She just died along with her crippled friend (she was from the pet store, I _think_ her arm deformity was caused by a lethal gene defect or something along those lines. A necropsy may reveal the cause). They seem to have died at the same time.

However, this isn't the first mouse that's had brain damage like this. The other, the gold one I mentioned in the above post, survived due to the help of his siblings and mate...who also happens to be his (adopted) sibling; they just had their litter about 20 minutes ago, they had 8 but one was a stillborn. She let me hold them right away and the living ones seem fine other than a pretty tiny runt who may or may not survive the night. He had the exact same symptoms the girl had, he was just older and stronger, which probably explains why he survived. He is also the only mouse I have had survive what seemed to be a developing tumor. His siblings acted in the same way these mice were; helping him to stand up when eating and walking with him until he stopped shaking and corkscrewing. My youngest mice seem to be quite intelligent when it comes to realizing that another needs help. Their parents and grandparents do not show these behaviors.

I have kept mice with gerbils for some time now. It started when I realized that my male gerbil seemed interested in the mouse cage. At first, I thought he was being aggressive but then I realized that his behavior was characteristic of a curious gerbil. I allowed him to play with the mice for about an hour. He seemed to really enjoy it, so I let him play with them on occasion. About a month and a half ago, my old female (who has since died of old age combined with two tumors on her throat), Cross, had her litter and started to kill them off when they were almost two weeks old (they opened their eyes quite early, so they were already hopping around and walking like mice twice their age). I woke up to only four of her large litter alive.

My gerbil mother happened to be nursing babies that were only a week older at the time, so I decided that I may as well put the mice with her. She accepted them immediately and began to nurse and groom them. The babies accepted them just as well. I trust my gerbil mum, as she's had two litters of her own, so I left them with her. I separated them from her at about six weeks to see if they would get along with normal mice and one of them spontaneously developed a tumor overnight and died the next day. The other one (she looked female but also male, she may have been a hermaphrodite, I've never seen a mouse that had the two parts so close together and also looked like it had testicles) was the one who allegedly had a stroke that this post was about. The other two are going strong, even the one who was partially eaten by his mother. She had eaten most of the muscle in his back leg. He has_ somehow_ made a full recovery with no visible scars and full function of said leg.

I just put my other young mice in with the gerbils and they're being less aggressive and more kind (even toward me) than they were with the older mice. They also seem to become ill much less and their eating habits are more regular. The two adopt behaviors from each other; the mice tunnel and bury their food to save it and the youngest have even started to walk and jump more like gerbils than mice. The babies that grew up on the gerbil's milk even look more like gerbils than mice. It is very odd and somewhat adorable. In turn, the gerbils' social behaviors seem more mouse-like, such as the manner of grooming and modified dominance/submission gestures that the mice understand.

I feel like this post is almost hitting the character limit but I'm not going to make the effort to count every single letter to check X'D;


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