# Balloon mouse (Disturbing images)



## Velvet_Meece (Apr 20, 2009)

Anyone ever had a mouse blow up like a balloon? and i don't mean with fluid or just its stomach filled with gas, i mean literally under its skin including its skull, just fill with air til it can't hardly move?

I went down last night to feed everyone and found a baby about 5 days old in the nest with the others and this had happened to it, made me feel rather uneasy to be honest, and i made a split second decision to cull it there and then as it was just too disturbing and i wasn't going to put it through the trauma of trying to drain the air or anything...

I took a pic before i culled it if anyones interested in seeing, but just wondered if anyone else had witnessed this or any ideas as to what causes it...


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## Serena (Dec 29, 2011)

I would be very interested in seeing the picture.
Gas under the skin has basically 2 ways it can get there: outside air that gets there trough a trauma of the skin or a lung/trachea injury or it is gas produced in the subcutis by gas-building bacteria (e.g. Clostridium sp.).
Since the head was emphysematous, too, bacteria are more probable in my opinion. A skin trauma has to be rather forceful with skin-pulling to do similar things in dogs and cats. Normally in such cases you see wounds and haematomas. If the cause is a trauma in the upper airways, it often doesn't concern the whole bodysurface, but rather the headarea, since a certain amount of pressure is needed to lift the skin and create an emphysem. And a lung trauma had to be really severe with a hole in the thoracic wall.
In either way, the chances for the baby would have been very, very slim, imho.


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

I was actually going to post on the exact same topic! I've had three adult does fill up with gas. I don't know what it is.

Mouse 1) I went down to feed and found a dead doe in her cage. She was blown up like a ballon, her legs weren't even touching the floor. I've never seen anything like it before, but just assumed that the gas was from abnormally rapid decomposition and popped her in the freezer for bin day.

Mouse 2) About a month later, I found a mouse in the same exact same condition - but still alive! I culled her.

Mouse 3) Again, two weeks later (last night) I found another live mouse like this and culled her.

None of these mice weighed anything, they were so light. To counteract the weight of the organs and bones I assume the gas they were filled with was lighter than air, probably methane (a reasonable assumption I think because the body makes methane naturally and it is lighter than air). I don't know what caused this or why these mice were affected, so if anyone has any ideas I'd also be pleased to hear them.


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## Velvet_Meece (Apr 20, 2009)

I have found deceased doe's that had ballooned before, but it was usually round the middle area almost like the stomach had filled with gas. But this is just plain weird, only a baby but from the hips up just ballooned including the top arms and head, only the pelvic area, back legs and nose seems unaffected.

I'll upload pics now and you'll see what i mean.


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## Velvet_Meece (Apr 20, 2009)

Excuse filthy pot, just grabbed anything.


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## WoodWitch (Oct 18, 2009)

Wooooah, never seen that before. New one on me!!
How unpleasant :shock:


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## maddeh (Jul 14, 2011)

Wow... that.... makes me feel a little strange. How odd...! :shock:


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

Oh my goodness, that is the most horrible thing I've seen for a while :shock:

Yeah, these does weren't like that, they were full of gas in their abdomen :?


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## Velvet_Meece (Apr 20, 2009)

Strange huh, it was fine the night before when i last checked. All siblings are fine too.

I guess like Serena said, it could have possible been lung trauma, and as the baby inhaled it basically blew itself up as air escaped into the chest cavity...


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## Kallan (Aug 16, 2009)

That's subcutaneous emphysema. Two sources - trauma to respiratory tract or bacterial infection. More like damage to respiratory tract in this case, as the swelling seems to be too marked to be infection.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

Have you culled it? I would want to know what happened if you popped it. . .

I have seen something EXTREMELY similar where an ASF had a balloon of air on it's head and back. After the bubble was popped and deflated, the ASF went on to live a completely normal life.


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## Velvet_Meece (Apr 20, 2009)

I did, its in the freezer. With such a young animal with such a large area of swelling i just didn't see reason to pop it. If it had been a weaner or adult animal that i could keep in sterile conditions and isolate it to monitor recovery i may have given it a chance. It was one of the smaller of the litter that i had planned to cull anyway before i found a surrogate for them instead.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

Here's the ASF I was talking about.










After the inflated area was pricked, it deflated (air came out) and the ASF is still alive and kicking to this day (months and months later).


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## Cait (Oct 3, 2008)

I've never seen anything like that (I'm glad to say) but I appreciate you sharing the photos. If I ever see this I definitely won't forget these photos!


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## Velvet_Meece (Apr 20, 2009)

Aww bless, how strange. As i say, had the mouse been a bit older i may have tried it, but it was so small and helpless, just seemed kinder to put it out quickly.

I've seen vets do it to hedgehogs that have suffered the same thing before, but theres a difference between an animal the size of a football and an animal the size of a cheesy wotsit!


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## Cait (Oct 3, 2008)

Mouse = cheesy wotsit - what a disturbing thought! :lol:


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## Velvet_Meece (Apr 20, 2009)




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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

I am so happy that we have this website to share the odder mouse occurences on...but how absolutely terrible to find that, i am sorry you guys have!


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

What a great name for that snack! Cheesy wotsits!? 

We call them cheez poofs over here. :lol: 
That might not translate well to other countries though where poof is a slang term. . . :?


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## Cait (Oct 3, 2008)

Yeah you wouldn't be allowed to call it that in the UK. Though there is a food called *******, which I'm guessing wouldn't go down well in the US!


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

MouseBreeder said:


> Yeah you wouldn't be allowed to call it that in the UK. Though there is a food called *******, which I'm guessing wouldn't go down well in the US!


 :lol: Talk about lost in translation! Sheesh!


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## Shadowrunner (Sep 26, 2011)

They have snack cakes called bimbos here xD

They only time I have ever seen something like that is when a male sneaked into one of my nursery cages and bit one of the fuzzies on the head.
Is that a injury there on the top of it's head there in the photo?


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

If it's ever seen again, *Kallan*, is culling the only option, or could a combination of antibiotics and releasing the gas save the mouse?


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## Frizzle (Oct 6, 2011)

^^^
From my farm days (oh yeah, one of my cow speals) sometimes calves from the sale barns would turn out to have problems (like no butt hole). Occastionally we'd get ones who appeared to be hay bellies, but it would turn out that they were instead filled with air. With varing success, my dad would take a hypodermic needle and puncture the sides of the bovine for air to escape. I think the goal was deflating the animal on a regular basis with the hopes that it was an injury that would heal itself given time. You didn't have to worry about all the air, because once the problem had fixed itself, the air just gets reabsorbed by the body.


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