# Yet another - Pregnant, or something else?



## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

This is the second fawn doe that I got from jadeguppy.

She picked them up from the petstore on June 22. 1 month ago - they were in a mixed community cage.

They got to me on June 26, with one male still with them - albeit young. He died on June 28th, so that was the very last exposure she had to a male.

It is now July 22, and she looks like this:



















She has looked like this for over a week, with no changes. Her belly is very squishy, like a water balloon that isn't overfilled. She looks and acts completely healthy. She eats, she moves around, she looks after the other babies in the cage. I originally thought she was pregnant, but now I really am not so sure. She'd really be pushing it for her due date, if she was.

Thoughts?


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## jadeguppy (Jun 4, 2011)

I was just reading a thread about some does that store the sperm and essentially get pregnant later. I have no idea if this is what is going on, but I find the possibility interesting.


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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

If she isn't pregnant this could be bloat or pyrometria...does she poo normally? Does she have ANY sort of discharge from the vaginal opening?


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

She looks to be 100% dry underneath.

I have moved her to an isolation cage with just a paper towel lining so I can monitor her bathroom habits - since she was in a cage with another doe and 9 babies, its hard to know whose poo is whose! About how often does a healthy mouse go? When would I be able to check and know whether to be concerned or not?


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

If you've got no poo in 24hrs, I'd be seriously concerned.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

I just checked on her and there is plenty of poop already, all looks like normal pellets.

So, what should I do? Wait a few more days and see what happens? Start her on some antibiotics... or maybe iver?


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

I'd give it a few more days, but weigh her to see if she's gaining or losing weight. Do you by chance have a weight to compare against?


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## m137b (Sep 22, 2010)

That shape looks distinctly pregnant. She does look about ready to pop, so I'd give her a few more days. I'd definitly hold off on antibiotics, would be bad if she were pregnant.


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## Galaxy (May 25, 2011)

Can mice get water retention?


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

Lots of poops overnight so I put her back in with the other doe... if she does happen to give birth I'd like it to happen there.

I can weigh her when I get home from work, but the only thing I have to compare to is just a few days after she arrived... she had started gaining but I slacked off and stopped tracking it. Kicking myself in the butt now, of course.


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## ccoryjohnn (Jul 2, 2010)

Wow. She sure does look pregnant... hope it's not bloat. When you feel her, she doesn't feel lumpy at all?


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

She doesn't feel at all lumpy... just squishy. Like I said, its like a water balloon, but not an overfilled one. One with give.

She weighs 57 grams.

On 6/28 she weighed 30 grams.
On 7/1 she weighed 39 grams.

This picture was taken 7/1:









If it was bloat wouldn't there be some symptoms? Wouldn't she be looking ill by now? The weight gain started a at the beginning of the month, so that's a long time to go without looking ill, I would think...


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## Galaxy (May 25, 2011)

I had this happen to some of my mice in the past & there wasn't any babies, thats why I asked if mice could get water retention. If she is soft and squishy then it could be something like that, couldn't it?


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## bethmccallister (Mar 5, 2010)

She actually looks like some of my brindles with the obesity gene. They can get rather large in the middle and stay like that. I've had people that I've adopted mice to contact me to ask if they could be pregnant some how and what to do about it. They are all just fat and just in the middle. Try to feed her oatmeal and grain products without any fat for a while and see if it helps any...mine don't loose weight on that diet but they at least stop gaining. I swear some of them are wider then they are long...lol. Nice hand warmers.


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## Galaxy (May 25, 2011)

Ok. Heres something ..... Can mice have phantom pregnancies?


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

I'm sure they could Galaxy but I doubt they'd get that heavy from a phantom pregnancy. It would just make them lactate and gain a little weight.


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## Galaxy (May 25, 2011)

Ok. I had a chinchilla colour mouse who this happened to. Are they prone to obesity? She was in with 3 other pregnant does at the time and she started getting bigger and bigger. Back then I didn't know that pregnant mice needed extra food stuffs (I was only 15 at the time) so they didn't have anything extra and so, by the time the other does gave birth she was huge and there was no babies and then shortly after the 3 does had given birth she went back to almost normal. What was going on there?


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

As an aside, I have three of the does from this trip as well, and two of them are looking super-sharp. Trim, fit, shiny as all get-out, and neither getting heavy even as my other mice are. I find a change in diet usually causes some initial weight gain as the mice decide the food looks more tasty than what they used to have. Those two girls I've got from this line are having no trouble, and the buck from that line is just about to see his first litter born.

The other doe I got from that line, however, was very young and quickly developed an abdominal issue once she got here. She had a small black spot on her belly that grew and grew. It was something under the skin visible through her skin, and after I saw that she wasn't leaving healthy-looking droppings, she died. As young as she was and as emaciated but round as she got right before she died, I'm fairly certain it was megacolon. That was a very very young doe, though, just weaned before the trip. For this lady, we're already at three weeks since her initial weight gain (30% increase in weight is significant), and she's doubled in weight since her original weight. At her age, megacolon wouldn't make as much sense as it did for the tiny doe, but I'm very interested to hear about what happens with her. Perhaps the two are related.

Galaxy: I'd assume your doe was pregnant and either ate the babies or miscarried. I had a doe I had to remove from the program because she just kept doing this.


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## Galaxy (May 25, 2011)

Maybe, the day she was looking back to normal she died in the evening. I had another mouse who seemed to be pregnant and her belly was moving around as tho she had babies but this went on for ages and I'm talking more than 3 weeks. Could she have been full of worms? She died one morning as I was getting ready for school with her little arm just reaching over the side of the rotastak attic bedroom.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

Worms was my other thought, with this girl. I've never experienced them in mice, so I'm not sure what to look for, but one sight did mention bloating.

The babies are almost old enough to wean. Can I treat them for worms as a precaution? If so, what, and how much? Of course, I'm assuming this would be detrimental, if she was pregnant...


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

I used ivermectin (Eqvalan paste diluted in water at a very specific dilution) to get rid of pinworms in a pregnant mouse (and her cagemates) to no detriment. While the study I read (and can send you, if you like), cited a slightly higher rate of embryo abortion in the ivermectin-treated mice, the mice once born were not deformed statistically more than control. That said, I'd wait until everybody's weaned to go ahead and treat them. And remember that the treated mice (or their babies) can't be used as feeders for a while. Others here use iver-on for mites/lice, but I'm not sure how well an external treatment would work on internal parasites. Worms seem to be pretty uncommon in the fancy, though those of us working with pet store mice do seem to get them from time to time.

The treatment study determining use of Ivermectin (Eqvalan brand specifically) is cited on the AFRMA page here: http://www.afrma.org/med_ivermectin.htm
The study about whether ivermectin (and another drug often used with ivermectin in labs) hurt pregnant or nursing mice is unfortunately a pay-for thing, but I saved a copy on my old computer that I can dig up if you'd like.

The dilutions for that require a good bit of math (how much solution do you need to make up? How much paste gets you the right amount of mg for that volume? etc), but it's nothing that solving for x a couple times won't do.

Edited to add: You can't use ivermectin on nursing does, because ivermectin is transmitted via breastmilk and is toxic to the pups.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

> 8 mg of ivermectin per 1L of drinking water


If I'm reading that right - there's really no math involved. Just get a 1L jug, 8 mg of ivermectin, and fill with water. Or am I overlooking something entirely?

ETA: Oops, copied the rat dosage first time.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Because the paste isn't pure ivermectin, you do need to figure out how much paste you need to make 8mg, and that depends on the percentage of ivermectin in the paste. And I wouldn't put the cash into making a L for each round, unless you want to treat all your mice (or you have enough mice infected that they go trough a liter of water that quickly).


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

Oooh, right. That makes sense. I do have liquid ivermectin.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

Still no change...


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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

She looks honestly a little too huge for worms...I had worms in the mousery one time  and they just had round looking bellies, but not bulging like your doe seems to be. Honestly this does seem like pregnancy, but I would be on the lookout for these worms too. A good way to tell is dissect a few fresh poops-the worms will most likely look like small white strings.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

Again, still no change. I think I might be ready to try the ivermectin, just for the heck of it.

We've had a horse have a false pregnancy before... can mice have them?


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

> Mice become pseudopregnant following an estrus in which the female is bred by an infertile male, resulting in "sterile mating".[8] Like dogs, mice are spontaneous ovulators. However, they will not become pseudopregnant following an estrus in which the female is not bred because the corpus luteum will degrade rapidly in the absence of coitus. When the female is bred by an infertile male, the corpus luteum persists without an embryo, leading to pseudopregnancy. The female will develop mammary glands, lactate, and build nests in the pseudopregnant state. Pseudopregnancy in mice is somewhat common in laboratory mice because it is often induced for the purpose of implanting embryos into a surrogate dam, but is uncommon in wild mice because most wild males are fertile and will genuinely impregnate the female.[9]


I just found this. She was with a very young male (and who knows how many others at the pet store?)... I wonder if he or another tried to breed her before he was capable of impregnating a female, and this is the outcome. Hmmmmm...


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## m137b (Sep 22, 2010)

But you'd think eventually without pups to suckle, her milk would go dry, her uterus would return to normal, and she'd go back into estrus.

I'd revisit the pyometra suggestion, since it involves the uterus, and her shape is very similar to pregnancy ie an enlarged uterus. pyometra in smaller animals usually don't cause any acute symptoms until rupture, and vaginal discharge only occurs in some animals, not all. Have you given her any antibiotics?


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## jadeguppy (Jun 4, 2011)

Very interesting quote.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

I have not given antibiotics. I can pick some up today to try.


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