# Need some theories - what the heck happened?



## MaidenMouse (Oct 5, 2013)

So, last night I lost one of my little ones unexpectedly.  We gave her a burial and such, but now I'm wondering, what the hell happened?

We had Muffin and Kethry in quarantine for a few weeks, and outside of Kethry's squinting (which went away when I'd take her out of their cage - think it might have been a light sensitivity issue), neither showed signs of illness.

Well, recently we put them in with Rose and Doctor, and all went well. Of course Muffin and Rose vied for dominance, but even that was fairly subdued. Yet again, no one showing signs of illness.

Until last night. I went to go check on them before the boyfriend and I had dinner, to play with them a little, and saw that while the other three were running around and playing, Muffin was just laying, hunched over, by their house. So I scooped her up - which in and of itself was an abnormality, as she was a very skittish mouse and would run if I so much as approached the tank, so doing so should not have been such an easy feat.

She was moving slowly, but only when she had to, or to get a better grip of my hand. After watching her for a minute or two, I realized she was dying - but of what cause, I have no clue! For the duration (which, I think, was actually only a few minutes - though it certainly felt like hours  ) she went from slowly moving, to unmoving, breathing heavily, opening and closing her mouth (a lot), to what I can only describe as seizing/seizuring, to finally coming to rest.

Yet again, no signs of illness had been present - no behavior change, no outward appearance change, eyes and ears had been clear, even right before the fast decline, fur was smooth and clean until after the fact.

So, my questions are these:

1) What could have possibly caused such a fast decline, with next to no outward indicator prior to the actual death?
2) What was the seizing and mouth gaping?
3) I hated watching her die. I don't know whether she suffered or not. Is there a humane way to PTS/cull a grown mouse, so that if any of my others declines like this, I can just put them out so they don't have to go the slow, painful way she seemed to?


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

1) maby stress of the intro kick in a problem she had hidden.

2) the gasping and sieasing would habe just been her dieing. The pets I had who died naturally all did it. That was befor I knew how to cull. Nurve impulses causes twitching and convolsing.

3) yes there are a few diffrent methods of culling adults, each with there pros and cons but methods can't be discussed on the public part of the forum only in the culling section or by pm so either join the culling part and post there or feel free to pm me and I'll give you a run threw of the 3 main ones.


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## MaidenMouse (Oct 5, 2013)

PPVallhunds said:


> 1) maby stress of the intro kick in a problem she had hidden.
> 
> 2) the gasping and sieasing would habe just been her dieing. The pets I had who died naturally all did it. That was befor I knew how to cull. Nurve impulses causes twitching and convolsing.
> 
> 3) yes there are a few diffrent methods of culling adults, each with there pros and cons but methods can't be discussed on the public part of the forum only in the culling section or by pm so either join the culling part and post there or feel free to pm me and I'll give you a run threw of the 3 main ones.


So would she have been 'aware' by that point, or too far gone to feel pain?  And I just put in a request for the forum - so we'll see if I can get in there. The more I know the better prepared I'll be for any eventualities.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

You can never realy know for sure but from what I've seen of a few animals who went like that, mice, gerbil and rats they all seemed out of it and unresponsive so I assume mentally they were gone


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