# Sudden Death.



## reecef (Nov 28, 2012)

Very strange, i had my male and female tans together both perfectly healthy and super tame.

Last night they both seemed slow and the male had a hunched back, we seperated them and whilst doing so the female bit me. very unusual for a mouse let alone her.
This morning i have woken to find the male dead and the female very slow unable to stand and refusing to eat.

What could be the issue?

Thanks.


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

Sorry for you loss.

Any sudden death is very hard to diagnose the actual cause due to so many factors that could be an underlying problem. As you are aware like all animals they can hide symptoms for quite some time before you are able to notice anything is wrong.

To try and shed some light onto possible causes, a sudden shock causing the animal to have a heart attack, this can be anything from a sudden loud sound to flash of headlights past a window when the room is in darkness.

Poisoning is another possibility this can occur from anything that has been cleaned within the cage to something they have breathed in, to something on their food or in the water.

Another possible cause is an ailment transferred to them from wild rodents either directly or indirectly on food or bedding.

Hunched appearance I would estimate as possible internal problem to dehydration which makes me think more on either poison or disease passed onto them from wild rodents.

Change in behaviour as in biting out of the ordinary also indicates to me that something is wrong and the animal is in pain or distress possibly through a shock of some sort.

It is difficult to give any specifics due to alot of things may also be unknown to yourself as in could their food have been contaminated by wild rodents at the seed mill etc.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

The first thing I do with an off mouse is check for lice and mites.


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## Shadowrunner (Sep 26, 2011)

Did they look puffy or feel cold?

I'm thinking about making a flow chart, since this comes up every so often.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Some meeces lose their will to live when infested with parasites, especially if they get badly bitten up. I'd treat any mousie that looks under the weather with Ivermectin solution. I had a buck who looked ready to kick off and he looked better twelve hours after he was treated. It's not a guarantee, but it is something to think about. I treat all my meeces on a prophylactic basis, because parasites can lower their resistance to other ills.


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## reecef (Nov 28, 2012)

The female who was in with the male also died this morning and when she was alive she just went slow and felt cold yes!


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

are they near a window where they could be subject to fluctuating temperatures?


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

moustress I ruled out parasite infestation due to the manner in which the mouse declined in health so rapidly, an observant keeper would have noticed condition of their animal deteriorate over several days or weeks.

reecef, again sorry to hear that the doe died also within a short space of time, I had a similar situation not so long ago whereby I lost a colony die before my eyes quickly all within 24 hours of each other. I am still awaiting the results as to the cause but did replace all food and bedding in the mousery just incase of wild rodent activity at manufactures or distributers warehouse.

The only sure way of knowing is sending the dead animals of for investigation but I still suspect in your case that the animals had a severe shock or poisoning of some kind, again both cases would be hard to find the cause as shock may have occurred whilst you were sleeping and never heard or saw anything, as to poisoning whatever it was may have been all eaten by the mice themselves and leaving no trace.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

pro-petz said:


> moustress I ruled out parasite infestation due to the manner in which the mouse declined in health so rapidly, an observant keeper would have noticed condition of their animal deteriorate over several days or weeks .


I disagree with you there, they can go from looking fine to rundown very quickly. When I first had mice had 3 get rundown overnight, while holding the worst to warm him up under a lamp I saw lice in his fur. They were all acting and looking normal the day before. And being animals in a college they were handled every day. Got spot on for rodents but one died the next day they rest picked up and were fine. Doesn't take long for something as small as a mouse to get over run with bugs.

Not saying it is parasites but saying it shouldn't be automatically ruled out


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