# sickly mouse.. dehydrated, black diarrhea.



## DaisyTailsMousery (Nov 8, 2012)

have another mousey problem. I got a new one a week and a half ago and she went from perfectly healthy to very sickly overnight. She has lost weight and has extra loose skin. She's not leaving her nest to pee or eating/drinking (I got her to drink a little with an eyedropper but not very much) and she also has black diarrhea stuck to her bum and tail. I moved her to a travel case with paper towels instead of bedding with fresh food and water so she doesn't infect the others. Is this something that can be treated or should she be pts? How long should I wait to cull her if she doesn't improve?


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

Any new mouse should be placed into quarantine on its own for atleast 4 weeks, if you did place her with other animals and she has become sick the chances are the others will become sick also.

Setting that aside the first thing that a mouse will suffer when you first acquire one is stress, caused by moving to new environment, being handled etc.

A sudden change in diet will and does cause digestive problems resulting in diaorhea, being of a black colour atleast indicates there is no infection within the digestive tract.

What I would suggest doing is find out what the mouse was fed on initially before you acquired it and get atleast a weeks supply of food matching that diet, 2 weeks would be even better, putting the mouse back to initial diet for the first week and mixing in your mix slowly over the following week til the swap over is complete.

Rehydrating the mouse is going to be the hardest thing and needs to be done, using new born baby milk formula is something I have found to work with success or the like of those liquid convalescent drinks are also worth using.

Treating the mouse for internal and external parasites would also be beneficial at this stage as one wants to get the mouse back to health and not just be feeding parasites.

If after trying the above no improvement after a 2-3 days then the chances are the best thing would be to pts.

When buying does it is always beneficial to buy pairs so they have the company during the quarantine period which may help reduce the stress of the animal.


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## DaisyTailsMousery (Nov 8, 2012)

yes she was in quarantine with the other two I bought but I removed her as soon as I noticed she was sick. I'll try the diet thing. Also, what do you use to treat for parasites and is it easy to get ahold of? I've already been treating for mites (becuase when I bought them some cage mates were going bald! O.O)


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

Not sure the name of the product in USA but Ivermectin based works well on both internal and external parasites.


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## DaisyTailsMousery (Nov 8, 2012)

I'm really sure she only has minutes left. She refuses to let me put her back in her cage and doesn't want o be left alone. She's barely breathing and her belly is convulsing a little bit.


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## DaisyTailsMousery (Nov 8, 2012)

She didn't make it


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

Sorry to hear of your loss.


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