# Double clicking mouse, not like URI?



## MiceMad (Sep 5, 2016)

So Carmella, mum who has a 4 day old litter, is making weird noises.

Didn't hear them at all this morning, have her out now and it's like she's double clicking?! Like, it's not a sneeze it sounds like a click, and happens in twos. She's not wheezing, not sneezing, just this weird double click...it's not constant, it can be she does it 4 times in one minute, won't do it for five minutes, then do it once the next minute. Now for example she hasn't done it once in 20 minutes.

She's not got any other symptoms. She's kept on shredded cardboard, I haven't cleaned the cage because she has babies...but again it doesn't sound like a URI. We've had mice with URIs before and this is nothing like it - have we just caught one early?!

I have a video where hopefully you can hear it, and also shows she's not wheezing or sneezing...I'll try upload that asap, but in the meantime any thoughts?!

Okay here's the video, I tried to add a caption for every click...you might have to turn your volume way up to hear!






I wondered (/am hoping) it's a way of communication. Happened most when she was in our hands and then when she was exploring her cage.


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## MiceMad (Sep 5, 2016)

I should add we haven't had any new mice recently, all the mice we have now have had cages near each other for a long time and nobody else has any symptoms at all. Should I be moving Carmella away from the others just in case?? She's acting so normal, I'm really wondering if it was a stress / annoyed reaction. Or maybe she was excited because she now knows when I open the cage she goes into another little tub with food / away from her bubs for a little while?! I've just never seen her do it before.


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

I had a doe similar from a petshop that would just make a little clicking occasionally and it never seemed to pass on to the other mice she was with although she eventually succumbed to it at around 18 months old and had to be pts. Although they do exhale the bacteria so I guess perhaps it was just a case of whatever she had was something that the other mice could just fight off and not let it take hold and maybe I was lucky.

I am battling with some kind of RI that is very contagious and very different now, the symptoms are a lot more noticeable and is what you think of when people say RI (sneezing, loud fast breathing, chattering etc) but there are many different bacterias and virus that can cause it that I would assume all show slightly different symptoms and added to that is the fact that almost all mice carry a strain inside them anyway (unless they're barrier controlled lab mice that have been bred to not have it) and you often do not see any symptoms of that.

If you have access to baytril though it would not hurt to just put a little in her water just in case, its safe for nursing mums


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## MiceMad (Sep 5, 2016)

Yikes. I imagine dealing with RIs is an absolute pain when you have a lot of mice...I've only bad to deal with a URI when we had two groups, and that was bad enough. The one pet shop that regularly sells mice in this area, almost every mouse we have bought from there has either had or quickly developed a URI...we just got sick of having to buy mice that were so ill and all died before one year of age 

Carmella hasn't clicked once at all since. We haven't heard her do it in her cage and she hasn't done it once during handling / baby check time either. So insanely weird. I wish we had some Baytril lying about!! We always have a lot of small pets and the vets around here are so unwilling to prescribe anything but the smallest amount of Baytril so you have to keep going back for appts - a few years ago we bought two GPs that had URIs and had to have *three* appts to get enough Baytril, and they didn't even have it severe at all, we caught it early!


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

If you're in the US there are a couple of websites you can order from (although it is my understanding that come January you won't be able to any more without a prescription). Not sure about the UK but on amazon.com quite a few of the baytril options are from the uk


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## MiceMad (Sep 5, 2016)

I've never had any luck finding sites you can buy Baytril from without a prescription in the UK; I found something they were trying to pass off as 'just as good as Baytril' on amazon but I didn't look into it much as we had left over Baytril in at the time...I'll have to see if I can find it and see what it actually is.


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