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My doe is making an odd noise

3292 Views 21 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  NaomiR, 
N
One of my siamese does is making a very strange sound this morning, she did it when I first bought her home and put her into her newly made up cage and she's doing it again now and I've just cleaned her cage out.

She's sitting on the spot chuffing, it's like a tiny sneeze, over and over again - anyone have any idea what this could be??
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K
Sounds like resp. infection. I'd get an antibiotic in her quick, if you're going to treat her at all. It could be a reaction to the bedding, but I don't know what you use.
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N
I use aubiose which is different to the wood shavings she was on :roll:
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L
get her away form the others asap, as this will probably spread. once they've got it they tend to have it forever, and so most breeders cull imediately, or if it's a particularly valuable mouse, foster its litter or risk leaving the litter with it to the age of 3 weeks, then cull the adult and move the litter in with a similar aged group with feeding does.
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N
she's with my siamese buck, and she was with my carrier who just had her litter 2 weeks ago, she makes the same noise but only every now and again, not as much as the siamese.

so what am I going to do? take her away from the busk who's probably also got it by now?? so I'm probably going to loose them both??

and wot about the doe who just littered will I loose her too??

what a nightmare.
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I had this problem also....

Got 3 real beauties from Cait and then 6 right old scraggers. One of the scraggers (interestingly I called her Chuffy - for obvious reasons and her cage mate was sneezy - also for obvious reasons) had this and spread it right throughout the colony. I lost one of Caits beautiful mice :cry: and removed the 4 affected mice. The other 4 have been happily living in the large luxury pad with no further problems and it has been months now so I assume they are okay.

The others got split into 2 hospital boxes. Chuffy died about a month ago and so the remaining 3 were put in their own 'hospital' box. No further problems. I was almost confident enough to reintroduce these to the lux pad but it all kicked off again and now I have another sick mouse in that box. I have been back and forth to vets and am treating with Marbocyl and Septrin. I am willing my sickly mouse ( sneezy as it happens) to pull through but I don't think she will.

Point I am making is that it comes and goes ( Sneezy looked fantastic just a week ago) and it will spread so fast. The source of all my medical problems in my pets is ALWAYS without question as a result of buying from PET SHOPS. My new vow is to NEVER ever buy from a pet shop again. I have 2 gravely ill guinea pigs because I took pity on a pet shop pig and it brought in disease and some of my mice are sick because of pet shop mice..... not to mention that fact that I only bought 2 mice and ended up with 17.

The 'chuffing' i believe is down to lung or bronchial damage caused by a respiratory infection. Something to do with the little fingers that help move secretions being damaged so the mouse has difficulty moving secretions (which apparently they make quite a bit of). This is often the result of ignoring a mouse that has been sneezing and the infection moves into the lungs.

Please anyone do correct me if I am wrong .... just new at all this but that is how I had it explained to me.

I hope yours are okay.... I'm still dealing with mine and it aint easy getting antibiotics into a mouse.....not like guinea pigs who are easy in comparison.
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L
It doesn't matter where you've acquired your mice, a change of home/diet/air temp can mean a mouse develops a cold. Breeders don't bother going back and forth to vets as with 50-500 mice, it just isn't going to happen. With the rate these things can spread, it's best to isolate the mouse with the cold - i move any with colds that i want to try and save from the garage to the house - or cull it imediately. i have never seen a mouse recover from a respiritory infection or sneezing cold. Young litters can be fostered to other does, but adults or youngsters - 2.5 weeks+ - with any kind of sniffle, i cull. There's no way i want my best mice getting sick!
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N
what's odd is there is no rattling from either doe which would *indicate* and absence of any kind of infection, resporitory or otherwise :?:

thanks for your advice.......did yours have rattly chests???
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N
Heather are you absolutly sure what I'm describing IS sneezing I might have put it wrong?? It's just a short little noise that seems to come from her belly not her nose, is this the same thing to you think?
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K
Yes, it is, and the only time they make any noise like that is when they're sick.

I also had it, and still do, in my stock. For months I have kept them seperate from any new mice, treated them all with Baytril and then a cat antibiotic. Having seen no signs in my mice for two months, I put a new mouse in with one who had it... lo and behold, the new mouse now is sniffling. Its a nightmare, and I underestimated it.

They CAN recover. Mostly they develop lung scarring, and then it can reoccur. With pets its possible to help them live comfortably for some months, but with breeding stock there seems to be little point.

None of my previously infected does passed it on to their offspring though, interestingly. I kept the babies for a couple weeks extra and sold them on to people who knew my circumstances and warned them to quarantine and check them, and there have been no problems reported. This could just be incredible luck, however, and I won't be breeding anyone who's shown signs of infection again.
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They can recover, but as you say, they then get ill again - it might be because they are weakened from the first illness. but this does depend on the type of illness - there are differnet types of cough and cold they seem to get, some rampant, some non-spready, some clicking, some sneezing, some wheezing.

And as you say, Kage, with breeding stock, there is little point in treatment - the main issue, other than cost, is the risk of infecting other mice is huge and if you've worked at improving your stock for months or years, the last thing you want to do is have a shed full of clicking animals that can't be bred from - you should never breed from ill mice - or shown.

All that effort (hours and hours and hours of care and planning and putting up with my boyfriend complaining i spend more time down there that i do with him!) down the drain because of one mouse. No way! :?
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Loganberry said:
- you should never breed from ill mice
Click to expand...
Had I known she was ill I certainly wouldn't have bred from her - either of them actually.

The litter of siamese are doing incredibly well and the siamese doe is away from the buck and I don't think she ever caught anyway. When the siamese litter are old enough I will pop mum back in with her siamese friend and they can quarantine together.

I hear what you're saying and while they may not be any good for breeding I can't justify killing them when they're otherwise well :?:
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L
sure - if a mouse is hacking away, you can see it's ill, or if it's coat is all sticking up and it's mooching around looking rough, again, it's obvious it's ill. If it seems fine that's ok, breed away.

it's up to the individual what they do with or how they treat sickness in their mice - some poeple will spend hundreds at the vets try to cure each one, others will cull imediately, no questions asked, at the first sound of a click. most of us are not vet users, but not at the far end of the imediate cull end of the scale. do what you see fit.
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D
Sadly seems to be a problem for the mice and their breeders and I think most if not all have experienced it.... how true it is I dont know but I have read that it best to keep sneezers away from the rest up to 6 feet away and better still in a compleatly different shed or room if you intend to keep them. I also read that it can be carried in a human hosts nose for up to 2 hrs but cant develop into anything in humans, though could be passed on that way .... again not sure how correct this is. I belive its one of those things like others have suggested and any mouse can get it at any time due to having a low immune system triggered by outside factors such as stress etc... like mentioned in another thread. I hope this helps you a little.
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I can certainly confirm from my own experience that it can recur at any time without any environmental changes. My mouse Sneezy who was in hosp box with Chuffy made a remarkable recovery and she was glowing and then for no reason she has become ill again. I just don't get it.... one day she was great .... next very ill. I have my sick mice in another room at the opposite end of the house and I always see to my mice in that room last so hopefully it should remain contained.

Obviously I am a pet keeper and therefore it is really important to me to try to 'save' my meece but I appreciate from a breeders point of view all the hard work and effort that has been made to achieve something only to have is destroyed.
If I was an breeder I would remove immediately any sneezy/clicky/sniffing/chuffy mouse.....take to another area and maybe keep eye on for 2 -3 days to try to establish whats wrong because it could be something not too sinister. If I established it was a resp inf it would have to go as I know how easily it spreads and what damage it can do to healthy animals. Not to mention the tracking of all your animals to see if it has spread.

I can't do the 'deed' (just can't get my head around it) so I have boxes and boxes of sick/maybe sick/recovering/ animals in another part of the house. Will I ever be confident to put my recovered mice in with my healthy mice ? Don't think I will actually having seen Sneezy relapse so spectacularly. So these sickys just live in a different part of the house.

I wasn't saying that you will always get sick mice from a pet shop but in my experience every animal (not just mice) I have ever had from a pet shop has brought in some issue or other whereas animals I've gotten from reputable breeders have not. So for me I will never buy from a pet shop again.

Remind me of this statement when I am asking for help the next time :lol:
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I do really appreciate everyone's help and views it IS helping. I'm sort of in the middle at the moment, while I've not rushed off to the vets (to be honest they're pretty useless with my cavies so I can't imagine how inept they would be with mice) but I'm also not in a hurry to do away with them.

Perhaps because my "stock" in its entirety hasn't (yet?) been affected or perhaps I just want to give the girls a chance - I don't know in all honesty.

My head tells me one thing but my heart says another, so I'm just watching and waiting, hopefully the "right" course of action will come to me soon enough and I'll just know what to do.

In the meantime both girls are in quarantine in a seperate shed - just to be on the safe side.
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I am now in panic-mode, just sorted the quarantine lot (siamese doe and agouti doe with her 7 babies) and Mummy doe is chuffing again and so are the babies, I'm distraught :cry:

Siamese doe is still chuffing but she never stopped but the Mum with babies, well I had hoped it wouldn't re occur and I also hoped the babies wouldn't be affected, but they are :cry: :cry: :cry:

I don't know what I'm going to do
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D
oh heck :?
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From a completely different point of view of yours (as I understand yours are for exhibition) my babies also did this along with their mother. I have treat with AB's and so far not had any die. A couple are still not really great but to be honest I am not sure whether or not they would have gotten to this stage whether or not I had treat with AB's. Sneezy on the other hand I am certain would not be with us if I hadn't treat with AB's. I am a soft touch though and to me it doesn't matter whether or not I try in vain as long as I try..... and try my best at that.

I understand as a breeder (of anything other than your own pets) you must be very upset. I have seen how it can affect the whole damn lot and so you must be devastated.
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L
i personally would cull the lot, imediately. hard, but that's the way it goes unfortunately. Wierdly, especially with mice you have high hopes for/really like! Catch 22...
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