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Trapped mice under food bowl

1609 Views 9 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  moustress, 
A
I was observing my female mice cage and saw a foot underneath the food bowl. The bowl was really close to the floor and thought, wow that mice must be squished. My mice often go under the food bowls to sleep or tunnel.

I lifted the food bowl and found 3 of my young mice under there, completely greasy/sweaty looking, in bad shape and just sickly looking. After a freakout session, I moved two of them to a smaller cage with my most mellowest female, and her daughter. They are refusing water and the room temperature cooked oats I gave them from a plastic spoon (I've left it in the cage for them to munch on if they get hungry.

They squeal and jump at everything, and are very panicky. The healthy ones smell them and the sickly ones squeal and run away. I would prefer to euthanize them but dont have experience with that. They are about 30 days old.

What should I do???

On a side note, my male cage (also 30 day old mice) is squeaking behind me. The males are starting to nip each other. I need more cages....
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A
Update: I've put two of them in their own separate cages with clean water, food and some oats. I put some tissue paper in there with some cardboard shelter for them to calm down for the night. The third one is in with my females, she is cleaning herself and looks better off physically and mentally than the other two. She's not quite as wet looking, and she's not squeaky/paranoid/psycho. She still looks wobbly, and weak but she looks better. She's actively cleaning herself. And I think I saw her try to eat something too. And she's socializing. The other two did not want ANYTHING to do with the colony. They were visibly traumatized at any noises or interaction. I had one run up the side of the cage and squeeze through the bars and jump to the carpeted floor, that's when I got it it's own cage. Frightened me at how fast it just wanted to run away and hide. And that it fit through the bars.

I'm still quite heartbroken at what has happened over the past couple of hours. This all started at midnight and its now 2:30 AM here. If they don't survive the night, then they don't. I just feel terrible about it, I feel like I neglected them. I hope I can get some sleep.
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DomLangowski
Hi, id say try not to worry do much. Our mice used to go under the food bowls too and get wet n stuff. Just make sure they have clean water and plenty of food and they should perk up.

Hope all works out for you.
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R
I have seen a young mouse that looked in bad shape, jumped at everything, and seemed in pain every time anything touched it, before. This mouse actually had some sort of brain development problem.

When I culled it, (it needed to be done) I noticed it had a very soft skull. Something was obviously wrong with the mouse. Now, it's possible that there is something similar wrong with your mice, but I really don't know! :|

I think it was two mice in the litter, that ended up having this problem.
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T
wow rhasputin no offence ment but your like the grim reaper of mice atm
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R
What?
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SarahY
AliciaPNW; they are probably in shock, in which case the best thing to do is leave them somewhere warm and quiet and try not to disturb them. They should come out of it with no problem, but occasionally they don't.

Don't feel bad, sometimes these things happen despite our very best efforts to take care of the little dudes. Easiest way to solve this problem in the future is to take away the food bowls and put the food directly on the substrate.

Sarah xxx
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A
Thank you for the replies.

I just woke up and checked the 3 cages that they are in (one was left in with the colony and is acting normal although a little runt looking now)

They both are furry again and alive. I was so miserable last night, had a horrible dream. This whole thing makes me feel so sick that I let this happen.

One had dragged the carrot I left for her last night into to her hidey hole so I believe she's eating now. My other one was furry and moving around under the tissue paper. I am going to leave them alone in their cages for now until they perk up some more.
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SarahY
That's great news :D

Sarah xxx
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moustress
Hey, art, sometimes culling is the only sensible and humane choice. I do it too, I just don't always talk about it.
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