Raising a Baby Mouse 8/10 Large Litter, Respiratory Problems

Warning: for inexperienced animal people the failure rate for trying to handraise a baby mouse is around 75%. It is very painful loosing a baby mouse because you get to love them so much. Think carefully about it before you try.

Solving Problems

Exhaustion
Symptoms: human gets so tired they have trouble keeping up with the intense feeding schedule
Cause: not getting much sleep for too long
Treatment: will power to see the project to the end, i.e. until weaning at around 14 days old, getting another person to help, finding a surrogate mouse mom to take the baby, if there is a choice starting with a fuzzy instead of a pinky
Outcome: if human becomes lazy, baby mouse could die; if human resists temptation to cut corners or gets help, then baby will most likely live

Too Large a Litter
Symptoms: not able to take care of baby mice properly because litter of baby mice very large, human becomes exhausted
Cause: way too many babies
Treatment: if they are still pinkies: find a surrogate mouse mom to take them, get one or more people to help, humanely euthanize the litter to a manageable number (2 to 4)
if they are fuzzies: a lot of work but should be able to do it especially if you have help, fuzzies are more forgiving so if you can only feed them every three hours it is still O.K. since they got a good headstart being cared for by their mother mouse
Outcome: if still pinkies and try to raise the whole lot alone then will most likely loose the whole litter, if follow the above instructions, at least a few could live
if fuzzies will most likely live although human may take a while to recover from the work load

Gaping during feeding
symptoms: baby gapes
Cause: formula too hot, some kind of discomfort during feeding e.g. brush too coarse or formula a bit off, having trouble breathing during feeding, unknown causes
treatment: check formula for heat and freshness, make sure brush has no stray hairs that could be irritating the babies mouth, slow down feeding to allow breathing
Outcome: baby will most likely live

Milk coming out of Nose:
Symptoms: milk is blown out of nose in bubbles
Cause: too much milk is in baby's mouth causing it to enter the breathing passages
Treatment: switch to a paint brush and if already being fed with a paintbrush, switch to a smaller one, slow down the feeding, avoid getting milk on the nose
Outcome: if persists baby could breathe milk into its lungs and get pneumonia, if follow the above instructions baby will most likely live

Respiratory Infection
Symptoms: baby continuously makes a sound with each breath, baby is hyperventilating and/or gasping, showing difficuilty breathing and in various stages of respiratory distress, may or may not have diarhea, may also gape
Treatment: in adult mice antibiotics, in baby mice rest, warmth, quiet, prevention more the issue here: keep away from adult mice who show symptoms, wash hands after handling adult mice with symptoms, make sure formula does not get breathed into the lungs
Outcome: baby mouse will most likely die

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• mouse
• mice
• baby
• infant
• pinky
• fuzzy
• mouseling
• care
• cute
• hand
• raising
• rearing
• problem
• solving
• respiratory
• infection
• pneumonia
• litter
• pet
• rodent
• Stuart
• Matilda