ugh.. they died

I have (had) three adult mice and a litter of babies in one tub. They seemed completely fine yesterday and then today I checked on them and they were all dead, all the babies and the adults exept for one adult. I think I might have an idea, I was feeding them on "High Protein Retriever" (dog food). But they've been eating that for about 6-8 weeks since I got them, you think that's the reason?

I have no clue if that was the cause, but everything I've read indicates they should be on LOW protein diets. What made you choose to go with a high one instead? Just curious!

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Originally Posted by rabernet

I have no clue if that was the cause, but everything I've read indicates they should be on LOW protein diets. What made you choose to go with a high one instead? Just curious!

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Having raised rats/mice for years it is unlikely the higher protein was the cause (especially in breeding sets the protein actually helps)

Can you give us the details on how/where they were kept? (temp, bedding, cage style, size, etc.)

Where they sneezing at all?

Seems to me like even if the diet was bad for them, it wouldn't have killed them all at the same time. Sounds like either a fast-acting illness or something toxic got into their environment.

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Originally Posted by JLC

Seems to me like even if the diet was bad for them, it wouldn't have killed them all at the same time. Sounds like either a fast-acting illness or something toxic got into their environment.

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Yeah thats why I was confused. Everything seemed fine exept the temp is a little low probably in the higher 50s. They have a big enough cage for just them I think its around 24x19x8 just estimating I'm not too sure. And they have shreded newspaper for bedding. They weren't sneezing or anything either. :confused:

And the high protien because I heard that higher protien was a good idea when pregnant, maybe not, maybe thats only rats.

How did they look? As in were they just all laying around dead but untouched? Any marks at all on them? If they were in good health and then suddenly all died off at the same time, with no marks of trauma or anything like that I'm thinking it must be some sort of toxin they all either ingested or inhaled at the same time. Was the litter old enough to eat food or still exclusively nursing? Any chance anything was sprayed recently near them or may have gotten on their food? Any change in food recently?