Sneezy mice

[kc261]

Thanks again Becky. Now that I've had time to think about it more, I'm not going to medicate these guys beyond giving them the echinacea for a week or so. I do know it can't be used constantly. If they have strong enough systems to get over it, great. If not... they aren't the genes I want for breeding.

Except for the one male, all of them are at least mostly if not all the way better. I'd much rather replace one male than start off with poor genes.

[SatanicIntention]

Sounds good It's always easier to find a nice healthy male than find multiple robust, healthy females, LoL.

[kc261]

I thought I'd post an update to this. Also some of the information I found on using echinacea, in case anyone else wants to try it in a similar situation.

I ended up eliminating the 1 really bad male, plus 4 questionable females from my colony due to the respiratory problems.

Unfortunately, shortly after I separated the really sick male, one of the other 2 apparently took this as a cue to eliminate the rest of his competition. He didn't actually kill it, but it was injured enough I decided it needed to be euthanized.

There is one more female that seems fine as far as the respiratory problems, but is not growing and in fact has lost weight since we got them, so I believe she has some other problem and I'm getting rid of her too. The rest seem to be doing fine. So I ended up with 1.7 out of the original 3.12. Could have been worse. Although I've definitely used up the "extras" I got to be able to not worry about eliminating ones that like eating babies or other such problems.

I have no way of knowing if the echinacea really helped, or if the ones that were a little sick and then got better would have done so anyway. But I definitely think for the small cost ($7 for a bottle of which I have only used a tiny bit), it was worth trying it. I think since I now have plenty of it, if/when I bring in new mice, I'll start them out on echinacea for the first week I have them to give them a boost when they might be stressed by moving to a new home.

I found one place that says that echinacea is "virtually non-toxic" to rats & mice, so there isn't any need to worry about overdosing them if you give them reasonable amounts. I ended up using 2.5 drops per ounce (the web page I posted earlier said 2.2, but after accidentally giving them 5 per ounce the first day with no apparent ill effects, then reading about the lack of concern of overdosing, I decided to go with 2.5 since it is easier to calculate). I'll post the link & also the text in case that page disappears.
http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/alt/echinacea_od.htm

OVERDOSE
No cases of overdosages in humans has been reported.

ANIMAL TOXICOLOGY
Single oral or intravenous doses of the expressed juice of Echinacea purpurea(EP) proved virtually non-toxic to rats and mice. After 4 weeks of oral administration in doses amounting to many times the human therapeutic dose laboratory tests and necropsy findings gave no evidence of any toxic effects in rats. Tests for mutagenicity carried out in microorganisms and mammalian cells in vitro and in mice all gave negative results. In an in vitro carcinogenicity study EP did not produce malignant transformation in hamster embryo.

I also found several web pages that state that echinacea is not teratogenic in mice or rats. Teratogens are substances that can cause birth defects, so the fact that it is not is good news... we can safely use it in our breeder colonies, even on pregnant females.

Thanks again to everyone who posted to help me out with this!

[frankykeno]

Thanks for updating us Casey and the information supplied.

Sad to say but ending up with a healthy 1.7 out of a 3.12 from a pet store is actually pretty good odds for pet store rodents. Back when I was buying a lot of breeders out of pet stores it was sadly common to loose an unacceptable amount of them to illness, stroke, failure to thrive, etc. Once you are enough generations away from the pet store you'll find your home raised feeders & breeders to be far more stable healthwise.

Heck I remember talking to Becky on the phone, asking her a question about a rat and another rat literally fell over and died right in front of me. Not real signs it was critically ill other than some fluffed fur and that fact that the other rats from that recent purchase seemed to avoid it. Then bingo...flat out dead just like that.

[Argentra]

Yep. Pet store rodents are awful. During my stint at Petsmart, I got to see where they come from(pet mills that don't do a thing for them), in what conditions(sickly, nervous, bitey), and how they're treated(stuck in the back 'QT' room for a week then dumped into the TINY display cages).... horrid!!

I once got a young silver dumbo and a silver hooded from my store because I really liked them and didn't want them mixing with the others, but that's when I discovered that they're bad right from the source, not the store. The dumbo never really did well and she died after only a month. The hooded was much better, stronger I suppose, and I got her a new friend and they stayed with me a while... but she wasn't much past a year old when she died from something heat related. Bottom line: Pet store rodents, Especially from Petco or Petsmart, should be avoided at all costs!

On another note, glad you still have the 1.7.