Sad night

[tweets_4611]

Kasi, since I'm on here I'm going to go ahead and relay the sad news....but I'm sure you can tell it better if your on anytime soon.

Anyways, sadly I have to say that little Mitch died on us tonight I don't think any of us really know what was wrong with him though. Apperently he wasn't real active this morning and when Kasi got him out tonight he wasn't real resonsive either. He took a good spill not too long after we got him out, and I feel horrible but I think that helped along what ever was wrong with him. Right after his fall when I picked him up he peed in my hand, which I knew was bad, but I was just hoping that he just had to pee.... He was moving, but not really walking, just kinda squirming. He went down hill real quick after that, peeing a few more times and losing more and more mobility. While we were looking at him we realized that he had tiny little bugs all over him. They weren't there before, at least none of us noticed. I'm thinking they may have come from the bedding, which was for small rodents, but it looked like unprosses cotton. I dunno. I was so upset, thinking that his fall had killed him, but then Kasi and her room mate started talking about how lathargic he had been all day, even though he had seemed fine yesterday. Before he went too far down hill we tried to feed him (he was only about 3 weeks old, so it was a formula Kasi had made) and he wouldn't eat.

So this was a bit long winded and slightly out of order *sorry* but does anyone know what might have started his downward slide? Someone mentioned 'wet tail' but neither of us know what that is really...

[Laooda]

Shannon.... so sorry !


I can't really help, other than saying that he might have been injured during the fall? As far as I know, wet tail = diarrhea???? so it seems like that would be something you would have noticed?
Hopefully someone else will chime in with better advice... As for the little bugs: Rats/Mice can host lice/mites? I think there was a recent thread re: rodent "guests"... if you search, you might find some helpful info?

[tweets_4611]

Thanks...I'll look it up. ^_^ Mitch was actually Kasi's rat...but she isn't on here very often, and we are both curious about what happened to him.

[frankykeno]

Shannon it's so hard to say really dear. When any creature is removed from it's mother too early as this little rat was they just tend to not do as well. Doesn't mean they can't survive but it lessens the chances they will and makes them more suspectible to problems. I'm sorry you lost the little one.

[tweets_4611]

Yeah...it was just kinda a shock after he seemed to be doing so well at first. It was sad, but at least now we know when we do start breeding to start of with the older guys =/ The whole thing was just weird....the bugs, and the loss of mobility...*sigh* I dunno