Confused

[littleindiangirl]

I need me some obese mice!

LOL, a big ball of fat n' fur?

[MarkS]

Littleindiangirl may have a point there. I had a couple of brindles one time and they looked pregnant all the time too, but they were just plain fat.

[amon]

I had some similar experience, (not good ones, I must add) hope yours is different case.

First, I had one female grew to about a golf ball size (mine are PEW) so I separated her into a nursing box to wait for birth. A couple days later, I found her dead, still with the bigger than golf ball belly. I thought maybe she died from childbirth complication (or whatever its called). So I cut her open, thinking maybe I can save some pinks. But I found NOTHING except blew up intestines inside. This was about 4 months ago.

Second, I found a dead female in the tub a few days ago, stiff, with her round tummy the size of 4/5 of a golf ball. I cut her open again and found the same thing as before: blew up intestines and organs.

Third, I just find today another female with her belly looks pregnant, but she looks sick, so I separated her to see what happens. This is within the same group as the second one above.

Is it a contagious disease going on?

[littleindiangirl]

I had some similar experience, (not good ones, I must add) hope yours is different case.

First, I had one female grew to about a golf ball size (mine are PEW) so I separated her into a nursing box to wait for birth. A couple days later, I found her dead, still with the bigger than golf ball belly. I thought maybe she died from childbirth complication (or whatever its called). So I cut her open, thinking maybe I can save some pinks. But I found NOTHING except blew up intestines inside. This was about 4 months ago.

Second, I found a dead female in the tub a few days ago, stiff, with her round tummy the size of 4/5 of a golf ball. I cut her open again and found the same thing as before: blew up intestines and organs.



Third, I just find today another female with her belly looks pregnant, but she looks sick, so I separated her to see what happens. This is within the same group as the second one above.

Is it a contagious disease going on?

Blew up intestines sounds like megacolon or megacecum.
There are links to pictures on this page, the third set shows necropsy's of rats with megacolon. Maybe you see something similar?

Mice are susceptible to megacolon with the lethal spotting gene that is closely related to homozygous piedbalds and dominant spotting. Unfortunately your mice were red eyed albino's so we dont actually know what the genotype is, so we cant really prove or disprove that.

Good luck and keep us updated.

[amon]

Blew up intestines sounds like megacolon or megacecum.
There are links to pictures on this page, the third set shows necropsy's of rats with megacolon. Maybe you see something similar?

Mice are susceptible to megacolon with the lethal spotting gene that is closely related to homozygous piedbalds and dominant spotting. Unfortunately your mice were red eyed albino's so we dont actually know what the genotype is, so we cant really prove or disprove that.

Good luck and keep us updated.

Thanks for the great link. From memory, they do look the same. I'm kind of glad it's not something that is contagious. I guess I'll just feed off all the offspring from my current group and get some new ones to start.

Thanks again.