As they age, they often develop bad degenerative joint disease.Originally Posted by hoax
Or if a wheel is provided, they can break a leg or hurt themselves if the wheel is not solid, without any gaps from wire or spokes. Generally this is not such a hazard, but I have seen it happen.
So far the illness I have seen in my colony as they age all match up with what I have read online in journals at sites like pubmed etc, except for my hereditary muscle disorder which I'm not sure what it really is.
- The spontaneous warts or lesions that erupt from the skin, like cancerous tumors.
- Degenerative joint disease
- Hereditary muscular/nervous disorder
- Spontaneous loss of hair in large patches, mainly on the middle back down to rear, followed by small - medium sized bumps on skin, not associated with visible ecto parasites, but not ruled out entirely. (only 2 animals show out of 5 in same colony, they are also the oldest.)
- Frequent eye infections, mainly eye goop that seals the eye shut and needs only some drops of saline to open.
My point over all of this, is that there is no way to know if it is genetic, and not environmental, unless you line breed them. Since they really don't sound like good candidates for breeding, I wouldn't just for a lark, because unless you kept the two lines completely separate down the road in every way, you'd be continuing the passing on of the suspected disease if it were genetic...
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