Strange disease

[cornsnake234]

I think I need your help!! :eek1:

Something is going wrong with my mice colony.

Yesterday everything was fine, and today, when I checked at the colony, I noticed that one of the 4 weeks old baby was crawling and very thin!!! :shrugs:
What is wrong!? yesterday, this mouse was fat and healty, running everywhere, and eating like the others. Today she is not able to move her legs and she is thin like she was strarving to death. :(

Does anyone already have the same problem!?

Here are some pic of the poor mice after my boyfriend killed her. She's not suffering anymore... :cry:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/cornsnake234/Lilacstan.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/cornsnake234/Lilacstan01.jpg

[Flygning]

Someone posted a thread about what sounds like the same thing a while ago. I'm not sure if they came to any conclusions, but I'm sure if you search for it you can find the thread.

[Krenna]

Well if she is eating but starving to death sounds like worms to me.. but I am not an expert or a vet. Hope you figure out the problem before it spreds to the rest of the colony.

[cornsnake234]

Yesterday she was fine, she was able to eat and to walk, but today she was crawling and almost unable to move.... worms cannot do so much damage in one day?! :eek1:
Maybe a bacteria?!
Genetic difformity?!

I will search for that post...

[cornsnake234]

I think i'd find the post you were talking about:

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13504

I had already read it but didn't pay to much attention to it since i didn't have that problem... but now i'm very interested!! :cry:
My sick mouse was also bicolored... lilac tan
I would like to hear more info about that strange disease... i think i'm gonna do a little research on the web.

I'm very sad about that story... I can tell you, it was the first time in my life that i was happy to kill a mouse! :(

[Taceas]

I'm sorry to hear of your mouse. It sounds very much like what I had. Mouse fine one day, skinny and dead the next.

I spent an entire night researching the symptoms and I found out mine had megacolon. A dreadful and terribly painful disease of the digestive tract. It's a genetic disease that is on the same gene as color, so it's often referred to as the "white streak" or "piebald" disease.

Megacolon is where the where the nerves that control the normal muscle contractions of the colon fail to work, and food builds up. It's usually obvious around the 6th week of life when they're beginning to get the majority of their diet from solid food.

When the two that I had died, I did a haphazard internal exam and their stomach and large intestine were so compacted it was hard as a rock, literally.

One thing I did notice on both of them was:

- Both were bi-colored and had more white than the other color present.

- The colonies they were in, both had powdered food in the bowl. Normally as the blocks are eaten, there isn't much left. But since they couldn't fit anything in, all they were able to do was chew the food up and spit it out.


The male that fathered these two was eaten a couple of weeks later by a wild snake. So hopefully I've contained the problem. I may have a few more incidences pop up, but hopefully I can monitor which female they came from and rotate her out of the breeding pool altogether.

Here's a really good website I found from the search I did a while back:

http://ratguide.com/health/digestive/megacolon.php

I hope that helps. It says that affected individuals can be nursed through their lives with special diets and enemas. But what quality of life is that for a rodent? I would suggest immediate euthanasia for those mice found to be afflicted.

The first picture of the mouse on her back looks to me like it clearly shows the outline of the stomach, that lump just down from where the rib cage ends.

Were the father and mother of the baby related? If so, I would consider converting your male into a feeder and buying a totally unrelated male mouse. That would be a quick fix for the moment. Cause if it popped up that early in the game, I'd almost bet your male and female are brother and sister. That's where I got mine, the male was bred back to his daughter. But since there were 3 of his daughters in his colony, I don't know which one it was. But its all worked out now for the time being. But you've got the gene floating around now, so you're going to have it crop up if you're not careful about who you breed to who.

Hopefully you didn't drown her (quick survey of the background). A quick flick to the head is much better, all over in an instant and no panic beforehand.

[Krenna]

Ahh I misread the time from when it happend.. I though this was over a period of time.

[cornsnake234]

Thank you very much Taceas!!!!
I'm feeling better to know it was not something infectious (i feel more secure for the rest of my mice), but it's still a terrible genetic disease!!!!! Poor little mouse, she must have suffered horribly!!! :(

Something strange is that the father was probably not coming for the same family as the mother... i took him at petshop, and i've purshased the mother from a friend! :shrugs: Anyway they won't have babies anymore because my male was eaten this weekend... this was my first experience in breeding mice and I don't think i'm gonna continue because i love them to much and killing them make me very sad... :( (my boyfriend kill them for me)

I'd take a look at the web site about megacolon... did you look at the pics?! something that doesen't fit with our problem is that the rats with megacolon seem to became very very fat... in my case, the mice was like the other ones, not too big, not too thin, just normal, and suddenly (in one day) she was skinny!?

Thanks taceas