sick mice!

Having some problems with the mice I recently bought...can anyone help me figure out if I did something wrong, or if it is a sign of poor husbandry at the breeders place? Below is the email I sent to the breeder yesterday which explains my situation (haven't heard back from them yet). The mice seemed fine when I bought them, but in a few days they began showing signs of illness. Thanks!

"Hello, I purchased six mice from your table at the last Hamburg show, and two of them have died so far. All began displaying signs of acute respiratory illness soon after the day of purchase. Squinty eyes, rough coat, hunched posture, lethargy, shivering, labored breathing. I had purchased these mice with hopes that they would breed for me down the road, but I have read that they could very well pass this along to their offspring. Have you experienced this in your colonies, or have other customers reported this? This is my first attempt at raising my own mice, and I have them at room temp, on aspen bedding, feeding them mouse/rat blocks. Actually the worst one now is by herself and I have a small section of head pad under her container."

forgot to mention that I had them set up in two separate tanks, 1.2 and 1.2. 1.1 from one tank died, and the .1 left from that tank is worse than the 1.2 in the other tank. If that means anything?

It's really very common. Most likely you are seeing an outbreak of Myco. Run a search and you will find a lot of info in the fancy mouse breeder pages. Basically (as I understand it~ but remember I am no expert)~ *all* domestic mice and rats have Myco~ it's rather like the common cold in people. They pretty much all have one strain or another that they have become immune or ressistant too. When put into a stressful situation (the show, and then the new home, change in temps, feed and substrates) or when a new unfamiliar strain of myco is encountered your rodents may have an "outbreak". This can be treated with antibiotics (tetracycline) but in a breeder colony treating them is actually more harmfull than allowing the myco to run it's course. Rodents that are treated for the respitory infection with tetracycline may develop scar tissue in the lungs and usually become poor producers (the tetracyline does something to the reproductive system). It's best to keep the colony as clean and dry as possible~ and let any that are going to die~ just die. Those that survive will pass on resistance to the specific strain of myco to the next generation.

I just dealt with this last summer with my rat colony when I added new breeding stock. My stock was healthy~ my new breeders were healthy~ but apparently we had at least two different strains of myco and when introduced the entire colony became ill. I did treat with tetracyline (though now I realize I just wasted so much money and time going that route) but am just now recovering production in my colony.

Acute respiratory symptoms sounds like myco. While each colony has their own "brand" of it, new mice are prone to infection from different strains of the resident population and vice versa.

Also from what I've read about it, its an opprotunistic condiition. Whereby its never eliminated from the mice, they just grow resistant to it. So stress can cause it to grab a foothold and debilitate the mice.

So the mice may have appeared healthy while at her residence where the stress level was low, however being at the show with other mice it normally isn't in contact with can also be a problem. To me, I'd say its hard to say exactly "what" the trigger was.

Personally, I'd cull the last remaining female and keep a very close eye on the other 1.2 to see if their symptoms improve or get worse. If you end up having to get rid of them all, make sure you clean everything thoroughly before buying new mice.

Also, I've had good luck with using liquid echinacea extract in their water to boost their immune system. A half a dropperful usually is a good place to start.

Keep us updated.

Thanks so much Cheryl and Misty!! I really appreciate it!