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Antibiotics for lactating mommy mouse?

SnakeAround

SnakeAround

Formerly Blutengel
I have a female lactating 4 (fed some to snakes) 7 day old baby's and she probably has an RI. I hear her make weird 'goggling' sounds and she is losing weight. I have some Vibravet antibio left from the RI of my yellow rat and that is also applicable for rodents. I want to try to cure her, both because I don't want her to die before the baby's are weaned and second cause she is one of my regular breeders (besides that; why not trying if the meds are bought already). I'm wondering now if antibiotics could harm the baby's when given to mom? If so, I'll just feed the baby's to my snakes asap and try to cure her when she is without baby's, but I prefer having the baby's growing up to adults cause all my live feeding snakes are on adult mice. And she could maybe get too sick to be cured waiting for the baby's to be eaten.

Tnx for advising!
 
I would recommend you taking her to a vet for a proper diagnosis prior to any antibiotic regimen. First off I'd be looking at WHY it has an RI. Most of my rodents seem to get seasonal sniffles here, which I'm sure their being housed in the garage with exposure to outside allergens is more than likely the cause. But I've yet to have any with some sort of bacterial infection.

Treating things without knowing the cause or proper course of treatment is asking for antibiotic resistance. Its something we all need to try to limit using improperly for "the sniffles", whether for ourselves or our pets.

Thankfully a lot of doctors around here are educating parents about viruses not being affected by antibiotics and that a sneezing kid doesn't usually need them.

Then again around here, if any of my feeder breeders have the sniffles and look like they're declining in health, its off to a snake's belly. Mice are easily replaceable in the grand scheme of things.
 
Tnx Misty for replying! I don't want to spend money on a breeder mouse by going to the vet, but thought; well, if the meds are there, I could give it a try! If she had not been with baby's, she would have been in a snake's belly already indeed. If she wouldn't get better, she would have been fed to a snake also, so any resistant bacteries would have gone with her I suppose.

Her symptoms are those weird 'goggling' sounds now and then and declining weight, no discharge from her nose. Could it be something else than an RI maybe?
 
By the way; I think my mice are kept in pretty good circumstances. They bred easily during winter, get quite large if not fed to a snake and have shiny coats. I feed dry dog food (low on salt) once and a while (one chunk at a time for each mouse), especially the pregnant and lactating females to provide them with essential 'building materials'. They seem to be happy, healthy mice. I just think some do catch something when their defensive system is weaker one day and others don't. Like my with my yellow ratsnake; heavily infested with worms and a bacterial infection in the stomach while other snakes I tested show not any worm egg or disease..... (the yellow rat is fine now).
 
I'd double misty's sentiment; feeding her off solves some of those basic questions and at a much nicer price than a trip to the vet. Of course that's only if she has some minor issue and not a major illness that could harm the snakes.

You might also just try waiting, altering her diet, and isolating her along with a "helper mom" if one's available along with a healthy food and water supply. She might not be physically able to compete for a normal share of food and water depending upon her colony size, and that combined with the nursing could be adding stress leading to illness and weight loss.

If she significantly turns for the worse you can always feed the whole bunch off, but you might also try putting another female in with the babies [one from the mother's colony] and seeing if she will "adopt" the babies- female mice will sometimes bring on their milk to take care of abandoned babies.

GL with them, and hope it all turns out well for everyone!
 
The mommy is just alobe with her baby's in a viv, so she can eat and drink what she wants. I have no mommy helper available, that would have been my first way to help her out. Or just have the baby's adopted by another mommy and then curing her. I do have a pregnant mouse which one day (earlier breeding cycle) was together with a mommy that gave birth earlier than her and this pregant mouse also started to produce milk and to lactate the baby's, so I now she would probably adopt baby's and start lactating now too. But I don't want to take the risk it doesn't work sothe baby's die. I think feeding them to a snake and try to cure the mommy would be the best. Tnx for advising!
 
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