Prolapse from giving birth.

[Bobo's Mama]

Both of my female mice gave birth today. One of them has what appears to be a prolapsed rectum. I don't think its her uterus because it seems to be protruding from her anus instead. At first I thought she was still in the middle of labor and it was a pinky still coming out, but looking closer, it is definately coming from her anus. She is just dragging it around like a big red poop. Does anyone here have any experience with this? I don't want her to suffer. Does sugar water work with prolapses in mice, like it does in snakes?

 

[Joni Garcia]

I'm sorry to hear about your little female and am interested in an update. I've only seen male mice with this problem, and the rectal prolapses occurred shortly after weaning followed by death two days later. In this case, both were from the same Mom and most other siblings had severe digestive tract problems which led to their deaths around the same timeframe.

So, your situation is a bit different. It may not be much help, but here's what I know about rectal prolapse in mice. Some strains of mice may be genetically predisposed to having this problem. It can also be caused by a heavy infestation of pinworms or Citrobacter bacteria. Other diseases can be a primary or contributing cause.

What's the underlying cause for your girl?? I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the strain on her when giving birth. Hey... pregnancy and giving birth can give women internal and external hemorrhoids. So, maybe giving birth was the problem here?? :shrugs:

What are your observations of her stools? Do they look normal (dark chocolate brown that dry hard in minutes)? Or are they a lighter butterscotch color and kind of pasty? Has she had diarrhea? If you feel like pursuing this further, a fecal test would show if there's a pinworm or similar problem.

I'm not sure about the sugar water method for rectal prolapse in mice. Probably wouldn't hurt to give it a try. I learned that the rectal prolapse can be cleaned with normal saline and manually manipulated, but don't have experience in that myself.

Please let me know how she is doing.

 

[Bobo's Mama]

Thank you for your concern. She was my favorite mouse out of my three and I really didn't want her to suffer anymore. I let her alone for 48 hours to see if there was any improvement. There wasn't any. By then she was looking pretty ragid and wasn't moving around too much. She wasn't interested in food or water. She sort of just sat there, like it hurt to move. I had to put her down. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do because I've never put down an adult before, always just the babies. And they are easy because they don't really have a personality yet. Thanks again for your concern. No one else seemed to care.

 

[Joni Garcia]

I'm sorry about your loss. I'm sure it was really hard to put her down. IMO, you did the right thing. I know how hard it is as I've had to do that myself with a couple females who got rapid growing tumors. Of course, they were two of my favorites. One was from my original 1.2 trio. She'd had babies many times and was always such a good Mom. Her tumor was the worst and went from un-noticeable to a huge lumpy, almost ping pong ball size mass within a couple days. I felt bad, but knew she was suffering and wouldn't get better. I have a C02 set up, so I'd used it for hopper to adult snake food mice... just not for sick keepers.

About her babies, did you get the other mother to accept and nurse them? Or are they snake food? If the other girl is caring for them, maybe one will look like her Mom and be a "keeper."

Once again, sorry about your little mouse.

 

[Taceas]

Where do these threads hide? I know I look in the Feeders section everyday and never saw this. Sorry. =(

I would imagine that a prolapse of any sort tears muscles that held it into place, and it would happen again under similar circumstances. Thankfully I've never had to deal with a prolapse of any sort thus far in snakes or rodents.

Although I find it strange it would have been a rectal prolapse instead of a vaginal one. I would think such strain to create a prolapse would have occured in a female that was physically too small to breed, or perhaps too high of fiber in the colon causing it to grab hold and all come out. I dunno.

Red_mamma, sounds like your female and male were harboring megacolon. I had one male that was a carrier, unbeknownst to me. And when bred to a certain daughter, I'd get several that did just that; once the babies would be weaned and eat primarily solid food with more fiber, their guts would back up and they'd die in a matter of days. I always had to make sure that male mated with only females not directly related to him in any fashion. Oddly, it was mostly male offspring that ended up with it, I only had a handful of female offspring to develop it.

 

[Joni Garcia]

Red_mamma, sounds like your female and male were harboring megacolon.

That's what I thought after the rectal prolapses and then siblings dying from what I believed was fecal impaction. The fecal impaction symptoms were what made me think about Megacolon. I didn't see symptoms of Megacolon in the Mom like I did the babies, but she died a couple weeks after the babies were born. The Mom was already pregnant when I got her, so I'm not sure who the Dad was and I haven't had any problems with Megacolon since.

Misty... thanks for sharing your experience with Megacolon in mice. Interesting that you'd seen it mostly in male offspring. My fecal impaction mice were females with the males getting rectal prolapse. At the time, I couldn't find any posts on cornsnake.com about Megacolon. I know you've posted info since, and I appreciate your knowledge and thoughts as one of the "resident mouse experts" here. :bowdown:

 

[Taceas]

I think the male mice just presented a more severe result due to the fact that their rectum passes through the scrotal area, which is a very flaccid tissue itself. So it'd get "hung up" more so.

Females usually lasted a week or two longer before presenting themselves as having it severely because the amount of food being taken in, pushed out the fecal matter by physical forces, not by peristaltic motions. So once the feces would poke out, they could reach back and manually pull it out.

But doing home necropsies on several that had died, their stomaches were rock hard. And to me, it had to be agonizing living like that. So I made a point to break up that colony and put the male with unrelated females and all of their offspring got fed off, I didn't keep any back.

I just kept him despite his genetics, because he produced the fattest babies and they were always very robust. And ultimately made great feeders. He also lived to the ripe old age of 2 years or so. Not bad for an $7 Petsmart mouse.

Its interesting when I was researching it back when I had litter after litter that had those conditions. They said the females usually lived through the disease by daily enemas and a special low fiber diet. And I thought to myself, WHY on earth would you subject a mouse you can't breed or show to such daily "torture"? Euthanizing seemed much more humane.

 

[Bobo's Mama]

I don't think it was from being too small to breed because this was her third litter. Their poops seem normal to me. Dark brown little raisins. Hopefully it won't happen to the others. I think I will wait for a while before introducing a new female. Do you guys have any recommendations as to how to do that without any casualties, or should I just raise up one of the daughters? I think I'll do that. That's what I did with my rats and have had no problems with them.

 

[Joni Garcia]

I don't think it was from being too small to breed because this was her third litter. Their poops seem normal to me. Dark brown little raisins. Hopefully it won't happen to the others. I think I will wait for a while before introducing a new female. Do you guys have any recommendations as to how to do that without any casualties, or should I just raise up one of the daughters? I think I'll do that. That's what I did with my rats and have had no problems with them.

Since her poop was normal, it sounds like the strain of giving birth did it for your little girl. I agree with you... I'd just raise up one of the daughters. That's the best way to eliminate fighting.

 

[nsmar4211]

The sugar water method sometimes works because the sugar helps pull the liquid out of the swollen area. Sometimes you can gently clean the prolapse, put a little bit of vegetable or mineral oil on the area, and manuever it back in. But once that happens, the animal can never be bred again. If it happens to a female relative, the whole line shouldn't be used. There is a genetic predisposition to it... it can also just sometimes "happen". Had a hamster that actually survived a prolapse and lived 8 months longer, but it was a horrible few days for her. Sheep are very prone to this, and I had to deal with a goat with the same problem (had a 13 lb baby and part of the uterus came out with him when he was pulled out)... Sorry about the mousie, unfortunatly there isn't much you can do for them when that happens...