This mouse is vile *graphic image - you are warned*

[Tula_Montage]

I thawed out this adult mouse tonight. It had a large pink patch on it's back and what seemed like large fleshy lumps just under the skin. I cut it open to find lots of little bubble pocket things... I burst a couple of the tumour like bulges and the smell was horrific. Does anyone know what they are? The poor wee things insides were riddled with these lumps and it had a severly hunched back. This is the first time I have ever had a bad feeder from the company I used, but on the safe side I have thrown it straight in the bin.

 

[cassandra]

*hork!*

Jebus...I'd be suuuuper careful with any other frozen feeders you got from the same place...I don't know what that is but it sure is gross!

 

[starsevol]

Elle....this is one of those times I wish you weren't so talented with a camera....eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I have never seen that before. Perhaps the poor thing was plagued with absesses.

 

[Tula_Montage]

Thats what it looked like... I dunno. I will contact my supplier. Like I said, this is the first time I have ever had a bad feeder, they are usually no less than perfect.

 

[Nanci]

A lot of my frozen bigger mice feel like they have hunched backs, but after they thaw, if I stretch them out, they relax to a normal-feeling spine. What are you calling tumors there? What's the golden brown stuff? The bulgy stuff with blood vessels looks like a membrane called mesentary which attaches organs to the abdominal wall. I would expect it to smell horrible- I think that's pretty normal. Insides of bodies smell really gross. Except for not being able to tell if the brown stuff is poo or not, I think the insides look pink and healthy...

 

[Tula_Montage]

Do you not see those little sacks? They were filled with air and they were all over the poor mooses humped back (which was still severly humped even after thawing out)

I presume the greeny yellow stuff is digested food?

 

[Nanci]

Yes, I see them. I'll ask a doctor at work- it just doesn't look tumerous to me. Maybe a teeny bit fatty. I'm not a mouse pathologist, though, so what do I know. But I've seen a lot of people guts.

 

[Nanci]

What if you made an incision into an apparently healthy (frozen) mouse in the exact same area and compared?

 

[toyah]

I came in to find one of my mice extremely bloated in the abdomen, he felt like he'd been inflated. I euthanised him and on post mortem I found a bloated intestine like your first picture. On further investigation it seemed he had an obstruction in the small intestine, which had caused a gassy buildup further up the intestines. I would guess your mouse has had similar.

The foul smell is normal, as once you break into the insides you're looking not just at mouse flesh but also whatever he's eaten over the last few days before death too ... never nice.

 

[halicorn]

I think i just puked in my mouth alil eeeeeeeewww

 

[Tula_Montage]

Thats exactly what it was then Toyah, than you. I never fed it to the snake anyway just in case... I was a teeny bit freaked out at the giant smelly pockets. I don't think Lacey would have appreciated it.

 

[Jrgh17]

Elle....this is one of those times I wish you weren't so talented with a camera....eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Seconded.

I would also agree that they look like abscesses. Air-filled sacs are not normal... unfortunately I know this from dissections. Excessive gasses could've 'blown up' the normal membrane around the organs. If this membrane became infected, that would explain the excessively gross smell.

 

[Susan]

The pockets of air you found in the intestines can be a normal finding in any dead animal. The gas is created by bacteria that don't die as soon as the mouse does. They continue to grow and eat and create the gas until they can't live anymore, such as when they get frozen with the mouse. Unfortunately, since the mouse is dead, it can't get rid of the gas, aka flatulence, so it just stays there until you opened it. Flatulence is bad enough when it's fresh, but considering it's in a dead body, yeah, it's gonna smell VERY bad! I"m sure you've seen or heard of dead animals that have bloated...same thing, only more so as those bodies didn't get frozen to stop the process.

 

[cassandra]

So maybe the mouse then wasn't frozen quickly enough after being euthanized?

 

[Nanci]

I just showed it to my radiologist- he says it's normal bowel and to be expected that it smells horrible.

 

[diamondlil]

Elle, your A&P will have to improve for your nursing career!:rofl:

 

[tom e]

LOL, I'd say Elle is gonna' be fine.. I can't forget when she chopped up that jumbo for little snake meals!! I admired the ingenuity, and said I'd do the same- but I haven't done it yet, still feeding many many pinks to my MBK and Milksnake.. Even while four large bags of jumbos sit in my freezer..

(assuming A&P has something to do with not being grossed out, that is..)

 

[freetv-5]

I think it is normal bloating from not being frozen right away, possible due to grabbing a bunch of mice out at the same time and not noticing a dead one???
I am no expert but did work for a Dead Stock Removal (picking up dead live stock from farms, not my career just a second job when trying to pay off my first house). Anyways whenever I picked up dead pigs and if the temperature was at all warm and they sat for a day they would swell. When cut open the intestines would swell right out, looked pretty much the same but much bigger scale.

 

[Nanci]

A&P= Anatomy and Physiology

 

[Tula_Montage]

Erm thats funy you mention my lack of A&P knowledge... When Windsor was sick last year, just after coming back from euthanising him I was with my friend Lynn, and she had the cold. Somewhere along the conversation I said "Well lets hope I don't have to euthanise you because of your irritated lung"... I don't know why she laughed so hard until I was swiftly reminded that lung was plural in humans. LOL