If You're a Vet, Why Are You Asking Me for Advice?

I don't want to specifically point out the person who recently sent me a mouse question, because I don't want anyone to be afraid to ask for my help with any animal situation, big or small.  I'm upset about it, though.  Not just it, of course, but it's one of the things getting under my skin tonight (it seems like everything I write about lately is dark - but it's a bad economy, and that means neglect and surrendering is at a huge high).

The person who wrote me told me she had one mouse returned to her after traveling with them, who began to show signs of extreme illness.  She dropped weight drastically, hunched, and refused food and water.  Eventually the questioner took her to the vet to be euthanized.

The questioner wrote that the mouse had Sendai virus, one of many things that can cause an upper respiratory tract infection (URI) in rodents.  One of MANY, MANY THINGS.  The Merck Vet Manual has this to say about Sendai:

"Sendai virus is an RNA paramyxovirus of the Parainfluenza family. It is highly contagious in mice and rats and causes an acute respiratory infection with no carrier state in immunocompetent animals. Sendai virus is transmitted by aerosols and direct contact with infected animals. Infection is usually subclinical, although sick animals may show signs of stunted growth and respiratory involvement with secondary bacterial pathogens. Gross lesions may include patchy lung consolidation and mild interstitial pneumonia. Perivascular lymphocytic cuffing is often observed on microscopic lung sections. Diagnosis is by ELISA, IFA, or PCR. Infection is generally self-limiting."

From that information, one might be more than a little curious how the questioner knew the exact cause of the URI.  It came on quickly, and I don't believe they saw a vet before putting her down, so I'd be surprised if any of the diagnostic tests had been performed.  If one were very, very curious what KIND of URI caused a mouse's decline in health, one could theoretically run a post-mortem histopathology, but I doubt she found a vet willing to do that and paid the upwards of $100 after euthanasia to discover which virus or bacteria made the mouse sick.


And on top of that - URIs are not that simple.  There doesn't HAVE to be just one thing causing the symptoms.  When an immune system is preoccupied, whether with traveling, stress, or a primary, subclinical infection, it's very easy to pick up a secondary infection that may or may not be the actual cause of the symptoms and damage.


There were other mice sharing the cage and travel with the mouse that got sick, so I strongly recommended treating the surviving mice with an antibiotic, just to be on the safe side.  I then discovered that not only were they already showing symptoms of infection, but she had "already tried that" to no effect.  Mmkay.  First of all, there isn't just one antibiotic.  There's one, MAYBE two you can get OTC, and then there are a few others to try via prescription pad.  Second, what did she try?  Did she try it for long enough, or did she cause resistance?  How long have those symptoms have been showing if she's already given them meds AND given up on them?  At this point, I'm getting more concerned.


The questioner has resigned to let the surviving mice "live out their lives" without more meds.


Look, that's not how it works in mice with URIs.  They might fight it off, or they might die horribly and slowly.  URIs can wipe out ENTIRE COLONIES.  With a long incubation period in most of them, right on up to three weeks, you can cross contaminate once and lose every mouse in your home.  That's why everyone pushes isolation so strongly - it's very serious.  Why take a chance with a loved pet?


I want to tell the questioner they cannot possibly know which URI(s) could be affecting the remaining mice, but I don't want to offend her or imply she may have unnecessarily put down her pet.  It's kind of delicate.  But it pisses me off.


If you aren't going to listen to my advice, and you're going to tell me you already know what's wrong with them and what you will do...why did you come to me in the first place?








Then there's this.  BEWARE - these photographs pull no punches.  Her camera goes behind the scenes of animal overpopulation and overcrowded kill shelters.  I love and hate these.


I was going to put up a pet of the day, but I'm so nauseated right now, so...horrified?  Grateful?  Miserable?  That I just can't.  I go to the Pawsitively page and all I see is album after album.  There are so many pets emotionlessly posted as a last ditch effort at adoption.  Instead of a photo and a story, now it's an album of 80 nameless dogs and cats with strict rules on tagging and pulling.  Be prompt, or the animal is destroyed.  I just....it's so sickening, I can't handle it right now.  I go home and I see my fosters, my rescues, my babies, and I don't know why they got to be lucky.  I don't know if they ARE lucky.


When the person who helped you rescue six tiny lives tells you if they have to go back to that drooling, miserable, horrible woman who would have let them die in her front yard and scooped them into a trash bag like dead leaves then "so be it"...you know shit is bad.  You know it's the end of the rope.  You know there is no more help left to offer, and you know you won't say no if asked.


I hope finding my soul was worth it to them, their people, and the ones I can't save.


-Mouse

Rodent Dentistry!

It's no surprise that I have dentistry on the brain - I had two weeks of lessons on it recently.  Not that two weeks is a tremendously long time to spend on teeth, in fact, I feel like I barely scratched the surface!

Just today, though, another cool questioner happened to ask me about mouse teeth.  I know some basics - like how the molars don't grow more once they are formed but the front teeth continue to grow for the rest of rodent lives.  I know some of the basic things that can go wrong, like overgrowth, abscesses, malocclusion, etc.  I don't know when baby mice get their teeth, though, and the question that's really driving me crazy is whether or not rodents get milk teeth (deciduous teeth).  I hate when not only do I not know, but I also can't find.  I'm sure if I keep hunting I'll uncover the answer eventually.

I did find the answer to when infant mice get their teeth, though, even if I don't know if they're permanent or not.  This paper mentions that lab mice showed dentin (the bony layer beneath the enamel) formation at 1-2 days after birth and enamel formation 3 or more days after birth.  The rest of the toothy development seems to have taken place in utero.  That's interesting!!  If you've ever seen a day old mouse pup you probably weren't particularly worried about getting bit (except by mom!), but early mouse development was always something that struck me as very interesting.  Well, mice in general, actually.

(Lorena Cupcake)

Anyhoo, still don't know about the milk teeth.  I'll find it sooner or later.  I should definitely be cramming for my finals, though!

In other news, my fiance and I thought we were getting a buncha land this summer but it fell through, so we're still looking for a new house with some acreage.  As soon as we achieve that we can hopefully get started on some meat/egg chickens and then...*drumroll please*...DAIRY GOATS!  And fiber goats!  I like goats.  Then I will have even more cool animal stuff to talk about!  :)

There's more other-news about that tripawd I posted up a little while back, but it's fairly unpleasant (she's fine, don't worry) so I'll save that for another day.  :)

Later gators!
-Mouse

Mice and Rats

Most people lump mice and rats together. It even sounds right together - miceandrats. Ratsandmice. They're both rodents. They look similar. Tons of people can't tell them apart. When I was a kid I was told the difference was in the tail - mice had furry tails and rats had scaly ones.

by Suprise Truck

But mice and rats do NOT go together.  No, rats prey on mice.  Here, let me share a different story before I get to the good stuff I just found out.


I answer questions on AllExperts under the mouse category, and the majority of the questions I get are really, painfully silly.  I'm very near to just sitting down and making a website with all of the repetitive answers:

• My mouse is sneezing/coughing/chirping!  What do I do?
• Why is my mouse itchy and scabby?
• What's this bump on my mouse?
• I "rescued" an orphan mouse, what do I do now?
• My mouse died!!  Omgwtfbbq?
• Why doesn't my male mouse get along with my other male mouse?
• I in one way or another completely fucked up trying to breed the mice I just brought home today from the pet store and now they are dead/dying/sick/aborting/etc.  Fix it!

Now, don't get me wrong, asking questions is GOOD.  I answer them all politely.  If you need to ask me, DO.  I would much rather be mildly annoyed for five minutes because you didn't read the very last question I answered than have your mice suffer because you're worried I'll scoff.  I just wish people would use their noggins about mice, that's all, and consider using a vet or reading over past questions.

But about 20% of the questions I get are really, really good.  I LOVE these questions, even though it doesn't always turn out well for the mice.  It keeps me sharp, makes me learn more, and fine tunes the diagnostic part of my brain.  I love puzzles, and good questions.

One such question was just asked.

I didn't take it seriously at first because it sounded stupid.  It was something along the lines of how their brand new mice had been dying, behaving oddly, etc.  I wasn't getting a very good vibe from the questioner.  Their main inquiry, though, was why mice tend to eat the head/brain of mice that have passed, because one of his was missing half it's skull when he found it.

Initially I had a few, generic, answer-form thoughts.  Hunger.  Don't feed your mice once a day for Christ's sake, they aren't dogs.  They need food available 24-7.  Fighting.  I frequently see mice go for the head when fighting over territory, resources, pecking order, etc.


Wait.  That's bigger than that.  WHY do they go for the head?  Because it's quickest?  Then why would they eat the brain afterwards?

Shit guys, I have no idea.  WHY do mice eat the head?  Is this a war tribe kind of thing?  Are brains delicious?  Is it ensuring they're really dead?  WHY do rodents, not even just mice, start from the head and move down?

So I googled, and I found this:

"Rat odor is stressful to mice and has an effect on their behavior and reproduction. In fact, rat odor is sometimes used as a predator odor to study anxiety and antipredator behavior in mice.

Specifically, domestic and wild-stock mice who are exposed to a conscious or anesthetized rat tend to flee, and if prevented from fleeing, they show defensive or attack behavior (Griebel et al. 1995, Blanchard et al. 1998).

Mice housed in the same room as rats tend to be more stressed than mice housed without rats (Calvo-Torrent et al. 1999). Mice who can smell rat urine take ten times longer to start eating a treat than mice who cannot (Merali et al 2003). Mice who were exposed to rat urine for just a few minutes startle more afterwards, even up to two days after the rat urine exposure (Hebb et al. 2003). Pregnant mice exposed to rat urine produce fewer litters than mice who were not exposed (de Catanzaro 1988)."


Okay, so I totally knew that rats ate mice, and that if you attempted to house them together you'd have one less mouse.  I never thought about the effect of their smell, before.  Up to two days of stress after smelling rat urine?  I used to keep my ratties in the same room as my mice.  I've even placed cages on top of the rat condo while changing them out.  I feel pretty bad for what I was putting the little guys through.  It's useful information for breeding, too!

I feel this is pretty relevant to this, as well.


I don't have an answer for him yet, but I'll figure it out.  It's really bugging me now, though.  Why eat the head?  It appears to be a strong instinct for rats, and from what I've seen of cannibalism in mice, it doesn't look a whole lot different.

In the meantime, I don't think I'm going to be able to eat for hours.  Not a whole lot makes me nauseous, but you should check out the inside of a mouse some time, or watch a momma go batshit and eat her bebbehs.  *shudder*  They DON'T start at the head.  Moms just go for it.

Guh.

-Mouse



P.S. - Same Pet of the Day.  This girl needs a home by Monday, 11 AM.  I pulled some serious strings to keep her alive that long, she was supposed to be put down today.  I can't help it.  I like tripawds.  If anyone can help out, email me at twsquirrels@gmail.com.

The Case of the Prego Squeakers

I finally have something vettish to talk about here, and of course, I didn't even learn it in my classes.  Ah well!

So I answer questions on AllExperts.com about mice.  Why do I do this?  Because mice basically rawk.  Also, because I've spent the past couple of years absorbing every piece of information about them I could get my hands on, from breeding forums to books on genetics and showing, to papers, seminars, and texts from the Jackson Lab.  I worked with them in a lab, I studied colony management in my free time, I bred them in my office, and I still keep them as pets.  I even attempted to do my own research on a color gene before I realized how difficult that idea is without money or a lab.  I'm writing a book on them.

Maybe it started when I kept one or two at a time as pets in high school, or maybe it started before that when I'd play with the ones at the pet shop.  Or maybe it really started later than that, when I realized how poorly informed feeder breeders were and felt a desire to light and spread the wildfire of ethical mouse breeding for food.  Or maybe the real beginning was the first time I answered a mouse question on Yahoo! Answers and got a response telling me that I'd saved their mouse's life.  I think that moment was when I decided to be a vet tech, or even a vet someday, too.  That is a powerful feeling.

Whatever - whenever it started, I wound up here and now, still studying, and now helping other people online.

I get mostly idiotic questions.  A lot of people write in asking things they could easily have googled, or asking how to dig themselves out of a very messy hole they made by pairing mice before they had any idea why they were even doing it.  I answer every question the best that I can, because it doesn't matter to the mice how they got there, and the more information I can spread the more comfortable those people's mice will be.  I almost never get cool genetics questions, and most of the time if genetics are brought up it's something like:

"If I breed my white mouse with red eyes to a colored mouse what colors will the babies come out?  Because I did that.  So what color will the babies be?"

If you're brand new to mouse breeding that IS a hard question.  But all it takes is a little research to figure the answer out.  AND, why would you ask me that after you've already bred them?  Why would you breed them if you don't even have a goal?  It's even harder to answer, though, without going back to the beginnings of "what is a dominant gene?" and "what is albino?"  I can't just say the doe is c/c and her other loci will determine the color of the offspring.  It's times like this I just want to answer:

"Black.  THEY WILL ALL BE BLACK."

No, they won't all be black.  It just gets frustrating.

Anyways, today I got asked the COOLEST QUESTION OF ALL TIME.  And she had no idea she was asking it, either!



Okay, so she had written me awhile back wanting to know if it was safe to breed her.  We determined it would be, and went over all the possible things that could go wrong so she'd be prepared.  What she didn't tell me was actually what caused the problem, though.

This time when she wrote in she was worried because mum had bled about 17 days into pregnancy.  She "bled out," but hadn't been presenting a big prego belly or anything, and was now discharging a clear goo.  What I wished she'd told me before was that her mother and another mouse related to her had gone through the exact same thing, only to have a small litter a few days later.

It took me a few seconds to realize this, because at first I was thinking regular old complications, a different pain causing her not to groom up the discharge/blood or a premature birthing, or a non-pregnancy related issue.  But then it hit me - lethal genes.

Some genes in mice are lethal.  The mice will develop to a certain point, start to express the genes (if they received it from both parents), and then pass away.  Sometimes this happens shortly after they are born, but with many lethal genes, they die in the uterus.  If they die soon enough they can be reabsorbed, but if they die later into the term, they need to be expelled in order to protect the mom and the other pups from infection due to decomposing in the womb.

She was getting smaller litters with excessive bleeding and discharge a few days before birthing.  I'm about 99% positive her mice were having normal litters but losing several of them before they were born, making it LOOK like they were having one or two pups when really, those were the only pups who did not inherit the deadly genes or gene combo.

It's unfortunate, but it's better than finding out she couldn't pass the litter, or wasn't pregnant but had a terrible GI problem, especially when you consider the fact that none of her local vets take mice seriously and offer to put them down for her any time she comes to them with a question!

And if you ask me?  It's cool as hell.  I've NEVER run into lethal genes before, except the immunodeficiency problems associated with satin mice.  And even then, my only problem with them (thank goodness!) was one premature litter that all survived and thrived thanks to momma Emma (RIP) being basically amazing!  :)



-Mouse



Miss you, Emma girl.