Scratching until she bleeds

by Rebecca Fri 27 Aug 2021, 6:21 am

Hi there,
I have 4 female mice in a 100cm cage. I panicked this morning because I thought there had been a fight as my black fuzzy/not fully hairless mouse was bleeding on her face. I quickly separated them into pairs. But from watching her now she won’t stop scratching. I plan on getting her mite treatment in case but all the others seem fine. I’m using aspen bedding at the moment, I was thinking of switching to fleece for now. And using a coco fibre dig box for burrowing. Just to see if it’s a bedding allergy. If that doesn’t improve I guess I should start removing allergens in their food? I have a large pack of aubiose horse bedding on the way already, not sure if that is a better option than the aspen.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

by River Sun 29 Aug 2021, 5:11 pm

I just had this problem in my colony. My baldie was the only one impacted as well! In our case it was mites. Typically the first sign of mites isn’t the scratching (mice groom a lot, so we don’t tend to pick up on an increase) but fur thinning. Hairless or near hairless mice don’t have much fur to thin down, so the first sign is scratches. Mice are delicate.

That said it could be any number of things. Dermatitis, allergies, mites, fungus…but probably mites. Good luck!

Scratching until she bleeds

Scratching until she bleeds

Re: Scratching until she bleeds