My little sister's pet mouse is sick. what is it?

Question

My little sister's pet mouse has the wierdest neck rash and he keeps itching. I seems to spread really fast all over his neck within days. It is red and we thought it could just be allergies. What is it? PLz help.

Answer 1

Only a vet could tell you, but the possibilities include:

Parasites:  (easy for mice to pick up mites or lice)

Allergies:  (to the bedding, or to a food.  common food allergies for mice include peanuts, corn, and wheat.)

Dietary Intolerance:  (some strains of mice are sensitive to too much protein in their diets and develop "hot spots" where they lose their fur)

Barbering:  (Multiple mice in the same cage sometimes chew and/or pull out each other's whiskers and fur, it's overgrooming and it's a dominance thing.  Almost impossible to stop and they teach each other to do it, so if you take one who is being overgroomed out and put her with someone else, she'll teach them to do it.)

Habitual Scratching: (Mice who had a skin irritation whose source has been removed sometimes just keep scratching out of habit.  This is a really big problem, they can do themselves a lot of damage and there's almost nothing you can do to stop it.)

If it's parasites, you need a vet to treat it.  Do you see flaky skin?  Anything moving in the fur?  It can be really hard to tell.  But if the mouse is itchy you'll be able to tell by small scabs on his neck and he may start damaging his ears.  

If it's dietary, you'll need to change the diet.  What I do is put them on a very safe, neutral diet for 10 days to 2 weeks and see if any fur starts coming back in.  The safest foods are rice (cooked or not, but brown is healthier than white) and millet.  You can add some oatmeal to that without any issues, probably.  But no treats during that time, because you're testing to see if there's something in the diet that's a problem.  If the fur starts coming back in and it isn't just a naked bare spot, then you know it's a food problem.

Change the bedding type for that 10 days, too.  Rip up paper towels and change them every couple of days.  That way you'll take away whatever problem might be caused by the bedding.

If it's habitual, though, the mouse will just keep scratching, and it's bad and almost impossible to fix, and he'll cause damage to himself--it's very sad.  

If it's overgrooming (barbering) from the other mice with him (but if it's a him he's probably solo?) then it makes them all look funny but it's essentially harmless.

If you hold the mouse up to your ear and listen to it breathe, can you hear wheezing or clicking?  Does the coat seem duller than you remember? Does his nose seem pointier than you remember, or does he seem more hunched than usual?  If you answer yes to any of these, he needs a vet, soon, because the most likely scenario is that he's sick with pneumonia or some other infection, and that's when they develop parasites, too, as a secondary problem.  

If he otherwise seems healthy and normal, and runs on his wheel happily and so forth, then you probably have time to do the 10 day bedding and food simplification stuff to see if that's the problem.  Good luck!

Answer 2

Yes, it could be allergies. However, it could also be a skin condition. It could be from parasites as well. Is it housed with another mouse or mice? It could also be biting its fur out. Sometimes some animals do that when they are stressed. Something like allergies or parasites could even be stressing it out enough!

Answer 3

It's something that a vet needs to see and tell you how to treat!