The Ringworm Infection

I have a ringworm infection.  Blech.

After being crazy itchy for 2 weeks, I finally went to my doctor to see if he could give me anything to help.  He looked at my chin.  Then I showed him my shoulder and he said “you have ringworm”.  

I had, at one point, suspected ringworm, but the appearance wasn’t completely typical, and despite my scratching, I hadn’t spread the rashes to other parts of my body.  Now, I wish I’d gone to see him a week ago.  I could have been a week into my treatment already.

But now, my usual rampant paranoia is in overdrive.  If one of the little’uns was infected, they could be quarantined.  But, how do I quarantine myself from 20 furry babies who rely on me for their existance?  The last two days have been a flurry of vet appointments, scrubbing, bleach, hand sanitiser, and laundry.

Almost everything has been scrubbed – my nails cracked in several places, and various scuffs and tears in my skin, and cramps in my fingers to show for it.  The vet said that I “shouldn’t worry about it”.  Well, how does that work?  I’m contagious!

Here’s hoping for the best though.  I’m on high-alert for itchy-looking mice.

Moral Dilemma

My little wild mouse escaped.

In what I suppose are her frantic efforts to escape, she had been making a considerable mess of the tub I had her in.  Afraid of the litter going mouldy, I took her out of the tub to clean it last night.  I did the best thing I knew to… pinched her tail and picked her up.

As this is not… “good” for the mouse, I have this technique where once I’ve grabbed them, I twist my hand around underneath them to support their feet.  When I picked up the little wild mouse, as I was trying to get my hand under her, she reacted in the only way she knew how.  Something had a hold of her tail, so she bit it.

Now, I’ve been bitten by my mice before, it’s not much to worry about, but this was different.  She sunk her tiny teeth into the pad of my pinkie finger and refused to let go.  And dear sweet Optimus ever-loving Prime did it HURT.

I finally dropped her in the cup I was transferring her to, but it was pretty traumatic for both of us.  So tonight, when she’d made a week’s worth of mess in just one day, I tried to come up with another tactic.  I took a small transport tub that I’ve borrowed from a friend, opened the hatch in the top and placed the two tubs on their sides, hatch-to-hatch.  She immediately went to investigate this new development, and I dropped the hatch on the smaller tub, smacking her on the bum as I did so.

I should have been more patient.  In hindsight, that was far more horrible than I thought it would be for her.  But it got worse.  This borrowed tub is smaller than mine, and it turns out I couldn’t get the water bowl in there.  

If I’d just converted the damn transport tub to be able to hold a water bowl, none of this would have been a problem!  This is not the first time my laziness has thwarted me, and I should really learn my lesson.

So, I pried the top off the tub, and covering most of the opening, I carefully lowered the water bowl in.  I should have seen it, she was calculating.  She saw an opportunity, and she took it.  She leapt out through the gap between my hand and the lid of the tub.  She sprang towards freedom.  She luckily landed on the bin my my desk, and leapt again to the floor. 

It happened so fast.

So here’s my dilemma: do I try catch her again?

I could set the traps again and see if I can trap her.  But what then?  Keep holding her unfairly?  Hope that she settles in and warms up to me?  I’d actually considered setting her free as my personal House Mouse.  It seemed like a better idea then setting her loose outside to the mercy of cats and birds.  But what about my dog?  What about my mice?  I mean, I’m pretty confident that she can’t reach them, but it’s still a concern.

So, do I let her be?  Maybe she’ll run far, far away from the sadistic mouse owner with the humane traps.  Mayhaps that I never see her again.  It makes me sad, she was so tiny and adorable.

*sigh*

Mouse in my House

As you know, recently (Friday) due to some exceptional stupidity on my part, two of my mice escaped.  The very next day, I was surprised by a tiny mouse head poking it’s head out at me from down on the floor near where I keep all the mouse accessories.  It sure as hell didn’t look like one of my mice, and surely it was too small!  I’d put the humane traps under my bathroom sink instead of returning them upstairs, so I pulled them out and set them near the dogs bowl.  Sure enough, the little squirt was gravitating towards the water as well.

I was completely paranoid, though I knew this mouse couldn’t be one of mine, so I went around and roused all my mice out of their beds early (dinner time was still about 2 hours away) to do a head count.  Everyone was accounted for, but I left the traps set up just in case.  Then, last night (Sunday) I spotted the pipsqueak again.

I was snacking on some granola clusters, so I added some to the traps to sweeten the deal, and sure enough, this little mouse darted across the floor and into one of the traps.  It did not need to go far enough into the trap to trigger to grab the granola, but the trap was facing away from me, so I crept towards it and nudged the end.  Gotcha!

Just my luck, but between Jakobim making his tub unlivable, forcing me to temporarily home him and Nate and Tris in CritterTrails, the third one is currently occupied by a (hopefully) broody SUN Blue Sky.  I grabbed the transport tub, and tipped my captive inside.  She’s tiny!  At least, I think she’s a she… she might just be teeny.  I’ve given her food, and water (though I can’t fit a water bottle in there, so I have to use a bowl, and she keeps throwing litter and bedding in the water, making it smell funky).

Now I’m at a loss.  She’s a sweet little thing, though terrified.  I know that I should release her.  I don’t know where.  I could try taking her up to the top of the estate and hopefully let her go sorta in the scrub.  If it’s too close to home, she might just come back, but I really can’t think of anywhere that’s not right on top of other people’s home.  Other people who might be less humane about a tiny wild mouse.

click to enlarge

Injuries

In light of my last post, and seeing as the boys were awake again, I took them each out and examined them.

Tristan has had his tail marked.  He still has a tiny bit of scabbing on his shoulder from the incident with Jakobim all that time ago.  He also has a bit on his neck.  I fear this has occured since their reunion this morning.  I’m not sure of the meaning, but I if either of them suffer any further injuries, I will have to seperate them.

Nathaniel has an injury to his paw.  It looks like it has a thread wrapped around it and pulled tight, biting into the flesh.  This could have happened during this morning’s debacle, as I noted that the escapee mouse was dragging some dust behind him (both myself and my dog shed hairs, making my home a haven of dust bunnies the size of tumbleweeds).

Nathaniel does seem larger to me.  In absence of any other options, I will weigh them tonight if I remember.  They are back in the igloo together – peacefully this time – so I won’t take them out just now and disturb them.

A weigh in confirms that a) Nathaniel is larger than his brother again, b) that is was Tristan that was running wild about my living room this morning, and c) Nate is lost without his baby brother.  There have been several scuffles, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t make me think twice, but has put me on edge considering their injuries.  However, they have remained curled together in the igloo, so I may just be paranoid.

The Mouse Debacle

I am an idiot.

I’m an idiot who is very, very lucky.

Just the other day, I posted about Jakob having chewed through the plastic of his tub, to escape.  Jakob’s currently living in a CritterTrail while I decide what to do about the situation.  Last night, I was cleaning some of the tubs/cages, and I decided that seeing as Jakob’s tub was currently vacant, I would empty it and clean it.

Because each tub acts as the lid for the tub below, I couldn’t simply leave the slot where Jakob’s tub would go empty.  So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to move Nate and Tristan’s tub up one slot.  Stupidly, I figured that they wouldn’t escape on the first night.  Surely it would take some time for them to work out Jakob’s escape route.

Idiot.

I had volunteered to go to work this morning so one of the girls could have to day off, so I got up to my alarm this morning, and dragged myself out of bed.  I’m glad I’d put socks on about half an hour prior, when my alarm first went off (I time it so I can get 2 twenty-minute snoozes in), because I might have been frost bitten by now otherwise.

The bathroom is just across the hall, but the door is slightly offsite from the bedroom.  I was about to step into the bathroom when a small and grey mousey shape darted out of the bathroom and into the hall, heading for the kitchen.  It was dark, I couldn’t really see, but I knew it was Nate.  I just knew.

At the moment, my house is a mousey dreamland.  There are half-unpacked boxes everywhere, and perfect mouse-sized gaps around most of them.  I managed to corner Nate, trapping him behind a box, but as I tried to grab him, he leapt over my hand and disappeared between the forest of boxes.  I freaked out.

I locked my dog in the wardrobe.  There are no doors in my house.  There is only the “baby” gate that I had set up in the doorway of the walk-in robe.  I put Menchi behind that so he couldn’t chase Nate. Instead of getting ready for work, I spent half an hour alternately freaking out, flat on my stomach trying to peer under the last piece of furniture I’d seen him run under, or trying to inch closer to the dog’s water bowl where Nate was gravitating towards the water source.

It was almost time for me to be leaving for work.  I took one of the spare cages I had and propped it over the dog’s bowl.  I hoped that Nate would be desperate enough for water that he’d climb up the side and into the cage (the top of the cage wasn’t on), and that I’d be able to grab him faster than he could climb up and out again.

I went into the bedroom to wait for mum to come downstairs.  In my messed up state of mind, I decided to check on all the mice tubs.  Danube?  Check.  Jackson?  Yes.  Ronan?  Yup.  Heath.  Indeed.  Finally, I opened the tub where Nate and Tris were supposed to be.  

Tristan had always been a home body… part of me hoped that maybe he had stayed after Nate had gotten out.  I wasn’t that lucky, the tub was completely deserted.  My heart fell.  I’d only seen one mouse in the living area, and although it was moving around fast, it wasn’t getting around so fast that it could have been two mice.

I told mum what happened, and that I wouldn’t be going to work.  Menchi is a terrier, and given even half an opportunity, he would love to “play” with my mice.  I couldn’t risk allowing him free run of the apartment while my babies were loose.  I mentioned something to mum about having to go out and get humane mouse traps.  Blessedly, she told me that the owned some, but didn’t know where they were.

I decided to clear my head by setting out exactly what I was going to do.  I was going to go to the bathroom, get dressed, find the traps, set them, and wait.  Wait for as long as it took.  Coming out of the bathroom, I noticed movement.  When I’d taken Jakobim’s tub for cleaning, I’d put his wheel in the gap under the stack where the bottom drawer would go.  Perched there was one of the boys.  He must have stayed on my chest of drawers, hiding behind the girls cage.

I gathered him up, he didn’t try to run.  Curled in my hand, I was convinced it was Nate.  He honestly seemed larger than the escaped boy.  Last night, I’d set up one of the CritterTrails, thinking to try pairing Tris and SUN Blue Sky again.  Thankful, I took Nate through to the living area to put him inside.  Tris was frozen under the dining table.  I pinched the base of Nate’s tail and crouched down, saying “tell your brother to come back”, but Tris ran.

I put Nate inside the CritterTrail, and gave him a water bottle.  Hoping that Tris would want to come back to his brother, I put the CT on the floor next to the dog’s bowl and went to get dressed.  My idea had worked, Tris kept coming back to Nate in the cage, but wouldn’t let me approach.  I went upstairs and found the traps.

The humane traps are like a bent pipe.  When set, they balance on one end, with the baited end up in the air.  The hinged door has a pair of “legs”, when set, these legs rest on the floor, holding the door open.  As soon as a mouse walks too close to the baited end, their weight tips the trap over, the baited end coming down to the floor and the door end tilting up in the air.  The moment the “legs” aren’t firmly touching the floor anymore, the hinge of the door springs closed.  I imagine it would be possible for a mouse with a long body to trap their tail in the door, but all round these are pretty good traps.

I smeared some nutella in the end of each, and stuck a piece of sugary cereal to the nutella.  Tris was climbing on the CritterTrail when the traps were ready, trying to get to the water bottle.  I blocked off the two easy escape routes with the traps, and sat there, ready to try and frighten him back towards the traps if he tried climbing the cage around the water dish and escaping that way.

It didn’t take long.  He investigated both trap entrances, them carefully made his way inside.  I think the fact that it was dark and enclosed appealed to him – he was feeling vulnerable.  He’d barely touched the slope inside the trap and it triggered.  I picked up the CritterTrail and the trap and took them over to the dining room table.  I filled the food bowl and put the boys’ igloo, stuffed with their bedding, into the CritterTrail.  I was completely paranoid about Tris making a dash for freedom once I opened the trap, so I stuck the end into the CritterTrail and opened it, almost unceremoniously dumping him onto  the CT floor.

He had a long drink, and the boys had a big feed.  They curled up in their snug igloo and went to sleep.  I can only imagine how cold the poor things were, it was a mere 17 degrees this morning.

I plan on keeping a very close eye on them both.  I worry that the escapee may have injured themself when they jumped/fell of the drawers and onto the floor.  And one of them looks like they have an injured paw (dammit!  Why didn’t I mark the tail of the boy that I found safe under the tubs??).

At the end of the day, I have to count myself as very lucky.  Depsite my idiocy, if the escapee had found a better hiding place, or if they hadn’t escaped until after I left for work, Menchi would have been loose in the house.  While I don’t doubt that they could have stayed safely out of his reach, I also imagine that they would have died in their hiding places.

There’s Always One

On Monday, I went to a $2 store and bought some cheap towels to throw over the cages to help keep the warmth in.  On Tuesday morning, when I woke up, there was mouse poop on the towel covering the girls cage.  At the time, I simply blamed it on Ronan.  The mesh “window” of his drawer-tub overlooks the top of the girls cage, and he climbs that wire a lot.

This morning however, Jakob was perched all casually on top of the girls cage.

Jakob’s never been shy about chewing things.  Though he was fairly well behaved about the items inside his cage (his igloo, wheel, and cuddle cube), he shredded my cage tidy that I’d put around his cage to keep the litter he kept tossing everywhere in.  When I moved him to the drawer-tub, he chewed a second exit hole in his cuddle cube, then destroyed the two loops at the back for hanging.  I assumed it was simply a “protest” (read: bored) at being moved to these new quarters.

I now think that he might have been looking for an exit.

The drawers sit “flush” against the support above, which is what generally keeps the mice from escaping, but this is not a solid barrier.  Forgive the crappy drawing, but here’s a basic cross-section:

The blue is the tub itself, with a folded over edge.  The black is the support above.  Every inch and a half, there is a vertical support that rests against the top of the tub edge, preventing it from being able to be lifted up within the slot.  I didn’t draw that on the picture, or else my diagram would have just looked like a box, and wouldn’t have illustrated what I’m about to say.

As you can see, there is a gap that a sufficiently small creature could slip through.  Fortunately, a full grown mouse is far too large to slip through this space.  Even if they could climb up through the gap, there wasn’t anywhere near enough room for them to “turn” and climb out the gap on the other side.  Unless that mouse likes the taste of plastic. 

There’s always one, isn’t there?  One mouse that’s willing to chew on anything.  When I first put Jakob in the tub, he quickly set to work on the inner side of the black plastic support.  I could stick my finger through the gap he’d made, but as I’d never seen him attempt to get through, I simply asumed that despite his best efforts, he wasn’t able to fit through.  I felt confident that the tubs would hold.  Silly me.

The two drawer units are placed on either side of the girls cage, and all three sit on top of a chest of drawers I own.  On the side that Jakob chewed his first hole, there was nothing outside his cage but a sheer drop.  I expect that he first climbed up through the hole he had made, looked down at the floor, and decided “no”.  To this, I can only say thank God.  Finding Jakob splat’ed on the floor would have broken my heart.

After I took his tattered and tortured cuddlecube away, I think Jakob needed to find a new form of entertainment.  In a display of mousey cleverness, he decided to chew himself another escape hole, but this time on the other side.  Now, I don’t know how long that hole’s been there, and I’ll tell you why.  When I noticed Jakob on top of the girls cage, I picked him up and put him back, knowing he would escape again, but putting my mind partially at ease as I couldn’t address the problem right that second.

Of course he got out again, but in an attempt to dodge my hands when I went to pick him up again, he scrambled back inside his tub.  So, heaven only knows how long he’s been able to get out of the tub, slipping back inside when he got bored or something.  This morning was just the first time I’d caught him in the act.

I put him in a CritterTrail this morning, complete with wheel, and his water bottle, food bowl, and igloo with paper nest.  I can’t keep him there permanently, but I’m not sure quite what to do with him.  I don’t want to set him up in a fifth cage, but I also don’t have anyone to swap him with.  What to do, what to do?

Part XI – Sunday, April 19

Yes, I said that I wouldn’t make any more updates, but I thought it might be fitting to mention how Anya’s been doing.

The news is excellent.  I popped her on the scales yesterday and she’s gaining weight again.  This is the best news she could possibly give me.  Better than the other day when I heard her drinking from her water bottle, or that she uses her wheel at a more energetic speed.

She’s moulting, and her nose is almost bare, which looks terrible with her thin hair and painfully thin body, but that should be perfectly normal, and should pass.

Bad Manx Gene

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been spending so much time worrying about my sick little girls, that I’ve been neglecting my other mice. Sure, I’ve been changing cuddle cubes, feeding, cleaning cages. But I’ve been neglecting them on a personal level.

Since Ayla passed away, I’ve noticed that Cara and Heath ahev both gotten fat. Cara not so much as Heath, he’s turning into a right royal chubby bubby. I think I’ve been feeding them a little over-enthusiastically, and I should probably rein back the mouse mix a little bit.

Today, due to a last-minute change of plans, I found myself putting almost all the boys in the playpen and cleaning out 4 cages at once. Watching them to keep the dominant ones from harassing the less-domineering, I noticed that Jason was walking funny.

Jason has always had weak hind legs. He just didn’t use them like other mice did. Normally, when you pick up a mouse, all four legs and their tail react. Jason never used his hind legs to reach out in search of stability.  As of today, I now know that he pretty much doesn’t use his hind legs, and his tail is limp.  He’s not paralysed, he still waddles along with his hind legs tucked right up under him, but now they stay there, instead of dragging like they used to when I picked him up before.

I don’t know what to make of it.  One of the biggest troubles with mice is that you never know when to worry.  Well, if your mouse is half as sick as my girls got, then you should definietly worry.   Mice are prey creatures, they are prone to hiding their weaknesses to the best of their abilities until it’s almost too late, so as mouse owners, we have to be ever-vigilant to the signs.

Jason has all the hallmarks of a health mouse.  He’s active, inquisiive.  He’s not letting his impairment slow him down.  He’s eating well, and his coat is full and plush.  I’m not sure whether I need to intervene, or if I just need to make sure he’s as comfortable as possible and watch him live a full, if slightly disabled, life.

Sunstate’s Ayla

I was worried from day one about the girls.  They were so tiny, little delicate things, smaller than Toby had been.  But they were young, so I left them to their own devices, I didn’t think I was going to need to intervene.

It was the day that I brought Danube home.  A Monday.  Ayla was climbing the bars to see me and she was just so thin.  I took her and her sister out and fussed over them.  I contacted Sunstate to ask if I should be worried.  Only a few days before, I had asked for advice on the forums if it was okay for the girls to be living with five full-grown mice when they were so small.  I was worried about them not being able to compete with the ladies.

So, on Monday night, I threw all my plans into disarray and housed the girls in the CritterTrail to keep an eye on them and fatten them up.

Ayla was the most loving mouse.  She loved seeing me, and was always easy for me to scoop up – something that all my other mice do not like.  She – like them – rarely came to my hand, but she wasn’t more willing to be picked up.  As she got sicker, she took more and more comfort from my presence, until in her final days she could seek me out, climbing onto my hand if it was in the cage, and refusing to be put down.  She would cling to my fingers as if for dear life.  Last night, I tried repeatedly to put her back in the CritterTrail, but she’d be up the wires like and shot and tottering precariously at the top of the wall.

On her final night, I couldn’t believe how unwell she looked.  I was beyond the capacity to feel shocked, but her little back was so badly hunched that she looked hideously deformed.  She was unbelieveable tiny and thin.  She never grew a day from when I got her as a bouncing baby.  I wish I had just one more week to have been able to get photos while she was still well.  I don’t have a single photo worthy of display.

Her hunch was taller than her head at the end.  Her tail had developed a “bump” underneath from the horribly malformed carriage of her spine.  Her spine wasn’t anywhere near straight.  It wasn’t an S anymore… it was a Z.

The only saving grace in this whole mess is that apart from the travesty I inflicted on her in her final hours, it seemed relatively peaceful.  She didn’t have any seizures/convulsions, not that it is any comfort to know that instead, her muscles were frequently tense and her hind legs were often stretched completely out.

I begged.  She had to recover.  Her sister needed her.  I needed time to make up for putting her through the discomfort of a bath.  She still needed to get better.  She was going to get better.  She was just really weak right now, but she would pull through and she’d start to get better like her sister had.

Ayla passed quietly at approximately 10pm on Wednesday April 15.  She didn’t convulse, but tensed one final time before relaxing and never drawing another breath.

I know over the bridge waits a young baby girl with the softest long coat.  Still a baby, but full of life and joy.  Healthy.  Waiting with her brother Toby and their new friend Connor.  Please forgive me my baby girl.

—

Written April 15th.

Part X – Wednesday, April 15

Tomorrow there will be no more updates.  Tomorrow I will work on a eulogy.

Ayla lost her battle today.  Today when I was too lazy to write an update this morning.  Today when I had the audacity to believe that once-a-day updates would suffice.  Today hwhen I was stupid enough to believe that Ayla would recover like her sister has begun to, if I was just patient enough.

So, yeah, before work I checked the temperature display.  It was a little under 23-degrees, so I covered the tub and left it to warm up a little bit before turning the heat mat off for the day.  I made fresh Ensure, but I left the same food and hydralyte.  Everything was normal – as has become normal for me since the girls became sick.  I dallied over getting ready instead of writing my update.  I whiled away the time on the train journey instead of catching up.  I spent most of the day at work without worrying about their welfare.  I just assumed.

I failed at my single-most important self appointed duty of care: I let the girls slip from being the most important concern of my life.

When I got home, I checked on the temp and made sure they were both still berathing.  Then, I went upstairs.  Dinner ended up being over an hour late, so it was already late when I came back down.  I took them both out.  Ayla – cold as usual – curled on my palm while Anya climbed about and sniffed things.  I noted that Ayla had taken to lying with her eyes open.  I wasn’t even worried!  Her sister had been the same before she started to get better, but I wanted to remember it to add to my stupid update.

The I committed the greatest sin I will ever bear against my name.  The one, that above all eles, I cannot forgive.  If Ayla has died tonight, I would have still been shattered, despite my hubris in allowing myself to strat believeing that everything was going to be okay, but I wouldn’t also have this weight on my concience that is destroying me underneath the natural grief I feel at having lost my beautiful baby.

I gave her a bath.

She was so dirty, and I knew that she would feel better if I washed her fur where she couldn’t. It would be uncomfortable for a little bit, but it might have helped in the long run, helping her feel a little less miserable.  It was a good theory DAMMIT.  It was just my timing that was off.  I was gentle.  I used warm water.  I sponged her tail clean, then I wet her down.  I massaged a tiny bit of shampoo into her fur, and started to rinse it clean.  I was careful and tender.

That’s when she fell out of my hand.  She just wanted to get away from the indignity of being bathed, but she was in her final hours, she wasn’t strong enough.  I tried to dry her gently and warm her with my breath.  Such a simple and foolish thing. I wish I could take it back.  Better that she had gone to the bridge dirty and matted and soiled than damp and unhappy.

I hate myself for not trying it last night, or waiting for tomorrow and doing it during the day.  At least then she could have died with some dignity.  Maybe, eventually, I’ll forget what I did.  But I will never, never forgive myself until the day I know she has forgiven me.

I am scared for Anya.  She’s come so far.  She’s stopped carrying her hind legs under her and is walking like a healthy mouse should.  She is still nearly weightless, but she’s improving.  But I worry that the depression of losing her sister could undo all of that.  I don’t know how I will stand losing Anya as well.

Anya’s alone in the CritterTrail tonight.  The heating pad is on and she has fresh food and a mini-serve of Ensure.  She needs to strat drinking water again, so I’m hoping that in providing less Ensure, she might turn to water again.  She’s no where near healthy enough to return to the girls colony, or even to have a cage mate.  I don’t know what I’ll do once she is healthy – whether she’ll go back to the colony, or live alone like the boys, or get a new young friend if I can find one.

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