New To Forum. Need Help with Mouse with Skin Condition

[Pudgeon16]

I have owned mice all my life, but I have never seen anything like this. A couple of months ago a friend of mine gave me his two pet mice. Both young females. They have lived in a cage together all their lives and are still living together. A couple weeks ago one of them developed a small red dot by her ear. I figured they had been in a scuffle. But during the next week she developed a second dot on her other ear, that gradually progressed from her ears down to her jaw line. It has now progressed on her chest. The skin is red enough that it looks like she's bleeding but she's not. She does not appear to be in pain but she seems a bit itchy. She still eats, drinks, and plays normally otherwise. I looked into the possibility of her having mites but I ruled that out because the other mouse seems fine. She was given some antibiotic cream which seemed to help for a little while with the itching but the actual problem never went away. Has anyone else seen this before? And does anyone know what could cause it? I obviously don't want to leave her this way because although she's only a little itchy now it will probably get worse based on how quickly the condition worsened. Any suggestions?

[Rodents rock!]

Hello, what type of bedding do you use?

[Pudgeon16]

I use paper bedding for all my rodents. But the person who had them before me used aspen wood shavings. They have not had aspen in over a month. And they just got a cage change two days ago.

[Rodents rock!]

Hmmm, I'm not sure what that could be. Hopefully someone else here will have some suggestions. Maybe it warrants a visit to the vet.

[Peachy]

What are you feeding? Have you looked into food allergies or high protein "hot spots"? Any wooden items in her enclosure?

One mouse not being bothered isn't enough to rule out mites... The other could simply be tolerating them better. Similar to some dogs having flea allergies and getting bald spots. (My weirdo. )

Here's a link with info on treating for mites, as well as useful stuff on allergies and such. https://www.petmousefanciers.com/t17-itching-hair-loss-and-parasites

[Sponsored content]