Helping my grieving mouse- with complications

by Mousepop Sat 11 May 2019, 4:16 pm

Hi all. In search of some tailor-made advice here.

Our 2 mice have had quite a week. Oreo started acting ill last Thursday-Friday. Took her to the vet, found respiratory infection. Got antibiotic, treated her twice a day. It was very stressful for her and on the morning of the 6th day (we were supposed to do 14), I was trying to get her to hold still and she began convulsing. I am convinced she was within a heartbeat or two of dying. Abandoned the treatment and put her back in her cage with her littermate Oronsay. Oronsay is noticeably overweight but otherwise acting perfectly healthy. She has done her best to nurse Oreo through all this.

I decided 5 days was enough of that antibiotic (and all the damage it can do to an animal's guts) and haven't resumed. But the good news is that over the last couple of days, Oreo has been acting more and more normal!

Then in a cruel twist, ORONSAY turned up dead in the cage just an hour or so ago! Mouth Taped

Now Oreo is all alone and I think she's gonna need to meet someone new.

But bonding can be stressful. We have 2 mouse cages for 4 (now 3) mice now. We began with 2 sisters last September. Oriana and Pepper. Pepper died and we got Oreo/Oronsay to keep Oriana company. Oreo fought with Oriana so we wound up bonding Oriana with a white mouse (Canberra) and having 2 cages.

I'm fairly sure Oreo would still fight with Oriana if I tried to re-introduce them. (Oreo was the aggressor and I separated them for Oriana's sake!)

Given that Oreo is not 100% healthy yet, what should I be doing? Wait? How long is too long?

FWIW, Oreo and Oriana didn't fight in the bathtub during playtime. When I tried to bring them together in a neutral cage, that's when they started fighting.