Help: Mouse eaten plastic bag

by isabellebinchy Mon 27 Jan 2020, 12:09 pm

So first off I’m new here and I’m not entirely sure how to use this website, so please excuse me if this is posted in the wrong place.

Now I need urgent help on this. I accidentally left a plastic bag near my mouses cage today and when I came back from school, a good few hours later. she had eaten it through the bars of the cage. From what I could tell she has been swallowing the pieces of plastic. Is this okay for her? She has been asleep since I saw her eating the plastic but thats normal for her. Is she alright or should I take her to the vet?

Edit: She lives alone so she is the only mouse that could have eaten the plastic, just thought I’d clear that up Smile

by MerciToujoursMaPetiteBoop Mon 27 Jan 2020, 1:53 pm

Unless you are absolutely sure you saw mousie chewing and swallowing pieces of plastic, you may like to consider the alternate possibility that she was tearing it up for bedding.

When regular tasty food is available, it seems unlikely that a mouse will eat something as unpalatable as plastic. If there was, or had been, food inside the plastic bag, the food was the target, and not the bag. However, there are different formulations of plastic, and with the slow trend toward inventing biodegradable plastics, who knows what kinds of potentially tasty components are working their way into the mix, and what happens to them during digestion?!

I would look around where she is sleeping, to see if you can find any of those nice, soft plastic scraps. And it is always a good idea to talk to your veterinarian, who should have a much better database of information about the dangers of pets ingesting plastic, and can tell you what kinds of warning signs to watch for.