Emergency - orphaned mouse

[lheins]

I know this is a forum for squirrels and I sincerely apologize, but I am desperate to save my orphaned baby mouse, Agnes. She is a field mouse, maybe 9 days old and is no longer pooping. I have her on KMR (diluted x2), feeding every two hours including at night. I've tried pedialyte and abdominal massage in a warm water bath. The bath worked a few days ago but the constipation is back again. I stimulate her genital area with no success. I don't think she is peeing either but that is more difficult to see. The last time she eliminated was about 8 hours ago. Do you have any suggestions? I lost all four of her brothers and sisters and I want so badly to save her. I've become very attached.

[CritterMom]

Aw. First, I need to tell you that baby mice are one of the most difficult babies to successfully raise and for every one you succeed with, there will be many that don't make it. They are SO delicate.

Since you are re-hydrating I won't suggest that though I would stop with pedialyte after the first 24 hours and switch to plain water or water with a bit of sugar added. Second, I don't like the KMR. It is designed for kittens which are baby pure carnivores - cats literally only eat meat - vegetation is eaten to make them vomit. The protein levels in KMR are too high for our squirrels and mice. Can you get your hands on some goats milk, yogurt, heavy cream and egg? If so you can make a very digestible formula for your baby. I would switch formulas as quickly as you can.

[Javarat]

It could be easy in this situation to be confusing diarrhea with constipation. Especially with a field mouse. It may that she is not pooping because she already pooped as a very thin water diarrhea, into the bedding. If this is an advanced stage, her tummy will swell, looking just like constipation. Only way to determine which it is would be to weigh her with a very accurate scale, most likely in ounces, just after a feeding and then every half hour to see how quickly she loses the gain in weight. If the weight goes down quickly it is diarrhea. If the weight stays exactly the same it is constipation. Treating for one when she has the other would be fatal.

I also agree that field mice are one of the hardest to rehab, possibly even harder than cottontail bunnies.

[lheins]

Thanks so much for the suggestions. I just ordered a kitchen scale and some goat milk. Her stomach isn’t hard, so I don’t know if she’s constipated yet. She did have a bowel movement once last night and once today, but it’s been about three feedings since I’ve seen anything else.