Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all,

A few weeks ago a friend gave me a group of about 50 mice. Many of them had gnawed off tails or tails with sores on them. The group also didn't have the best looking coats - but they had been in with several hundred other animals and I attributed it to overcrowding, stress, etc.

Well, I fed off the animals that had noticable tail problems and figured the rest would improve in condition. However, after two weeks I am seeing the same symptoms - mice with sores on their tails - in some cases this has progressed to part of the tail falling off.

Is this just stress? Anything I can do to fix this problem? Is it contageous to other animals in my colony? Should I just feed off this group ASAP?

Thanks,

Christy

Sounds like some sort of external parasite, but I've never heard or anything that extreme. I would freeze them all and toss them in the garbage...but thats just me.

I had 7 mice 5 females and 2 males, the 2 males did not breed the females mice at all so I put in another male (a proven breeder from a pet shop)and the next day I looked in and 2 males had sores all over their tails but I did not see the males fight at all, so I still kept all the males and females together in the same cage and the next day I looked in a saw both of the males that did not breed the females whore died and their tips of the tails whore gone but the new male I put in had no sores or no peices of his tail whore not missing. I would say seperate some males and feed some males and see if anything stops. Hope this helps