Feeding a week-old white footed mouse orphan with a syringe.

This baby mouse was given to me by a college student that found her in a parking lot next to one of her siblings that had been stepped on.  Her eyes hadn't opened yet but she had fur so I figured she was about a week old.  The student had gotten a box for her from the pet store with some cotton bedding and some kitten formula to give to me. 

I got her home and after warming her up and giving her some homemade pedialyte solution to rehydrate her I was checking her over and saw her scratching herself and realized there were tiny black specks on the white paper towel she was sitting on. 

My husband looked through a magnifying lens and told me she had mites.  Gross!  I have pets of my own and here I have brought mites into the house.  I couldn't stand it that she was helpless and itching like that.  I took a small art paintbrush and dipped it in warm soapy water using mild dish soap and started to brush her with it from head to toe, avoiding her nose, mouth, and eyelids.  I got off between 20 and 30 mites.

It was a little scary because I didn't want her to freeze and I didn't want the mites to get anywhere else in my house!  But the mites were very slow and I was pretty sure I had them contained to the workspace I had going.  They were being smeared onto a white paper towel and I could see where they were and how slow they were moving and often they were dying after the soapy water was on them.  As for keeping the mouse warm, I just kept holding her the entire time in my warm hands and made sure she wasn't getting cold. 

She definitely got soaked!  But she was warm the entire time.  When I was finished and didn't see anymore mites I gently dried her off with a paper towel and put her in an aquarium I had set up with a heating pad underneath half of it so she could crawl to a cooler side if she needed to.  She had dried off quickly and had stayed warm because of the heating pad.  It ended up working very well. 

I fed her with a syringe with a nipple on it as you can see in the photo.  Fed her every 2-3 hours those first few days.  She gained weight fast and did very well.  The formula was half Esbilac, half squirrel formula that I got from the Wildlife rehab organization I'm working with.  I did try using a paint brush since I saw videos online of people using one and I just found the syringe worked better.  The brush did seem easier for the mouse to suckle on but it requires constant dipping which interrupts the whole process.  The syringe, on the other hand, is much messier and easier to get formula on the mouse's nose and put it in danger of aspirating!  Always had little pieces of paper towel handy to dab at a moments notice!


The day after the bath I had gotten some ivermectin spray for birds from the pet store and I sprayed it onto a paint brush and gently brushed that throughout her fur just to make sure the mites were obliterated.  Never saw another one, never saw her scratch again.

In about a week this mouse's eyes opened and was starting to eat solid food.  I mixed oatmeal and crushed cheerios into the formula and that seemed to be a favorite.  Eventually walnuts became her next favorite.