I've got a mouse who is quite old, at least 18 months old.

Over the past few days one side of his face has seemingly become infected. His ear is one giant scab (maybe from scratching?) and inside is covered with gunk. He has scratched much of the fur from the side of his face and his eye is covered with gunk and I believe he has gone blind in that eye.

I've just cleaned him up with some water and cotton wool (the water was boiled then allowed to cool down) and it looks a little less gunky, but his eye looks glazed over and his ear is still scabby and gunked inside.

Now I'm under no illusions about this, he is probably on his way out, but I've had mice and hamsters in the past and they have gone blind in one eye but this has never happened. Is this something that I can fix or is it just a case of leaving him till he dies? He doesn't make much noise, although I don't know if that means he is in pain or not.

Cheers.

Sounds like it might be time to have him put to sleep Somner. He must be in quite a lot of distress to have scratched to that extent. It could be anything from an infection to a brain tumour (as you've kept mice and hamsters before you'll know they're prone to tumours). Given his age it might be the kinder option rather than let him linger on in pain until the inevitable. 18 months is a good age for a mouse.

I would definitley take him to your vet - he may have an abscess or an infection, that may be treatable with an anti biotic like Baytril.

If he is still eating and drinking normally, it probably isn't causing him too much distress at the moment

Yes he is eating and drinking as usual.

What type of mouse do you have and is he on his own?

We have 5 male multimammate mice that we adopted from Pawss 3 weeks ago. I've just had to move one into his own tank because his ear's bleeding and has a hole in it and he seems to have a small bite wound on his leg. I'm wondering if he has something wrong with him that's causing the others to attack him, since they've apparantly lived together happily all their lives up until now.

Maybe it's just the move to a new home that's got them all stirred up though, I'll just have to wait and see how he gets on now he's on his own.

I hope your wee one gets better, but it might be worth a visit to the vet in case it's something easily treatable.

He's on his own. He was with another mouse up until a couple of months ago but that one died quite suddenly, although he never looked completely right, his coat would often go very scruffy. They used to play and a lot and I did notice that they each managed to bite an ear off one another at some time, but they never had any problems other than that. Also, the ear infected on this mouse is the one that wasn't bitten off.

Sorry I'm late with this, but I suspect a case of mites (very common in mice). Give me a shout if you still need help with this.