nevermind

[NovelNerd]

Edit: Well sadly they have both passed away now. :

[moonsugar]

I would think the first thing to do would be to perhaps put the box on top of a hot water bottle!

[NovelNerd]

I don't have one. Would a heating pad work or would that be too hot?

[xeevee]

You probably don't have a lot of hope.  But maybe, and it's a massive long shot, if you can get them under a heat lamp with lots of warm bedding.  You'll need to try and feed them every half hour.  You can go for longer sometimes, but as a rule they'd be eating almost constantly at their size.  To feed them use a kitten formula.  That's probably the closest you can easily buy.  Warm it up and you can try just resting their faces in a tiny bit and if it disappears they're drinking it.  If it isn't, then you may need a little eye dropper or syringe and force it into their mouths.  Try a pharmacy to get one. 

Good luck.

[NovelNerd]

Thanks!

Yeah I figured it's a long shot, but otherwise it is just kill them or leave them. I decided it was better to try than not at all. We will see how it goes. If I have to eye dropper feed them how much should I give them?

[xeevee]

They will only need a tiny amount at a time.  A couple of drops really.

I have managed to successfully raise quite a few mammals from no fur closed eyes stage.  But never mice.  It's hard to get them eating with such tiny mouths. 

[kaoskat]

xeevee's advice is best and keep in mind they will need to be kept warm and they'll need to be warm before you start trying to feed them.

[Thunderwing]

I use reptile heating pads for little rodents. Not to hot, not too cold. But it is VERY tricky to get it just right, pinkies aren't able to crawl away if it gets too warm or too cold.

As others have said, kitten formula.

A teeny eye dropper is your best bet, I have a glass one with a very fine tip.

You can also try smearing the formula on the side of your finger and let them lap it off, but that is a very tedious and long process.

[NovelNerd]

With all the Black Friday stuff going on we had trouble finding things we needed. Petsmart was closed and Target and Walmart were packed without what we needed.

We ended up using the heating pad and covering it andjusting temps. We keep checking to see if they are cold. We couldn't get kitten formula with the stores closed, but they drank evaporated milk from our fingers. We will get some more things for them in the morning. Now it's just the waiting game. Should we be trying to make them poo or anything?

[Katika]

If you're on good terms with your vet and they're willing to provide you things without a full visit, you may see if you can get a 1cc syringe that comes with a needle.  You can carefully break the needle off in the syringe cap to discard it, and it will still leave you with a very fine end that will provide an incredibly fine flow.  This was a trick that my vet taught me to medicate horse eyes and it may work for this sort of thing, too.  Best of luck; pulling little guys like this through is tough.

ETA: If you can find rabbit replacement formula (might be a far stretch, I haven't looked at milk replacers in a very, very long time), it may be richer in nutrients.  As far as stimulating them to eliminate, I don't know if rodents need it, but I know newborn puppies and kittens do, so it may be worth a try, especially if you can't found any waste yet on their own.

[jess77]

All good advice so far.  Also if you haven't seen it, if the babies have no fur yet you should be able to see a bean shaped white spot on their tummies when they have had enough milk.  Once the fur grows in that won't be visible anymore.

[NovelNerd]

Oh the milk band? Yeah I have lots of pet rats and have heard others mention that in pinkie babies when they have raised them. Here they are so I dunno if the band would still be visible? The eyes are still closed
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And is like the hair is coming and maybe you can feel it a little but not much. We fed them a tiny bit and got them to eat. Then they refused about an hour then thirty minutes later. They have burrowed in the bedding. I guess we will try feeding again later?

Should we even try to encourage bowl movements since they haven't eaten much?

I'm taking my new rats to the vet for a check up Saturday. If the mice are still alive I'll take them too.

[Calico_Star]

Ditto what xeevee said. Baby mice are really hard to keep going. I've had to try both with pet mice and wild mice, and the only time the babies lived was one of the instances of pet mice, when I was able to get a lactating female from a local pet store and give the babies to her. I could never get baby mice to drink any significant amount of milk by syringe-feeding them. The only bit of advice I can add is that since even the smallest syringe will likely be too big for their tiny mouths, it works better if you have a piece of embroidery floss that you can stick into the end of the syringe, and let the milk replacer wick down through that. Good luck!

[NovelNerd]

Well they are eating but not much or consistently. They are moving around a lot though that's for sure. My rats are going to the vet for a check up, so I'll be taking these guys as well.

[koteuku]

You are such kind and sweet creature taking these babies with you! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and them, please let us know if anything changes. Good luck! <3