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🩺 Your free vet-prep sheet

Your Spiny Mouse Vet-Prep Sheet

Exotic-mammal vets are rare, and it is easy to freeze in a crisis. This is the one page to have ready — how to find a vet, what to bring, what to tell them, and the questions to ask. Print it and keep it with your care notes. This helps you prepare for a vet — it is not treatment.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it’s a vet trip yet? Run the “normal, or should I worry?” check first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

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Spiny Mouse — Vet-Prep Sheet

🔍 Find an exotic-mammal vet — before you need one

  • Search the AEMV find-a-vet directory (the Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarians), or, in the UK, the RCVS Find-a-Vet tool — or search “exotic / small-mammal vet near me”.
  • Call ahead and ask the key question: “Do you see small / exotic mammals?” Not every vet does. Ask the exam fee while you’re on the phone, so the cost is one less panic in a crisis.
  • Find and save one now, while things are calm — not in the middle of an emergency.

📇 Fill this in now — before the crisis

Two minutes now saves ten in a panic. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

My vet
My spiny mouse
What I’m seeing

🚨 Is this an emergency now?

See a vet promptly if you notice any of these:

  • Sneezing, eye discharge, or skin lesions
  • Signs of obesity or diabetes (excess weight, excessive drinking/urinating)
  • Large or deep bite wounds from fighting — may need vet care and separation
  • Any weight loss, lethargy, or a normally-active animal gone quiet

When in doubt, a vet call is never wrong — most issues are reversible if caught early.

🚗 On the way / while you wait

✅ Do

  • Keep it warm — small mammals chill and dehydrate fast, and cold makes almost everything worse.
  • Bring it in its own bedding/carrier with some familiar food.
  • For rabbits and guinea pigs, keep offering their normal hay, greens and water — a gut that stops is an emergency.
  • Bring a fresh dropping or urine sample if you can.
  • Keep it calm and quiet.

⛔ Don’t

  • Don’t give any human or OTC medicines — some common antibiotics are fatal to rabbits and guinea pigs.
  • Don’t withhold food from a rabbit or guinea pig.
  • Don’t let it get cold.
  • Don’t handle it more than necessary.

🎒 What to bring

  • A fresh dropping or urine sample, if you can collect one.
  • Photos and a short video of the behaviour or symptom — it may not show it in the clinic.
  • A note of your setup and exactly what — and how often — you feed.
  • A note of eating, drinking and toileting over the last day.
  • The animal in a secure, warm carrier.

🗣️ What to tell the vet

A general vet may not know this species. Come ready to explain its correct care:

Enclosure
A large, well-ventilated, genuinely escape-proof enclosure — they’re avid climbers and jumpers and will leap out of an open cage. A big glass tank or a barred cage (bars double as climbing) with a secure, fine-mesh lid works; provide climbing structures and multiple hiding tubes/shelters. Escape-proof lids are essential, especially at cleaning time.
Companionship
Highly social communal animals — do not keep one alone. Isolated spiny mice (even uninjured ones) become inactive and lethargic, recovering only once regrouped. Keep them in small groups; single-sex or neutered-male groups avoid runaway breeding. Introduce new animals carefully, as newcomers to an established group are often attacked, and provide plenty of hides (which also reduces fighting).
Temperature
Desert-adapted and happiest warm — a room of about 21–26°C (70–80°F) suits them. They tolerate a wide range, but keep them stably warm and out of the cold.
Substrate
Soft, dust-free bedding (fragrance-free paper- or pine-pellet bedding is used successfully), deep enough to be comfortable and changed as needed. Provide wood blocks and safe gnaw items.
Enrichment
Curious and athletic — give complex surroundings: hiding tubes, igloos and multi-opening shelters (which also reduce squabbles), climbing on the cage sides, and things to gnaw. A solid exercise wheel and tunnels are commonly provided too. Scatter or hide food to encourage foraging.
Diet
Omnivorous — in the wild they eat seeds, fruit, dried plant matter and small invertebrates (insects, spiders, snails). A workable base is a lower-protein rodent pellet mixed with a smaller amount of black-oil sunflower seeds, plus occasional fresh vegetables and a little animal protein or insects. Keep fat and sugar modest: spiny mice are prone to obesity and diabetes, and high-fat or high-sugar diets harm them. Fresh water always available.
Supplements
None specifically required on a balanced diet; occasional fresh vegetables are a reasonable addition. Avoid over-rich, fatty or sugary foods (diabetes risk) rather than adding supplements.

⚕️ Small mammals are prey animals and hide illness until it is advanced, so any change in eating, droppings, drinking or behaviour is urgent — in rabbits and guinea pigs, not eating or passing no droppings for 12–24 hours can be a life-threatening emergency (gut stasis). They also chill and dehydrate quickly, so keep it warm. Tell the vet about your diet and any remedies you’ve used, and ask for exotic-mammal-safe medicines and doses — several antibiotics that are routine in other pets are dangerous to rabbits and guinea pigs.

Then note which of the warning signs (above) you are seeing, when they started, and whether they are getting worse.

❓ Questions to ask

  • Do you routinely see small / exotic mammals? If not, can you refer me to a vet who does?
  • What are the likely causes — and could my setup or diet be contributing?
  • What is the treatment plan, the likely cost, and what should I watch for at home?
  • How do I prevent this from happening again?