I'm finally posting here because I can't think of anything else to do. My fancy mouse, Cornelius Fudge, was fine until about four months ago… when he started scratching his neck and side so much that he created a raw, oozy, hairless patch roughly 3/4 of an inch across. Wondering if Cornelius was allergic to or irritated by his aspen chip bedding, I switched and bought him Care-Fresh Ultra Soft for Sensitive Skin to use instead. It made no difference. I then took him to the vet, who checked and tested for parasites or mites and came up with nothing. Thinking that it might be a dry skin problem, he gave me fish oil capsules (the kind for dogs) and told me to feed my mouse one drop every day for a while. I did this for roughly one month, and it did absolutely nothing to quell the scratching.

After researching everything I could online, I finally tried to put Neosporin ointment with pain relief on the bleeding patch, which at this point had spread even farther down his neck and was seriously irritating one of his ears. It was a huge deal to catch him (as I tried in vain to tame him for two straight months when I first got him to no avail), and when I finally managed to get it on his neck with a Q-tip while my mother held him down, he immediately set to scratching it off and licking it from his feet. Needless to say, it didn't help anything, and the stress of being handled and taken from his cage seemed to do more harm than his own scratching. He was exhausted and more paranoid than he was before for two days after every instance of applying the ointment.

By this point the patch was looking very oozy and infected, and my mouse was getting worse by the day. I went to PetsMart and bought Tetracycline antibiotic powder, which I've been putting in Cornelius' water for the past two and a half months. This cleared up the infection and he seems to feel fine (he's bright-eyed, eats so well he's fat, and runs around on his wheel), but he still scratches and recently removed his right ear. The patch is extremely scabby, dark red with oozing pink and goes from his right ear across most of the back of his neck, and is starting to spread down his left forearm. I did read online that you can put masking tape over a mouse's back feet to stop from scratching, but Cornelius is the kind of mouse that would chew his feet off sooner than have something strange on them– and I really don't want him to suffer more than he already is. I know I can't keep him on the antibiotic powder forever, but when I tried to gradually wean him off of it the patch got infected again and he was miserable.

I'm going to try moving him to a bigger tank and providing him with more stuff to do (maybe hamster tunnels and the like in addition to his wooden chew blocks and wheel) in the hopes that if it's an OCD problem he might be distracted enough to stop scratching as much. However, I'm at a loss as to what else I can do, and so is my vet. ANYTHING anyone could possibly suggest would be extremely welcome, and if anyone else has had or has a mouse that has gone through something similar I'd love to hear your experience. I get more and more worried every day trying to figure out what I can do to help poor Cornelius. Thank you so much!