[h3rne]

One evening recently during cage cleaning I noticed Piccolo had a wet chest (normally white) which looked a slightly rusty colour, in two symmetrical patches. However, she seemed fine in the hamster ball, running around and exploring as usual and so I put it down to her having rubbed against her water-bottle spout whilst cage climbing, which had been quite a common occurence.

The next morning, I checked her cage and everything seemed fine, but come treat time as I was preparing dinner, I hadn't seen her and started to worry. After dinner I decided to open her house, and found her very difficult to rouse and uncharacteristically uninterested in offered treats. She then began to move and it quickly became clear that she had lost almost all control and/or strength in her forelegs, causing her to kind of "snow-plough" along the cage floor in a series of ungainly wobbles.

I removed the upper cage levels and moved her food to the floor in a pile, added some apple slices and found a shallow dish for water. Meanwhile, Piccolo had moved herself arduously to her toilet and was lying in it, so I moved her back to her bed, tried (unsuccessfully) to get her to nibble the apple and drink a little water from a syringe.

She almost immediately set off for the toilet corner again, where she lay clicking her teeth, which I took as a clear sign to leave her alone. I closed the door and turned out the light and planned a trip to the vet first thing in the morning. Sadly, when I checked in on her a couple of hours later she was still warm, but not breathing.

I was shocked how quickly she went down hill and can't really separate what here is relevant and what is coincidental. Any experts out there have any theories as to what happened here?

Many thanks.