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Stinky feeders!

sdmessmer

sdmessmer

New member
I have a 2:6 mouse colony and a 1:4 rat colony. Becaue of where I live they have to be in my home. I clean the cages twice a week but they still stink! I've been using paper shreds from my home office shredder as bedding. What all have you used for bedding that has helped the smell?

I have heard that you can add vanilla or vinegar to their water to cut down on the smell. If you use either of these how much do you use and does it make that much of a differnce?

The good thing is my colonies made of litter mate sisters with older males are producing well and I'm getting a good stock built up for my freezers!

Silvia
Tempe, AZ
 
I personally have the best luck with apsen shavings. Pine (besides the worry of keeping your feeders on wood with pine resin being toxic to snakes) doesn't help for long, whereas aspen seems to control the odor much longer. When I had mice on pine, I could smell them within a day, on aspen, I could get away with twice weekly changes to keep the odor at bay.

I personally didn't see any effect when I tried vanilla in the water other than vanilla flavored mouse scent.

Some recommend keeping them on alfalfa or alfalfa pellets. Alfalfa molds quickly, so that is a down side, but having never tried it for mouse bedding, I can't offer much of an opinion about its effectiveness vs. mouse odor.

Shredded paper offeres virtually no odor control whatsoever with mice, at least in my experience.
 
Shredded paper is like, the least absorbent stuff there is. I would buy an actual pet bedding, I heard that aspen's the cheapest.

BTW, pine is not only toxic to mice and rats, but lowers their reproductive rate.
 
I agree with Hurley and Lock, shredded paper is about the least absorbant for smell and urine you can get. It makes for good nesting material for them to chew up and curl around in their beds. But as a sole source of bedding for odor and moisture absorbtion, I don't recommend it.

Depending on the availability of my bedding sources for that month, I generally use a mixture of Aspen Supreme pelleted bedding (looks like rabbit food pellets) and aspen shavings or pine shavings.

I have to get the Aspen Supreme pellets in 10lb bags from Petsmart. And due to its cost and limited availabilty, I sometimes don't have it at all times. So I generally use the aspen shavings if I'm out of the pellets. The Aspen Supreme at Petsmart runs me around $7/bag. Pricey yes, but you can't beat it's odor and moisture absorbing qualities. Kudos to MagickBears who got me hooked on it. =D

The pine I use is a really fine shaving, halfway to chainsaw dust. I get it in huge 20lb bags from the local farm supply store. It's mainly used for stable bedding. And I like it because its not overwhelmingly strong of pine odor, which to me means not so much of the oils. It just smells like wood to me. I've not had any issues at all using it thus far, and generally I don't add enough of it to really concern me. I mainly use it for their nest corners and thats it.

About the only other thing I use for most of my "odorous" critters is Marshall Ferret Bi-Odor liquid. I add a few squirts to the water supply each time I refill, and it naturally eliminates the ammonia in the urine and stool. Which when you have a ferret, anything that works proactively is a God-send. It works well in cats, rodents, guinea pigs, etc. It's around $12 for an 8-10oz bottle.

Lastly, vanilla (artificial and natural) doesn't work. Tried it, wasted money on it..got rid of it. It'd be nice to have mice smell like vanilla, but no go. I also tried liquid chlorophyll in the water. It helped, but it stained my water bottles after a time.

I'd recommend trying definitely something more absorbant and seeing how that goes. You might be pleasantly surprised. Let us know how it goes.
 
I use alfalfa pellets that I buy from the local farm supply store (looks like rabbit food). I get it in 50 pound bags for $10. It works so well that I only have to clean the tubs once every 2 weeks.
 
I've heard from mouse breeders (i once had the idea of breeding my own mice) that these pellets don't have all the nutricioun a mouse need and it may increase changes of mice canibalising on each other. I don't know if it's true but i heard it more then once.
 
They are not suggesting using the rabbit feed to FEED the mice/rats, but rather to use it as bedding. Works well~ but ti breaks down into a very fine powder consistency that I have found sometimes caked onto dead pups around the head and face~ so I also use wood shavings so the mice/rats can build a nest above the pellets. Seems to work for me~
 
Yep, alfalfa pellets are just used for bedding, the mice get lab blocks for food.

And I give them some squares of toliet paper to build nice cosy nests for their babies.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!

You guys are great! Always ready to help!

I tried a recycled paper litter and an aspen litter. Both seemed to work WAY better than the shredder leavings I was using. I could not find the aspen pellets but will keep an eye out for them so I can try those too. I also started them on the Bi-Odor liquid in their water. The label says it can take a week or more to smell the results. Between the litter and the Bi-Odor there is a very big difference in the smell. Its nice to get home and not have rodent odor greeting me at the door!

Thanks again everyone! :wavey:
 
Misty,

You may want to talk to the amanager at you local Petsmart and ask them if they would order you a quantity of the aspen pellets. I did this when I got sick of going to all local stores and buying up all of the rodent (dog) food they had. Two bags at this store and four bags at that store was a pain in the...well you know. I talked to the manager and they order it for me when they place their orders. So now I go and pick up 25 bags at a time and it makes things a lot easier.
 
Dand,

I tried that, and they won't special order anything for anyone. :nope:

The manager didn't seem very helpful in that respect. He just basically told me I need to get in and buy it when its on the shelf (3 bags at a time) and to repeat every so often. But I don't like having to drive 30 miles one way to do so. I don't go to Evansville every whipstitch.

So I've been thinking about talking to the other petstore in town and see if they'll order me some. They make it in larger bag sizes, and I'd hate to have to ship 30+ lbs. Couldn't hurt to ask at any rate.

Thanks for thinking of me though. =)
 
Taceas said:
Dand,

I tried that, and they won't special order anything for anyone. :nope:

The manager didn't seem very helpful in that respect. He just basically told me I need to get in and buy it when its on the shelf (3 bags at a time) and to repeat every so often. But I don't like having to drive 30 miles one way to do so. I don't go to Evansville every whipstitch.

So I've been thinking about talking to the other petstore in town and see if they'll order me some. They make it in larger bag sizes, and I'd hate to have to ship 30+ lbs. Couldn't hurt to ask at any rate.

Thanks for thinking of me though. =)
Click to expand...

Misty,

Did you try kicking him in the shins? :grin01: Since I am not one to take no for an answer here is what I would do. Below is a number for questions pertaining to their stores. Maybe someone there is higher up the totem pole and can be of some help. I'd also drop the hint that if they can't be of any kind of help you'll see if their competition will be more helpful.

For questions regarding PETsMART Stores: (800) 738-1385 ext. 2518
 
Something that really works!

I tried the vanilla and vinegar but they did not work. I tried the Marshall products ferret Bi-odor that you add to their water and it really cuts down on the smell between cleanings! I still clean every 5 days, but I don't have that rodent pee smell in between cleanings anymore. I bought the gallon size at my local pet store since I have a sizable population of mice and rats now. The mice smell more than the rats so I give them an extra squirt of the Bi-odor in their water.

Here is a link on the product.
http://www.ferretdepot.com/Merchant...ory_Code=2ColognesDeodorizers&Product_Count=3

Silvia in Phoenix :wavey:
 
I realised this week that the odor problem with mice come from males... If you smash all your males, your colonie won't stink anymore.

Solution : buy a male when none of your females are pregnet, and when the job is done, the little guy go to the freezer.
 
Sounds like a good idea in theory~ but in reality mice are nasty~ hatefull~ vile little creatures~ and the females in the colony will probably kill every new male you introduce.

Once a colony is established you can't really change it.
 
I agree, the males are the majority of the mousy smell problem, but I'm not going to kill off my 6 breeding males for that reason. I just clean them out more often and put additives in their food/water to lessen the intensity of the odor. If you have mice, you expect on some level to have the odor. Kind of like raising any other animal whether it be a dog, pig, cow, or horse..they all have their own "aroma". Some are just more offensive to certain people. I mean, I find the horse/goat/cow aroma comforting and homey, but then again I grew up in the country surrounded by it. Someone else who hasn't been around the animal smell before might find it revolting.

I agree with JM, and the simple logistics of it would be a waste. Once a colony is established, you're best leaving it alone. I've seen it take almost 3 months for previously breeding females to give birth after the introduction of a new male once the one they had had died (or gotten eaten by a stray black rat snake :eatsmiley:).

Good quality breeder males around here come from Petsmart, and they're around $5/each. I'm not going to go waste $5 a month just for breeding and then feed him off afterwards.

It kind of defeats the purpose of why most of us started our own mouse breeding project in the first place, we're penny pinchers. ;)
 
Negatives to not cleaning cage every week

HI all i have a colony of 1.5 right now and i'll be starting a second shortly, just curious to know, Are there any negative effects of not changing the cages every week or so? The mice I have don't stink, But i may be giving them too much bedding... I'm concerned about disease or something, anyone know anything about mice health being an issue due to infrequent cleaning.
 
same concept as if you were forced to eat, crap, pee and sleep in your bedroom (no running water and you have 5 room-mates eating and crapping in there with you, some of them are giving birth as well) If the room is too disgusting for you to live in it after a week.....change it (mine get changed every 5 days~ 7 is too long) if it's not too disgusting after a week.....then seriously ask yourself if you are a "sanitary" kind of person. If the answer is yes you like to live in a reasonably clean home and you would live in their "room" then it's probably fine going a little longer~ but if the honest answer is "no~ I'm I a disgusting pig and don't live in a clean home"~ then take pity on the poor mice and at least let them live in a clean home!
 
i'll start cleaning the cage on a weekly basis, should be easier with finals out of the way and me not having a job lined up yet.
 
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