rats smell

[corrado]

Hi i wonder what you guys used to control rats smell i have 24 rats and 10 mices in my room and the smell is awful.

Thank you

Sebastien Exotic Morphs

[The Green Mile]

Hi

I clean the cages weekly, use lots of pine shavings, have a "pet" air filter in the rat room aswell as a exhaust fan in the window and use 2 $1000 ozone air puirifers.

My wife still says it stinks BTW.

Cheers
Brian

[corrado]

ok nice but how many rats and mices you have? and i was thinking buying a ozone whit carbon filter it is a waste of money or not?

Thank you for your reply

[mykee]

Yes, it is a waste of money. I recently bought one, having just moved and now I have a room for my reptiles and rodents. I tried the air purifier and it DOES NOT WORK. I am returning it tomorrow. I am having some success with a dehumidifier in the room, it keeps both the humidity down (as expected) and the smell also. Good luck.

[vanderkm]

When we bred rodents we found it helped if we killed the males off at hopper age to reduce the smell from their marking. We raised more females to larger sizes to keep the odor down, but they are less efficient at growth rate and feed conversion than males - so you lose a bit of efficiency if you need larger prey.

We also kept colonies that had maximum number of females per male. We did not have any luck with the air purifiers, only thing that reduced odor was ventilation to outdoors.

Mice seem to mark territory more than rats, so you may find it helpful to eliminate mice or reduce them to one smaller colony.

mary v.

[The Green Mile]

In the Feeder Room (Furnas room actually) I have about 2000 crix 5000 Suerworms, 100's of beatles and 100+ Breeder Rats and 20 mice, along with 40 or so herps and 2 really big dogs, in the basement.

The carbon and hepa filters do suck, however the OZONE IONIZER PURIFIERS I have are excellent! but expensive.

They are the type "Grow" houses use to keep pot plant smell down. One unit I have actually costs $2500 It's an Eagle 5000
made by Alpine. The other smaller ones are made by living air modle 880.

Like this: http://www.homelivingair.com/the-eagle.htm

Cheers
Brian

[justinO]

I have heard many times from mice breeders that putting vanilla extract in the water (1 teaspoon for a litre of water) helps keep the smell down.... not sure how but I use it whenever i can!

also, we change the rats every 2-3 days & use aspen.

we are about to buy an air filter, but our rat room is tiny so we think one of the smaller ones will be fine...

any other good ideas for keeping smell down I would love to hear also, we are always looking for ideas because of living in an apartment building!

[JasonBrennan]

One thing that works for me is the bedding I am using. I do not use any type of wood chips at all. I use the bedding sold by Kreature Keeper. It is basically newspaper pulp, but does not feel like paper at all. I have a warehouse full of mice, and this bedding has made a huge difference because it is so absorbant.

You will find that the smell from mice is alot stronger than the smell from rats. Strange as that may seem when you compare the size of the animals, it is true.

I have also heard of people using vanilla extract in the water, but I have never tried it.

[corrado]

Jason how much$ your bedding and the vanilla extrac what is the dose.

[JasonBrennan]

I buy the bedding in bulk...25 bales at a time. The bales cost $12.99 each. You can see their ads on KS every day in the wholesale sections and the cages/equimpment sections. Total, including LTL shipping was about $500 (and that is enough bedding to do between 3750 - 5000 cages,depending on your cage size)

[justinO]

Originally posted by corrado
vanilla extrac what is the dose.

1 teaspoon for a litre of water, that's what i use anyway..... but when i'm doing the water bottles i just put a few drops in each one.

Jess

[Oliverian]

Vanilla extract... is that just like the black vanilla stuff, or is it some other thing? Lol, I just call it vanilla.

-TammyR

[annieb_mice]

Vanilla extract, at least the kind I use, is a dark colour and you can find it in any grocery store. :) I have used it for years and it really does work. :) For an 8 oz bottle I put in 5 drops of the extract. Some people use less.... others use more.
I have found that some male mice smell a LOT worse than others. I try to kill off the really stinky ones, but they all smell to some extent. :) Ventilation is the key though... I keep the windows open and have several "fans" going as well.
Take care
Annie B. <:3 )~~

[mykee]

Justin, just because your room is tiny, it doesn't mean the smell in the room is also tiny. I personally would buy the largest air cleaner you can get, overkill is way better than underkill.

[nita]

Vanilla serves another purpose as well, it keeps flies away! We give it to our pet bunnies as a deterant for flystrike. Green bottle flies will actually lay their eggs in the fur of animals usually around the bum area and then when they hatch the maggots will eat into the animal. The smell of the vanilla acts as a deterant and the animals seem to like it.

[sapphire_moon]

eww thats gross, I'm getting some vanilla tomorrow now.