Smelly RATS... Any tips?

[Shad0w]

Good Day all...

Got a RAT question :)

2 weeks ago I decided to start a breeding colony... 4 females and a single male... Everything is fine, they have been doing their business but here is my problem... THE SMELL!!!!

Maybe I have a sensitive sense of smell...

Ive tried carefresh as a substrate and that did nothing... to me after 4 days the stuff smelled like urine soaked paper... uggg...

So today Ive switched over to aspen...
Will see how this goes....

BTW, They are in a large multi level cage, 4 to be exact.

Ive read some stuff on the net about putting a bit of vinegar in their water.... do you guys have any tricks? Any food maybe that helps keep the smell down?

I just cant stand the smell of them after 4 days... Uggg...
SO How do you guys control the smell?

[beardiefan]

If they smell too much after 4 day, clean em out every 3 days :D lol I clean mine out every 3 days, and my wife still complains. Maybe you are extra sensitive to the smell? I also read that vanilla helps. I hope you can figure it out, because you can save money breeding your own.

[Shad0w]

vanilla in the water????

[dave68]

cleaning more frequently will obviously help but another product to try is called Uni-Rock you just buy it in a little box and would place it bye the cage!!!!This stuff works wonders and you can re activate it by putting it out in the sunshine for a bit...not sure how it works but it does absorb bad odors somehow.....Good Luck.....Allison

[CamHanna]

More substrate means less smell. I use pine. Perhaps an air-freshener would help.

[Dragonhood]

what are you feeding them? some people feed them animal mix, that has corn in it and it's the corn that makes the stink. let me know. john

[Shad0w]

So far I find the aspen to be a WORLD of difference over the carefresh...

Dragonhood, what diet do you find best to minimize the smell?
The mix I use right now does in fact have corn :( Should I just use rodent block and nothing else?

[mykee]

My trick is that I clean all 8 of my colonies every 3 days. The only "trick" that I've had work is keeping them immaculately clean.

[wiseman001]

RATS eat and DRINK NOT STOP... if u'r feeding that muzi block stuff.. that **** stinks.. it .. i have been breeding for many yrs... i prefer to feed my rats ( 65+ ) lil fresh vegi..not ALOT.. i give the HAGEN hamster seed... in the morning and at night... I take out the food during the day and fresh water 3-4 times a day.. i leave the water dish in for 20 mins..

Remember more u give them to drink the more they pee... now if u have aLOT of rats NOW u got CUP FULL's or PEE.. it all adds up.. and QUICK !!!so thats Y i limit there food.. i give them cereals more of the Dry foods.. I keep 2-3 females to 2 males in 10 gal tanks..and I have tanks ALL over..also 20's 40's list.. anyways..

Foods... amount of water...and cleaning.. i clean all the tanks.. weekly .. takes about an hr to clean them all O PINE chips/ shavings are great..stay away from dry dog/cat fods.. hamster seed is best....

[Shad0w]

Hmmm getting good advice thus far :)

Well so far so good.. the ASPEN still smells amazing....
Gotta love REN's... HUGE bag of shredded aspen for $11 :)

Im tossing the rest of my carefresh.. that stuff is just garbage :D

[Dragonhood]

I'd just feed them rabbit pellets. and it's cheap go and get it from a feed mill or you can get it at stores like (tsc) its around10-12 $ for a 50-60 pound bag.

[Shad0w]

Rabbit feed huh??? Rens has that aplenty!!!

[Dragonhood]

they also love vegs and fruits.

[Paleosuchus]

I use aspen shavings, clean the cage out every 4 days and put vanilla in the water. .....Little smell, if not any smell to some extent. Vanilla works wonders imo

[CamHanna]

Do you use real or artificial vanilla extract? Is there a difference?

[Paleosuchus]

CamHanna, I use the artificial extracts. I put enough in it so that you can slighty taste it. If the smell doesnt seem affected by the vanilla then add alittle more. I believe the real stuff contains alchohol or some ingrediant that is harmful. Hope that helps

- Jason

[Jayson]

If they stink, clean them!!
Do not feed them rabbit pellets and do not feed them hamster seed diets.And water must be available at all times. This is the worse advice i have seen on feeding rats.

I use 99% lab blocks for feeding and i have about 1000 rats in a 100 sq ft Building and the smell is not unbareable.

[Auskan]

Originally posted by wiseman001
I take out the food during the day and fresh water 3-4 times a day.. i leave the water dish in for 20 mins..

Remember more u give them to drink the more they pee... now if u have aLOT of rats NOW u got CUP FULL's or PEE.. it all adds up..

Rats, like any other animal, should have access to clean, fresh water, 24/7. Yes of course, the more they drink, the more they pee (duh) but if left with water all the time, they will only drink as much as their bodies need. (You do want them to produce healthy young to feed your snakes don't you?)

Originally posted by Shad0w
Rabbit feed huh??? Rens has that aplenty!!!

Rabbit feed is great - for rabbits. However it is not formulated to provide the appropriate nutrition for rats, which are another species entirely. Apart from anything, rabbit food contains a lot of alfalfa which is undigestible to rats.

If you want to feed a good nutritional mix to your rats (remember - you want to produce healthy offspring to feed to your snake/s), try this:
http://www.ratsrule.com/diet.html

[Asian Jon]

Cool! Thanks for the link Auskan. I'm gonna have to give that a try.

[wiseman001]

been doing it many yrs.. mom still pop out 10 - 12 babies

[sapphire_moon]

But auskan that is for PET rats, it is NOT in any way shape or form formulated for lactating or pregnant mothers!

While it IS a great diet, as I said, not formulated for pregnant and nursing mother rats. I am sure you could "tweak" it, add extra dog food or high protiene things (like soybeans) but honestly a good quality lab block (all harlan tekland lab blocks are vegitarian to keep down on preservatives), but I believe mazuri would be a good lab block for breeding rats, just add a bit of dog food....I think everyones rat does differently.

mykee's rats do great on mazuri, when I tried it, my rats got skinny and sickly looking. You just have to try it.

[sleddergirl]

Just in response to the feeding..........I feed some blocks, not many though. Their main diet consists of Living World rat and mouse feed and I give fresh fruit and veggies too. Each cage I have, has a water dish and a water bottle............For some reason I have rats that like to drink from one or the other..:rolleyes:

I change the cages 2 times per week..........they're in a small bedroom and the smell factor is fine.............

I don't know if this makes a difference or not, when I do clean the cages, I completely wash them out, not just change the bedding which I have seen some people do........

[sleddergirl]

Originally posted by dave68
cleaning more frequently will obviously help but another product to try is called Uni-Rock you just buy it in a little box and would place it bye the cage!!!!This stuff works wonders and you can re activate it by putting it out in the sunshine for a bit...not sure how it works but it does absorb bad odors somehow.....Good Luck.....Allison

Allison, where do you buy this product?

[Auskan]

Originally posted by sapphire_moon
But auskan that is for PET rats, it is NOT in any way shape or form formulated for lactating or pregnant mothers!

I have been using it for pregnant and lactating rats for over a year. My rats are healthy, have large litters with almost zero stillborns (I think out of the hundreds of rats I've produced in the past 14 months, I've had a total of two stillborns), and the babies grow fast. There was a post on here within the past week where someone was talking about their 35g 3-week-old rats. Mine weigh that by two weeks.

The diet itself is a perfect formula for nutrition. For pregnant and nursing rats, just feed a little more of it than you would for a rat that doesn't have the extra need for calories.

[Auskan]

Originally posted by sleddergirl
Each cage I have, has a water dish and a water bottle............For some reason I have rats that like to drink from one or the other..:rolleyes:

LOL. I recently discovered this also. I often let my rats out to free range my basement, and noticed that one of them would always run straight over to the cat's water bowl and drink for a good long time before going to play. Since then I've been offering a bowl of water in addition to the bottles too.

[sapphire_moon]

I would watch that with breeding females, small babies can drown in a water bowl.

[havenbounce]

There's a product that you can springle at the botton of the cage before you put in the bedding that is amazing. It's called Enviro-Shield
http://www.trinatural.com/proline/enviro_shield.php
For bedding Aspen Crumble Bedding is great.
Ginnette

[sleddergirl]

Originally posted by sapphire_moon
I would watch that with breeding females, small babies can drown in a water bowl.

Ya I found that out with a litter of Degus about a year ago. There is now a "special" water dish for moms cage...........its shallow enough that even if a pinky got into it, it wouldn't drown.....

[wiseman001]

What i use to do is..
in a small water dish.. put half fish tank gravel in the water dish

and over top the gravel with water.. that way the babies won't drown and the mother can still drink she will move the gravel away to get the water.. someone else tld me about this.. and it works great..