Keeping Mouse Enclosures Smelling Fresh?

[Jenn_06]

Mice smell more then rats,i tried mice for 2 weeks and had to feed them off....with rats i can just clean 2 times a week and they are good....when you put a male with the female just have to wait 28 days and you will have babies.

I just had to put down a whole group of females because they was eatting holes in my water bottles and got everything wet after i just clean there tubs.

[ZARADOZIA]

Small things to help with odor:

1. Use puppy training pads to line the enclosure. It will pull the urine away from the bedding and lock it away. Change the liner at least once a week, more if needed. Make sure there aren't any areas of the liner flipped up; it does need to be complete flat so they (mice or rats) won't eat it.

I use Hartz Home Protection training pads, Anti-bacterial. It works wonderfully as a liner in my snake and dragon enclosures. I have tried other brands and this is the best I have found for fast drying and odor removal.

Mint is also excellent and it will not hurt them if they eat it.

Small fan for air circulation. Air freshener in the room where they are, not in the cage.

[KORBIN5895]

Also try good old baking soda. It is working wonders for my ferret!

[rodentgirl01]

Here's my setup right now. I have more racks on the way.

the ones on the back wall we built ourselves. The one on the right with the litter pans, we picked up for 25 bucks (crappy rack).

The mouse rack on the left, it's plumbed with a watering system. I bought the wrong valves and not all the mice can figure it out. I bought edstrom original drink valves when I should have gotten edstrom vari flow valves.

I can keep about 5 or more mice with litters in the small tubs and in the large cement tubs I can keep 1.4 or 1.5 with litters (rats).

I plan on putting 1.10 mice in the kitty pan rack

My other rack is being built hopefully this weekend and will house asf rats using laboratory grade tubs.

My mouse racks I'm going to build 10 high (i think that one is a little smaller) and my rat racks are going to either stay 8 high or go 9 high.

The whole room will be plumbed with a pressure water system and valves to eliminate the need for water bottles.

If I clean every 3 days, you don't smell anything coming down there. It's important that they stay clean and "smell free" because my basement has my furnace in it. And my duct work is an open system, which pushes air from the basement throughout the house. If it starts to smell, you'll smell it everywhere. So I get at it before it smells.

[lady_bug87]

Holy crap.

That's a LOT of critters

[Jenn_06]

nice i have a rack like yours but just one,i have to wait until we get a nice size shed to get more and then they will be out of the snake room.

[Uncle_Rev]

Move to rats, easier to breed, faster, cleaner, and they will eat anything.

[Shmoges]

The remedy is simple, remove the mice and get asf's or rats!!

[exwizard]

Originally Posted by infernalis

I breed rats and feed garter snakes, corn snakes, milk snakes and my black racer rat pinks, fuzzies and pups.

A rat pup is the same size as a mouse, it's better food, and they produce faster than mice, and best of all, they don't stink like mice.

Just a thought.

I agree with this as well. The ONLY reason we even have mice is because other people have been wanting them to feed their snakes. All but one of our snakes are on rats and the one holdout wont be for long.

Anyway, to answer the question about the smell, we using a powder that we sprinkle on the bottom of the tubs called "kennel fresh". The bedding is put on top of that and it has proven to keep all the odors down.

[exwizard]

Originally Posted by rodentgirl01

Here's my setup right now. I have more racks on the way.

the ones on the back wall we built ourselves. The one on the right with the litter pans, we picked up for 25 bucks (crappy rack).

The mouse rack on the left, it's plumbed with a watering system. I bought the wrong valves and not all the mice can figure it out. I bought edstrom original drink valves when I should have gotten edstrom vari flow valves.

I can keep about 5 or more mice with litters in the small tubs and in the large cement tubs I can keep 1.4 or 1.5 with litters (rats).

I plan on putting 1.10 mice in the kitty pan rack

My other rack is being built hopefully this weekend and will house asf rats using laboratory grade tubs.

My mouse racks I'm going to build 10 high (i think that one is a little smaller) and my rat racks are going to either stay 8 high or go 9 high.

The whole room will be plumbed with a pressure water system and valves to eliminate the need for water bottles.

If I clean every 3 days, you don't smell anything coming down there. It's important that they stay clean and "smell free" because my basement has my furnace in it. And my duct work is an open system, which pushes air from the basement throughout the house. If it starts to smell, you'll smell it everywhere. So I get at it before it smells.

I'm very impressed with your setup. We're still using water bottles but we have enough tubs to have each breeder tub 1.4 and still have all the nursing tubs full with 3 moms each and the big 20 tub growout rack is full as well.

[infernalis]

my smell just went way down.

down to 2 dozen rats at the moment and most of them are pinks & lactating does.

Going to wash down the 55 gallon and re-do it as a garter habitat.

[KORBIN5895]

Yeah well I just picked up gerbils ;/

[Snakefood]

Originally Posted by Shmoges

The remedy is simple, remove the mice and get asf's or rats!!

I would totally agree, and didn't want to breed mice at all. I was perfectly happy with my rats. But I needed a small colony of mice for pinks as I have a corn snake mating planned for next season.

You know, I have had 1:4 ratio for almost 2 months, and not one baby!! I may have to replace the male.

[KORBIN5895]

Have you checked yo make sure they didn't castrate him? One of my females got 2 different males before I could figure out who was doing it. And what is your male to female ratio for rats?

[spots]

Originally Posted by rodentgirl01

Here's my setup right now. I have more racks on the way.

the ones on the back wall we built ourselves. The one on the right with the litter pans, we picked up for 25 bucks (crappy rack).

The mouse rack on the left, it's plumbed with a watering system. I bought the wrong valves and not all the mice can figure it out. I bought edstrom original drink valves when I should have gotten edstrom vari flow valves.

I can keep about 5 or more mice with litters in the small tubs and in the large cement tubs I can keep 1.4 or 1.5 with litters (rats).

I plan on putting 1.10 mice in the kitty pan rack

My other rack is being built hopefully this weekend and will house asf rats using laboratory grade tubs.

My mouse racks I'm going to build 10 high (i think that one is a little smaller) and my rat racks are going to either stay 8 high or go 9 high.

The whole room will be plumbed with a pressure water system and valves to eliminate the need for water bottles.

If I clean every 3 days, you don't smell anything coming down there. It's important that they stay clean and "smell free" because my basement has my furnace in it. And my duct work is an open system, which pushes air from the basement throughout the house. If it starts to smell, you'll smell it everywhere. So I get at it before it smells.

Can you give me a close up pic of your racks? I would like to build one for ASF's. And what kinda of tubs should i use? as i don't want the ASF's being able to chew through them U can PM me with the pics if you would like.
Thanks
Jimi

On the other side ASF's love fresh pumpkin seeds.