Why do they stink so damn bad?

Ok i attempted at breeding mice and it ended as a falure because of the horrible oder :( is this the same with rats? If so how can i suppress the oder? Im tired of going to the pet store weekly.

i dont pesonally think that rats stink ass bad as mice do. You can use aspen and put vanilla in the water to help with smell. As long as you keep their cage clean their not bad

they stink because the water they drink in turn makes them pee lots, which produces ammonia. ammonia is that foul odor you smell. a good solution is to breed African Soft Fur rats, or even gerbils. but from what i understand ASF's have MUCH bigger litters. you COULD breed regular rats and just clean lots, but that costs time and money. so i vote ASF's. there is a section on these boards about ASF's if you scroll down from the forum index

if you want my opinion on asfs, i think they pretty much suck. They waste a lot of food and chew everthing. They take way to long to grow up so you need a ton of them.

use baking soda under the bedding...helps a bit

I use baking soda, a light layer of equine fresh and then pine on any racks I have in my basement....cleaned once a week.

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Originally Posted by matt71915

if you want my opinion on asfs, i think they pretty much suck. They waste a lot of food and chew everthing. They take way to long to grow up so you need a ton of them.

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I can't disagree... but they do work wonders on wc bp's.

as for the wasting food and chewing everything, the solution is simple. get bins with no edges for them to get their teeth around. provide chewing blocks of wood, and use food hoppers so they cannot waste the food. i am going to build some hardware cloth enclosures for the water bottles, too. other than that, there's really not much else to worry about them chewing.

so asf rats smell basically like gerbils? Because i know they gerbils don't smell, but where can i get some in brooklyn ny? Will they work good for captive bred that have aten reg. rats or mice in the past? Thx

also what can i do about them chewing and wasteing the food, i herd if you put running wheels this will keep them entertained and not chewing everything.

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Originally Posted by katia

as for the wasting food and chewing everything, the solution is simple. get bins with no edges for them to get their teeth around. provide chewing blocks of wood, and use food hoppers so they cannot waste the food. i am going to build some hardware cloth enclosures for the water bottles, too. other than that, there's really not much else to worry about them chewing.

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i have concrete mixing tubs so i dont have a tub chewing problem. i have wheels, corn, chewing blocks, and a hide in the asf tub but they still chew up the food the most. I even have 1/8 hadware cloth that i made some hoppers for them out of. every time i clean an asf bin theres always a layer of dusted food on the bottom of the tub. i tried waiting longer between giving food but they wont eat the dusted food. They just chew everything else and lose a ton of weight.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

I can't disagree... but they do work wonders on wc bp's.

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ive never had that experience, never bought a wc ball. Ive heard many stories about how people have gotten trouble eaters to eat with asfs. my trouble eaters wont even take asfs

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Originally Posted by matt71915

i have concrete mixing tubs so i dont have a tub chewing problem. i have wheels, corn, chewing blocks, and a hide in the asf tub but they still chew up the food the most. I even have 1/8 hadware cloth that i made some hoppers for them out of. every time i clean an asf bin theres always a layer of dusted food on the bottom of the tub. i tried waiting longer between giving food but they wont eat the dusted food. They just chew everything else and lose a ton of weight.

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You and me both Matt! I've had quite a few different breeder groups and my most prolific group loves to turn their food to dust so I'd rather not just feed them off.

I also HATE how slow they are to grow!

it wasnt my breeding groups that were the pain with dusting food either, it was all the ones growing up. 50 -60 rats in a bin can dust a lot of food and chew a lot of corn and blocks. It seemed like more work than it was worth. I have 3 females and 3 litters left

Are you feeding off all the ASFs and switching to rats then? Or doing something entirely different?

ive been feeding off all my asfs, all my snakes will take either asfs or rats. Im going to up the number or regular rats to supply myself and my customers.

I think we've decided to cut our ASF production in half. While they are a great size for ball pythons, I prefer norway rats the most. So much easier to handle and smell much nicer to me.

We will likely continue to keep ASF's, but it does suck to have to keep so many on hand just for a regular supply, and the whole time they are growing up to a normal feeding size, they are eating a lot of food and using a lot of bedding up every week. :/

Howcome rats dont smell as bad as mice?

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Originally Posted by omnibus2

Howcome rats dont smell as bad as mice?

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because mice constantly mark.
some will even piddle every few steps.
especially males

The smell can be limited by providing a quality diet. Meat source protein will cause a spike in the sharpness of the urine smell. Start with a proper diet & then explore other ways to get it under control.

I used bi-odor (made by Marshall's) for about a year but with suppliers constantly being out of product or the fact that the cost of it doubled since I discovered it, no longer an option. It helped but the cost of continued use was just too much to keep up with it. Great thing to consider if you just have pets or just a few rats. Must provide clean water every day with the proper amount of the additive. Don't just fill up a big water bottle & walk away until empty days later. Even if you don't use an additive,fresh water should be made available every day.

Depending on the type of cage you keep there are ways to control smell. If in more of a pet style set up with levels, frequent cleaning with wiping down the shelves will really help.

Crowding also increases the smell. Depending on the number of animals kept per square foot of living space effects the way you would need to control the odor.

The most obvious answer is, change the bedding more often. It works. I change mine out once a week--for truly minimal odor, change it twice a week.

eh ive decided frozen thawed is the way to go. it takes to long and costs to much to breed rats.