Tips to keep the smell down?

What are some things you guys do to keep the mice from smelling too funky?

I add vanilla to their water bottles, also I spot clean the urine corners every other day.

Pine horse pellets. Shavings build up ammonia quickly and that's what makes the smell.

time release air-freshener glade plug-ins and often substrate changes and i only got 7 cages of mice. but soon needing more

Pellet bedding.

I wonder if vanilla in the water actually does anything??

Also keeping a thing of cheap coffee stuff on top of the cage catches in the smell of the mice so it lowers down the smell a whole lot. So basically un-made coffee stuff in those light paper bowl things you put in coffee makers:P. Couldn't find the words to explain it at the moment, that's the best I could do LOL.

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Originally Posted by blackcrystal22

Pellet bedding.

I wonder if vanilla in the water actually does anything??

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I've tried vanilla but haven't noticed much of a difference. The pellet bedding works wonders though.

vanilla works some but it will slime up the internals of your bottles and lead to bacterial issues unless you plan to boil your bottles periodically.

The pellets are okay, but it doesn't give them a good nest. some females won't nurse without a proper nest where they feel safe

Coffee or perfume deodorizers mask the smell but you can also just use a bar of Irish Spring soap to do the same thing.

Basking soda applied under your bedding with help with smell, deodorize, AND will reduce the bedding sticking to your tub or tank. A light dusting is all you need. Anything you can dump out once applied is too much, remove it.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

The pellets are okay, but it doesn't give them a good nest. some females won't nurse without a proper nest where they feel safe

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And that's why you add toilet paper, paper towels, cardboard tubes, or shredded paper. To be honest, the females can make a perfectly fine nest in the pellets.

wont vanilla get them drunk i know it will if a human drinks it.

just thought of another way get an air purifier or put a lil bit of activated carbon under bedding or on top of cage (will work best if you can have air pushing threw the carbon

would have to make some kind of hood that covers what the mice are in then use an in-line duct fan to draw the air threw the activated carbon no smell for quite some time would have to still clean cages like usual but no smell until the filter is used up or the fan goes off maybe even build a rack with built in air filtration so only time you get a smell is when rack is opened up or filter gets mostly used up

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Originally Posted by Raptor

And that's why you add toilet paper, paper towels, cardboard tubes, or shredded paper. To be honest, the females can make a perfectly fine nest in the pellets.

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And then you defeat your purpose.

You just introduced a bunch of paper into your tub, and paper is the worst bedding of all. Why not just give them a hand full of pine and let them collect it into a nest so they can have a proper nest. The feces and urine will then just collect on the cage floor. Yes you can use hardwood pellets (equine fresh, abm products etc) but just stating, not all females will react well to this. If you have to add paper, you might as well just use all pine shavings.

vanilla works! got to be real extract to work best though. just a few drops each time u fill the bottles

How does it defeat the purpose? I use shredded paper for bedding and..The only thing I smell is the puppy poop from the living room. Four fish tanks of varying size. All have mice in them, all have shredded paper for bedding.

Pine and aspen shavings collect ammonia insanely fast. I don't have the money to be going into town every weak to get pine shavings, nor do I want to be cleaning every week. THe mice love the paper bedding. They shred it further, make nests, hide in it, etc.

Don't knock it until you've tried it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...e/IMG_1846.jpg

Basic setup that I've been using since about Febuary. Get a 64 ounce cup from quiktrip, fill it full and pour it in so that it covers the bottom. Add some shredded paper for bedding. Toss in some sort of cardboard (this group has a printer cartridge box) for a chew toy. Add mice (This particular tank has 8).

This tank was cleaned last week, but on average I only clean once a month. Since the tanks are in my room, I know for certain that it works.

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Originally Posted by tsdsbd

vanilla works! got to be real extract to work best though. just a few drops each time u fill the bottles

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Yes it does

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Originally Posted by Raptor

How does it defeat the purpose? I use shredded paper for bedding and..The only thing I smell is the puppy poop from the living room. Four fish tanks of varying size. All have mice in them, all have shredded paper for bedding.

Pine and aspen shavings collect ammonia insanely fast. I don't have the money to be going into town every weak to get pine shavings, nor do I want to be cleaning every week. THe mice love the paper bedding. They shred it further, make nests, hide in it, etc.

Don't knock it until you've tried it.

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:confused: I converted my front bedroom into the reptile / room, which houses:
25 snakes
3 leos
6 ASF breeder tanks
1 early grow out tub
2 m/f grow out tanks

If I don't clean weekly & spot clean every 2-3 days, my condo would smell horrible. I have a very sensitive nose.

A big bag of pine from TSC is like $6.00 and lasts almost 2 months

My mom has mild breathing issues so no smell else I hear about it.

Wal-mart carried a compressed bale of pine that's roughly $5 for 3 or so pounds. This will take care of the tanks once wil minor leftover. I can get the bag of pine pellets for the same amount except I get 25 pounds. Something else I've noticed with pine, besides the ammonia build up, is that it's very, very dusty.

Try adding a small fume hood with a fan that goes into a pipe out the window.

pine is bad for mice it gives them respiratory problems check any site about mice breeding it is almost as bad as ceder. whether or not it is in pellet or shavings

here is what professional mice and rat breeders recommend aspen, pellet bedding(other then pine), unscented for any and all types of bedding. that stuff made from paper or carboard not sure which it is made of. some even listed kitty liter as a substrate (actually recommended most and if nothing else line bottom of cage with the litter

Raptor my mom also has asthma and has issues if the mouse cages stink i use aspen and any time she visits she aint had any issues with the smell and i go a month with-out changing bedding but i do put a Lil bit of kitty litter in bottom of the cages first

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Originally Posted by ice#1

pine is bad for mice it gives them respiratory problems check any site about mice breeding it is almost as bad as ceder. whether or not it is in pellet or shavings

here is what professional mice and rat breeders recommend aspen, pellet bedding(other then pine), unscented for any and all types of bedding. that stuff made from paper or carboard not sure which it is made of. some even listed kitty liter as a substrate (actually recommended most and if nothing else line bottom of cage with the litter

Raptor my mom also has asthma and has issues if the mouse cages stink i use aspen and any time she visits she aint had any issues with the smell and i go a month with-out changing bedding but i do put a Lil bit of kitty litter in bottom of the cages first

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Feeder mice aren't going to live long enough to get health issues. So that's not a problem. Aspen shavings are also as bad as pine when it comes to ammonia build up. The paper .stuff you're talking about is the absolute worst. It's very dusty and goes bad very, very quickly. It's also very expensive.

I throw a couple handfulls of pine pellets in my tubs and then wood shavings over the top. A little spot cleaning every other day and a decent plug in air freshener does the trick for my ASF's.

I bought a few mice a couple weeks ago and threw them in an extra tub in my ASF rack and the smell was unbareable after just 2 days. I gotta give it to you mouse breeders, if you can keep their smell down or can put up with it, u have a gift. Lol

kiln dried pine works fine for ALL rodents.

I use a softwood bedding from PetCo (this stuff; super cheap and super compressed). I originally used pure pine, which had a super strong pine smell (but I like the smell, so no biggy) and just masked the rodent odor. I switched to the softwood PetCo bedding, and started putting some clay cat litter and baking soda on top of it (because the mice mix it well enough themselves), and the smell stays down well enough that I can go 10 days without cleaning if I go purely on smell.


Now, when I was asking about keeping the smell down over on another website, I was told many times by many people that vanilla extract does not work, and sometimes makes smell worse. Does it REALLY work?

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Originally Posted by Shenzi Sixaxis

I use a softwood bedding from PetCo (this stuff; super cheap and super compressed). I originally used pure pine, which had a super strong pine smell (but I like the smell, so no biggy) and just masked the rodent odor. I switched to the softwood PetCo bedding, and started putting some clay cat litter and baking soda on top of it (because the mice mix it well enough themselves), and the smell stays down well enough that I can go 10 days without cleaning if I go purely on smell.


Now, when I was asking about keeping the smell down over on another website, I was told many times by many people that vanilla extract does not work, and sometimes makes smell worse. Does it REALLY work?

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it does a bit....layering different bedding works absolutely best but most expensive and then you have all sorts of bedding laying around.

I use baking soda then pine. But the best is baking soda them abm Product (larger than equine fresh but similar), then loose pine shavings(not chips)

Raptor i wasn't recommending any of that stuff that was stuff professional mouse and rat breeders use and recommend I've tried all they recommended and settled on aspen with a lil kitty liter in the bottom only time i get a strong smell like you say is if the water bottle keeps dripping and you don't clean the wet stuff out. tried the paper stuff the mice seem to love it but like you said it stinks really quickly.

one thing nobody has said they tried or used is ground corn cobs as bedding it works really good other then if it gets wet and if it does it molds very quickly 24 hours or less if water tube leaks only place i use this stuff is in with mother and baby cages and only cause i check there cages 4 or 5 times a day if find a spot where it looks white more then likely its mold stating to grow and remove a seizable portion around where it was wet

that paper stuff i throw a handful in for them to use as bedding takes them a week or 2 to get it soft enough or small enough to use as bedding but once they get it that away they seem to like it better then toilet paper or paper towels

but for me a combo of aspen with a Lil kitty liter under works wonders. (wish cedar wasn't bad for the mice and snakes cause that stuff just plain rocks compared to everything else for keeping smell down i use to use it last time i had breeders going close to 20 years ago then i guess while i wasn't breeding my own mice they found out it was bad for mice and snakes

I've heard ground corn cobs causes smaller litters for whatever reason. To be honest, something that molds easily and is high maintenance isn't something that sounds like a good choice of bedding.

they are only in the cages a couple days before the moms give birth then a couple days after to make sure she is a good mother but yes it isn't the best bedding but thats why i just use it for a week or less depending how long after i stick the pregnant moms in the cage before she pops I'm usually pretty good at guessing when there about to pop longest has been 3 days just had 2 litter dropped in the cobb that each had 16 babies so hopefully that aint a small litter

after a week the mom and babies get moved into a mother and baby communal tank where new moms and babies are moved in sometimes daily or when others come out depending how many female have babies at once

Communal tanks make it very hard to know who's being a good mother and who's not..As well as which mother produces what pups.

not realy with the mice i get and the way they end up only 1 of each color gets moved into tank at once color usually favors the mother or at least they seem to in mine i got a bright orangeish colored one 4th liter and all her babies are same or very similar color got a few tiger stripes out of her males only keep what is needed to breed all other are feeders it's got to cage restriction size I've feed a pregnant mother or 3 off to my blood python to keep from majorily over crowding but that wont be a problem after not this next week but the fallowing wont be an issue get to go duck out a med growers shed for 1500 bucks he buys what he wants i set it all up electrical wise hard wired to his local electric code and alarm system too so going to be switching to tubs and building at least 1 mouse rack

the females at some times depending how many females i got that are ready to pop some have no choice but be a good mother deli cup with holes for air and bigger hole for water tube to go in this size i usually use for first time mothers then only 3 days at most then she and babies go in group mother tank most i keep is 4 moms in tank at all times. i've found by giving mothers a daily live treat of a meal-worm keeps all the mothers from eating others babies i got some now that was in tank with 4 mothers only 12 babies thus suckers look more like rat pup first week now got hair and starting to move around this Friday will be 2 week old literally 4 of them are close to same size as 3 week old mice only major difference these babies are fat big cause mothers fought at first and killed close to 30 babies would of been all but i got home and saw dead babies so threw a few meal-worms in to the moms and they been fine ever since.(the fighting went on while i was out of town for week-end side job) meal-worms are high in protein and for some reason it keeps females less likely to eat there young most babies i ever lost to a new mother was 1 if i see her eating the first one cause give a meal worm they gobble it down go clean themselves then off to feed the babies can almost set a clock buy it

Raptor in my communal mother tank all the females take turns feeding the babies the Dom female in my tanks usually moves all the babies into one nest as she finds the babies in bigger tanks she will move babies to other nests as she sees fit in 10 gallon tank with 7 liters she has the babies split up into 3 nests 2 on 1 end and other on other end in a big cardboard tube i gave them her litter is in there at least when she catches them all cause there not quite weanling if rember right Tuesday her and her babies will be coming out the tank and her back in with male and babies either set in new tank or frozen probably frozen. I'll admit it I'm by no means humane i stick the babies in deli cup no holes and throw them in the freezer next day dump them in a big zip-lock baggy

All my rodents live in the garage.... and then nobody really cares if they get a bit smelly. I keep aspen bedding in their cages and change it out every one to two weeks, and they actually don't smell that bad.

I clean them often enough so that they don't stink.
I think it's very funny that after what?....3 pages not ONE person mentioned CLEANING to keep the odour down.....

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Originally Posted by ice#1

not realy with the mice i get and the way they end up only 1 of each color gets moved into tank at once color usually favors the mother or at least they seem to in mine i got a bright orangeish colored one 4th liter and all her babies are same or very similar color got a few tiger stripes out of her males only keep what is needed to breed all other are feeders it's got to cage restriction size I've feed a pregnant mother or 3 off to my blood python to keep from majorily over crowding but that wont be a problem after not this next week but the fallowing wont be an issue get to go duck out a med growers shed for 1500 bucks he buys what he wants i set it all up electrical wise hard wired to his local electric code and alarm system too so going to be switching to tubs and building at least 1 mouse rack

the females at some times depending how many females i got that are ready to pop some have no choice but be a good mother deli cup with holes for air and bigger hole for water tube to go in this size i usually use for first time mothers then only 3 days at most then she and babies go in group mother tank most i keep is 4 moms in tank at all times. i've found by giving mothers a daily live treat of a meal-worm keeps all the mothers from eating others babies i got some now that was in tank with 4 mothers only 12 babies thus suckers look more like rat pup first week now got hair and starting to move around this Friday will be 2 week old literally 4 of them are close to same size as 3 week old mice only major difference these babies are fat big cause mothers fought at first and killed close to 30 babies would of been all but i got home and saw dead babies so threw a few meal-worms in to the moms and they been fine ever since.(the fighting went on while i was out of town for week-end side job) meal-worms are high in protein and for some reason it keeps females less likely to eat there young most babies i ever lost to a new mother was 1 if i see her eating the first one cause give a meal worm they gobble it down go clean themselves then off to feed the babies can almost set a clock buy it

Raptor in my communal mother tank all the females take turns feeding the babies the Dom female in my tanks usually moves all the babies into one nest as she finds the babies in bigger tanks she will move babies to other nests as she sees fit in 10 gallon tank with 7 liters she has the babies split up into 3 nests 2 on 1 end and other on other end in a big cardboard tube i gave them her litter is in there at least when she catches them all cause there not quite weanling if rember right Tuesday her and her babies will be coming out the tank and her back in with male and babies either set in new tank or frozen probably frozen. I'll admit it I'm by no means humane i stick the babies in deli cup no holes and throw them in the freezer next day dump them in a big zip-lock baggy

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Actually, yes, really. My mice are capable of producing 5 and six different colors. Even with one color, it's hard to tell who's a good mother and who isn't. Additionally, communal tanks make it very hard to find out who's the cannibal unless you catch them in the act.

By the way, the orangey ones with tiger strips are brindle. I advise to remove that color due to them being prone to health issues.

Finally, use periods at the ends of your sentences. Else I'm just going to ignore what you say. Simply because I have a very hard time reading what you say and I'm having to reread everything several times over.

Just started a breeding tank (10 gal) with one male and two female mice. I tried aspen and the Care Fresh bedding and both. The smell is evident almost immediately. I have cleaned the tank with dish soap but the smell is still there.

I saw pine horse pellets mentioned. Is this the same as pine pellet cat litter available at Petco? I'm not in a rural area so horse pellets may be hard to find.

If I can't get rid of the smell I will have to try gerbils instead of mice. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, JohnNJ

American Excelsior Premium horse bedding is the best and least stinky litter I've used so far. And cheap at around $6 per 45lb bag.

That mixed with shredded paper, and a sprinkling of baking soda on the bottom of the tanks, and I barely have any smell at all. . . Well, it smells a lot better. There will always be a smell.

The only thing I can recommend, is getting over it. :rolleyes:
If you're gonna have mice, rats, or ASFs, they're gonna stink. You can cover it up all you want, but unless you're cleaning twice a week, it's gonna stink 24/7.


Pine and cedar are no-nos unless you want sick mice, AND sick reptiles. The pine and cedar shavings are bad for your reptiles (you should know that, of course. :P) and the oils will be on the mice you are feeding, and can harm the animals you are feeding.


To get the stink of of the tank, spray it with bleach (take the animals out first, obviously) let it sit for like 5 minutes, then rinse and scrub it out.

If it's always going to smell as bad as it does now after only a few hours, I'll have to switch to gerbils which hardly smell at all.

I use kiln dried aspen in the snake tanks and they are thriving. I spot clean weekly and do the whole tank monthly and there is no smell in the room.

The mice stunk up the whole basement. Anyone else have anything that works?

There's no reason your mice should stink after only a few hours. Especially not with only 3 mice. :(

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Originally Posted by Rhasputin

There's no reason your mice should stink after only a few hours. Especially not with only 3 mice. :(

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That's what I said. Do colored mice stink more than white?

Try ASFs instead of gerbils. They stink less than mice.

Boy mice stink more than girl mice, but colours don't make a difference. Maybe your diet for them, is no good?

ASFs don't necessarily stink less, they just stink different. :rolleyes:
Honestly, after a week of them stinking up a cage, it smells like mouse pee, and marijuana.

Gerbils have like 0% stink, but they reproduce slowly, and have small litters.
You'd have to have a lot of gerbils. How many reptile are you feeding? And what sizes?

I picked up Febreeze and sprayed it around the basement. I also added an Airwick plug-in. That helped a lot but the smell is still there as you get closer to the tank.

The Care Fresh bedding and Aspen did nothing to reduce the smell. The food is just the rodent blocks.

I have three BP's, one of which will not eat rats. I may go back to F/T since they all eat those.