A Question about Smell (cages vs. bins / racks)

Hi guys,

I'm still on the fence about breeding my rats mainly due to smell. I have to keep them inside the house and in my reptile room so I want to keep this as minimal as possible.

Right now I have my "pets" in two separate wire cages and find that they can get smelly fast, but it's not due to the bedding, rather, it's due to them peeing on the sides of the cages and all of their belongings in the cages. The odor from this can be so bad that it is strong and noticeable when I open the door to the reptile room (and this can happen at any time, day after changing bedding, 3 days later, etc.). The room is heated and has a fan going for circulation, but I can't open a window etc. due to heating the room.

Thus, I have a question for those of you that have kept rats in both metal cages and in bins / racks...
Do you find that they smell less in the racks / bins than in the cages or is it similar?

If I knew that the odor would be less in a rodent rack, I'd be much more comfortable with breeding them... As it is now, my 3.3 are so smelly that I can't imagine having more of them in the reptile room and I know my husband wouldn't go for it.

My rats when I had them, smelled pretty bad. You might want to try ASFs. They don't -not- smell, but they smell different, and take a little longer to smell as bad as other rodents.

Other than that, there's a lot of home and comercial remedies to make their excretions smell better, but I don't think any of them particularly make the problem better.

Well, not wire cages, but i used to use old retired fish tanks, and the smell improved a bunch when I went to racks. I also eliminated almost all cage furnishings, and eventually ended up with nothing in the tubs but bedding. Plus the tubs are easy to rinse out.

Ventilation is a must when breeding rats, I use racks with wire tops and run about 30 females. Even changing the bedding often will only help with the smell so much and using a different method without much ventilation will get very damp inside. The only way I found to help with the smell of breeding rats is I installed a exhaust system in my basement just for breeding rats. The exhaust system did cost around $500 but it paid for itself in no time.

I bred rats for a short period of time, both in racks and big storage bins with added ventilation, and they definitely smelled less there than in my "pet rat" cages. In tubs/racks it is easy to thoroughly clean the entire enclosure, rather than just changing bedding.

Thanks for your time and replies guys. It doesn't seem like they smelled as much when I was keeping them in their "baby tub" setup.. Of course, they were babies then too. What's odd is that the females tend to smell far worse than the males (I guess they're peeing all over their cages more).

I may wait until these rats get older and breed a single litter to start with (trying out a tub setup to see if it helps with the odors). I'm not sure how well my current ones would adapt to a smaller tub setup now that they are used to being in cages.

If only I had a shed to keep them in outside, this wouldn't be an issue.. Alas.

Thanks again for your time and advice!

Males are a lot smellier also. I actually keep 1.10 or so at a given time and rotate the male in each level of the rack. At the end of the day you can control smell with different beddings (people say pine pellets mixed in works well), vanilla in the water, minimizing males, and cleaning the cages often. Of these, cleaning often is the way to go. If you smell them, they do too. Ammonia is just as harmful to them as it is to us.

Thanks!
I'm currently trying the vanilla extract thing and I do think it helps somewhat. I must have freak rats because my girls smell more than the males. :/

Along with vanilla extract you can try a few extra things to keep the smell down.

Change to all wire cages: The added ventilation is good for the health of the rats (they have extremely delicate respiratory systems) and wire cages can greatly keep down the smell for the next reason...

Use bath mats: In wire cages (particularly the Critter Nation cages, which are the best cages I have ever owned) you can purchase bath mats (with no looped material) instead of bedding. When it is time to clean you remove the rats, take out the bath mats, wipe down everything (I use baby wipes) then shake out the bath mats outside before throwing them in the washing machine. If you have extra mats for each cage the cleaning time is even shorter. Make sure you use a detergent for babies or just water and vanilla extract. Again, rats are very sensitive.

Check the ingredients in their food!: Fish meal in food has been noted to make rats have extremely smelly poop. Same with Oxbow Regal Rat food. It varies from case to case but I have found this to be true.

Stress: Rats under immediate stress defecate to rid their body of excess weight so they can run away from what is threatening them. This poop is often runny and extremely smelly. Having less rats that you handle more frequently from birth can help with this.

Lore- Thanks for the information. I used to use fleece with absorbent liners underneath and found that it became smellier faster than normal bedding. I do wash their hammocks, etc. frequently and keep multiple sets to replace with while washing.

They are in wire cages now, and although I wipe down the bars, etc. with baby wipes frequently, the smell is pretty bad due to them peeing on the sides of the cage and the levels. I don't think the smell of poop is an issue, but rather the pee. They are on native earth 18 (harland teklad). I've heard the same things about the regal rat food.

No problem!

I found fleece to be absolutely horrible with trying to keep a colony, the smell was terrible. I switched to rabbit food (Small World rabbit food from Wal-Mart, $7 per 25lb bag) for the substrate in my quarantine and breeding cages, which is extremely cost effective and keeps down smell. I don't use it in the main cages because I don't have scatter guards and it would be all over the floor. The mats I use are bath mats so they are extremely absorbent and they aren't even comparable to fleece in smell. You wouldn't know I had rats unless you were standing in front of their cage (if you were blind folded) because the smell is so manageable now. I only have one male currently though, so that may be what is saving me!

Maybe you could find them things to mark so they will mark the bars less? I use soda boxes that have holes cut into them for the rats to hide in, chew on and mark all over. Paper towel and toilet paper rolls also make good toys.

I've had my rats back and forth between Mazuri 6F and Harlan Teklad 2014 or 2016 for a while now (as 25% of their diet) and I haven't noticed a difference between the two as far as smell for pee goes. Native Earth only has 2% to 4% more protein so I am not sure where your problem is stemming from. I've never used Native Earth though. Maybe you should try changing them to a diet with less protein?

Harlan Teklad nutritionist information about protein and rat health: http://www.theratshop.com/article_in...?articles_id=1

Thanks for the information again Lore. I do give them boxes (cereal and other food boxes) and tubes to play with and mark. I think the number one issue is the girls peeing on the sides of the cage. The boys smell way less than they do.

I may try securing some cardboard to the sides of the cage and see if that helps to give them somewhere else to pee.

I may try the bathmats... When I had fleece in their cages, they absolutely destroyed it also, so I'm sure they would find a way to destroy the mats as well. Do you use the ones with the rubber backing?

Thanks again for your help!

I don't find any difference in odor between cages or bins/tubs. The biggest different I see is in the bedding used and how often it is changed.
I've used cloth bedding, and hated it. Too much work, it has to be changed out daily, and the rats eventually tear it us. Paper bedding works, but is expensive. Wood shavings are cheap, but do the trick. My biggest complaint about wire cages is rats make a mess. If you don't vacuum or mop all around the cages every time you change the bedding, there will be smell because you haven't eliminated the odor causing material. Bins are better in that respect, because everything stays better contained. I make a bigger mess adding clean bedding than the rats themselves do.

Thanks for your input Sorraia. They do tend to scatter bedding everywhere. I am glad that we decided to put down vinyl floors (easier to sweep / mop) for that reason.