Rank the Smell!!!

Dumb question here!!!

Thinking of raising my own snake rodents. My wife is not cool with the idea because of the smell.

I have a collection of 7 bp's that will be getting larger soon.

So my ? is. What smells the worst?

Mice - Wife's pick
Rat's
Gerbil's - I want to use gerbil's

She will take a look at all the feedback and help with the choice.

Mice are the worst ... rats aren't too bad if you clean twice a week or more.

Gerbils really don't have much of an odor, but they are not a good idea as far as ball python food goes. Ball pythons are imprint feeders and once offered gerbils may not ever take another type of prey again ... if something happens to your breeding plan and you have to go back to buying food items, gerbils can get pretty expensive. Also, they are pretty aggressive and have a much more powerful bite than mice and rats, which is another thing to consider.

For only 7 snakes, breeding your own rodents really isn't worth all of the extra hassle. When you factor in your time and space, it's cheaper to invest in a freezer and buy frozen in bulk. Been there, done that!

-adam

Mice are stinky little *bleeps*.

Rats do not stink when kept clean.. I find once weekly cleanings is fine, though it depends on cage size/number of rats together.

I second Adam about the gerbils. I don't think they reproduce quite so profusely either, though I am not sure on this.

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Originally Posted by Shelby

I don't think they reproduce quite so profusely either, though I am not sure on this.

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Definitely smaller litter sizes, but man, I have a couple of males that just love to f .... rolic! :twisted:

I produced insance amounts of gerbils over the summer without really even trying.

-adam

Ok, I stand corrected.

You would probably have to feed multiple gerbils to an adult BP.. a female anyway. I'd think that rats would be less work if you need to feed 7 BPs.

Def mice for the uberstank.

The odor from ras is easily manageable as mentioned above - so long as you maintain a good cleaning schedule. Mice even when cleaned frequently and only a couple or three to a cage were much nastier. Counterintuitive I know.

No clue on gerbils, sorry.

Mice smell horrendous!! Rats are not bad; I have roughly 30 of them at any given time, living in tanks in my laundry room. I use pine shavings as bedding and clean them every 6 days and it is fine; the more crowded the cages; the more cleaning is needed. But you should do it; I am feeding my 4 snakes nicely and I have not bought a rat in months!!

Mice smell awful! I tried them for about a month and killed em off FAST!!!



Rats stink too but in a different way. Mice smell like urine in about 15 minutes. Very strong odor. Rats smell like crap and it might take a few days to get the smell up there where its bothersome if kept in a basement for example.

I keep 2:1 and am now separating them after I am sure they are "in the family way" due to litter stealing between the moms causing a few problems for me.

Be warned that my first rat klitter was 16 and my second was 14, That is 30 rats! They grow fast, very fast so you need to either have the ability to feed them off in time or the guts to freeze something you have raised. Neither bothers me.

I only have 4 BPs and an Everglades Rat Snake and rat breeding been something I enjoy so far. I never pay for adult feeder mice anymore and I always have the right size for someone be it live or frozen. My collection of snakes will grow so I just dove in with both feet on the rats.


As for gerbils...HATE THE MEAN THINGS!!!! My brother had them for pets and they would bite us and him in a heartbeat. Although feeding items you hate make it all so much easier.


Oh, NEVER name a rat pup
NEVER sleep with the rat pups
NEVER let your daughters see the rat pups
and NEVER EVER EVER NEVER let yourself say "He's a cute little nasty rat isn't he?"

because the next words will be "I can't feed him, he's too special" LOL
Then you have pet #86763590623864. Even when I think they are cute, they are the first ones I feed off. Out of sight is out of mind :)

Hm.. I never have problems getting attached to the rats. I play with the baby rats and the older ones, though I don't name them. But they all get popped into the gas chamber all the same.

if only we could cross the size of the rat with the characteristics of the gerbil...gerbils rarely stink since they are dessert mamals and don't pee alot. To beat a dead horse rats are are better smell wise. I am working my way to be heavier on the rat side right now i'm about half and half with raising mice/rats. Personally having only 7 snakes still makes it very worth it for me to raise my own. There are no places in town here I could buy from and paying over a dollar for a mouse is out of the question...not to mention the cost of rats. I'll put up with the cleaning to prevent the smell. The feed I am using and the other things I mix into their diet has more than paid for itself by allowing me to have my own food chain.

Rats are pretty easy to clean out, when the mamas have a littler of babies. They will pee/defecate only on the opposite side of the cage, as their nest. So you take a small dustpan and scoop out the dirty bedding, while leaving the litter alone.
However, I have taken to just grabbing the whole nest of babies, placing them in an already-cleaned tank, with the mama, and going on from there. :)

I have no sence of smell at all, so ntohing stinks to me but my wife siad the mice where the worst she smelt.

Adam what is your normal gerbil sized littler my female just gave me 3 babies but 2 didnt make it 3rd is being raised as a pet for my daughter now as my male who was having them bred for him started back on rats several weeks ago I was so glad it didnt come to gerbs.

I used to breed gerbils and sometimes had litters in the numbers of 8 or so, but 6 was the usual number. They are very good parents and won't kill the babies(unless they can't feed them all). Most of mine are still alive, LoL, and living the good life(if you can call it that) at my college.

I breed mice now, for food for Dillinger and occassionally Amani, and for fun. I love seeing the patterns and colors I get. I am going to breed 2 satin-coated black patched together and see what I get. Hopefully no megacolon, since they will be high-white. Yeah, they do smell some, but if you thoroughly clean the cage every 5-7 days, it works out fine.

I agree, breeding rats is a lot of fun.

I have a litter of rexes right now, and they are the cutest things!

I need a male dumbo ear to go with my female apricot dumbo. Dumbo rats are so sweet.

Waiting on a litter of blue hoodeds right now as well.. and I just found a seal point siamese rat at petsmart.. he's so cute!

[QUOTE=Shelby]Dumbo rats are so sweet[QUOTE]

HAH! That's funny... you should tell that to two of mine... They are devil spawn. Spastic as all get out, whiners, nippers, cause fights to break out... Little turds. One came from a breeder and is registered and pedigreed, and the other is a Petco rescue. The one from the breeder is worse. Doesn't like being held and has alot of protein sensitivity. The Petco one is just weird all around...

Well the two that I've had are angels. The apricot girl will come over and lick my fingers when I'm checking on them.

I have to agree that breeding/raising rats...and even the mice is nearly 25% of the fun keeping reptiles. I have only starting back into rats since this summer because I was given some free females and now I have a pretty smooth operation going. Its cool to see what comes out, out of my silverish/white stud and this plain brown female I have gotten: black, black with white blotch on the back, half black half brown, half black half white, black head white body with black splotch, solid brown...and probably some others I am forgetting.

I am hoping to move over solely to rats...I will probably have to keep at least one pair of mice though since I still have some smaller snakes...and now a really really small snake :P

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Originally Posted by Python-77

Adam what is your normal gerbil sized littler

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The young girls start out with 3-4 and then make it up to about 6 by the time they are full grown.

-adam

I have to admit, rat breedng is fun. I am waiting on a solid black female to have her litter; she was bred with a siamese male. Who knows what will happen? I really need some new blood though; I am sick of grays. But my best male is gray, so we are stuck with that for awhile!!

Know what you mean!

Now we have some solid blondes and whites, a lush black one with a white crest a number of greys and an insane number of the bicolored - it's pretty neat to see the genetic inheritence since the turnaround from pinkie to breedable is realtively fast (compared to say BPs lol).

Yea.. I'm addicted to rats almost as much to snakes. Picked up an apricot dumbo capped male today to go with my dumbo apricot and het dumbos.. going for a blue rex dumbo hooded in the future. :)

MICE ARE DIRTY DIRTY LITTLE CREATURES! *big they are kinda cute*


RAT- a great feed for a BP but I'm gonna guess almost as bad as a mouse!

Gerbils - I've never had one....

Mice - dirty, highly stinky, tend to be mean to each other and eat their own young more than a rat would do, chew worse than rats and did I mention they stink no matter how often you clean up after them

Gerbils - horrid critters as far as I'm concerned and one of the most aggressive rodents out there

Rats - don't smell much at all, pretty good mothers who don't seem to eat their own young often, pretty easy to handle if they are used to you, can eat just about anything and do well on it, come in a wide enough variety of sizes to feed most snakes at various stages of their life (well balls and such like)

Just my take on rodent choices.


~~Jo~~