STinky STINKY mice

Ok, the rats are good. they are on aspen, and i have gotten used to the aspen smell. As long as i clean their tank once a week they are good.

The mice however STINK! one day after cleaning tank it STINKS!!

I have 2 females and 1 male in the cage. I know mice are supposed to stink... but is ther ANYTHING else i can use for substrate other than aspen to make it a little less stinkey? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

:taz:

Mike

I use wood pellets and it works great with mice.

Check the trator supply for Equine Fresh

You can also add some vanilla extract to the water to help.

This is strange... I have a weanling pair being raised up and a breeding trio with 20 babies right now and I only notice a strong smell when I haven't been able to clean the cage for days. Maybe I'm just lucky and have less smelly mice, but I never really have had to deal with strong smells from them. The breeders are in a 26x15x10" sterilite tub set up much like Joanna's rat tubs...maybe that makes a difference.

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Originally Posted by GA_Ball_Pythons

I use wood pellets and it works great with mice.

Check the trator supply for Equine Fresh

You can also add some vanilla extract to the water to help.

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wood pellets... you mean the stuff they use for rabbits? will that conceal the stink considerably better then aspen? If so, I will pick some up tommorow!

Mike

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Originally Posted by mcavana

wood pellets... you mean the stuff they use for rabbits? will that conceal the stink considerably better then aspen? If so, I will pick some up tommorow!

Mike

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Unlike Aspen the wood pellets absorb urine, reducing the smell considerably.

That's what I use http://www.planetwiseproducts.com/equine.htm

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Originally Posted by GA_Ball_Pythons

I use wood pellets and it works great with mice.

Check the trator supply for Equine Fresh

You can also add some vanilla extract to the water to help.

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That stuff is made from pine.. I thought pine was bad?

I put baking soda under the aspen it eats up the smell.

This stuff is pretty good.........they say its the same as woody pet, or wood pellets!


http://www.guardianhorsebedding.com/

this looks like it is the same stuff... just a smaller bag?
http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...#RatingsDetail

i use yesterdays news.. it seems to work very well. i dont have to change their cage out but maybe once a week and it isnt over whelming at all

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Originally Posted by mcavana

this looks like it is the same stuff... just a smaller bag?
http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...#RatingsDetail

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Sure does but here is a secret you can find it at tractor supply and pay $6 for 40lbs :gj:

I use pine. All my mice, rats and ASF are doin great!...and they hardly ever smell.

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Originally Posted by GA_Ball_Pythons

I use wood pellets and it works great with mice.

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Me too; great choice :) I hate the smell of mice kept on pine shavings. With the pellets, it really minimizes the odor.

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Originally Posted by AshleyB

i use yesterdays news.. it seems to work very well. i dont have to change their cage out but maybe once a week and it isnt over whelming at all

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LOL! when you said this I though you were talking about normal newspaper... you know, yesterdays news... yesterdays news paper... Didn't know you were talking about the pellets sold a the pet store called "yesterdays news"!!!

Neither Petsmart or Petco had the wood pellets so i picked up the yesterdays news pellets instead. I will keep a look out for the wood pellets... we don't exactly have many horse supply places around here!!!!

Mike

Everybody seems to use some kind of shredded wood as bedding, hasn't anyone tried peat? Don't know about America but here it's sold in garden stores in about 17 gallon bags for about 5€. I've used it for as long as I've bred mice and have never suffered from any bad odors. I change the beddings about once a week.

If I miss a cleaning day and it gets closer to 2 weeks without cleaning it'll start smelling a little though. Peat seems to absorb huge amounts of urine and feces without getting stinky, so the only problem is to remember to clean the tubs, because there's no smell to tell you it's getting dirty.

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Originally Posted by RogueStar

Everybody seems to use some kind of shredded wood as bedding, hasn't anyone tried peat? Don't know about America but here it's sold in garden stores in about 17 gallon bags for about 5€. I've used it for as long as I've bred mice and have never suffered from any bad odors. I change the beddings about once a week.

If I miss a cleaning day and it gets closer to 2 weeks without cleaning it'll start smelling a little though. Peat seems to absorb huge amounts of urine and feces without getting stinky, so the only problem is to remember to clean the tubs, because there's no smell to tell you it's getting dirty.

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Like Peat Moss? The stuff we use for frog and amphibians substrate to retain moisture? If so, won't the mice get their feet caught in it?

Nope, it's worked for me perfectly. I'll post a pic in a minute...

Here's a pic of one of my mouse-factories:
The little devils have spread their food all over the floor space again... :rolleyes:
http://www.freewebs.com/roguestar/im...eatBedding.jpg

And another of the bedding itself:
http://www.freewebs.com/roguestar/img/peatBedding.jpg

using wood pellets in one tank, yesturdays news in another. They both are starting to stink! changed substrate 4 days ago. Maybe I just need to change the substrate every 4 days??? How often do you change your substrate?

I clean the mousetanks every 1-2 weeks. After two weeks they'll start smelling a little but I like to keep them clean even though they don't smell much. So usually a week apart.

I read an article once that said that mice smell so strong to us because they give off so many different scents, we can't really tell the difference between different individuals but they can. They actually use scent to communicate with each other and they have one of the keenest senses of smell in the animal world. Over half of the mass of a mouses head is taken up by their olfactory organs. Mice are also highly territorial and will mark their territory with their own signature scent. Kinda like mouse graffiti I guess, but instead of spraying with paint cans they use something else to spray with.... :D

A lot of people will notice that mouse cages actually smell worse the next day after cleaning. You get that pungent 'new mouse smell' because after cleaning the mouse can't smell itself anymore and thinks it's in a different territory and so it gets very busy remarking all of its new turf.

I no longer wash my mouse tubs anymore. Every week I dump out the old soiled litter and scrap the bottom and sides with a plastic putty knife and then replace the bedding with fresh stuff, but I haven't washed any of the tubs in well over a year, maybe two years. It actually smells better. I think it makes the mice feel more comfortable since the cage always smells familiar to them and they don't have as much of a need to retouch all of their markers.

Mark

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Originally Posted by Wolves-N-Dogs

That stuff is made from pine.. I thought pine was bad?

I put baking soda under the aspen it eats up the smell.

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A lot of people use pine for mice/rats. Pine has been stated to be a bad choice for the snake substrate.

I use the wood pellet bedding and I never smell the mice. Maybe I am just used to smells like that but I never smell anything. Even when its cleaning day. :)

Some people just have much more sensitive senses of smell than others. Something else to consider is how much air flow you have in the room where the animals are present.

I've never had to deal with mice, but I can imagine I wouldn't use anything but the pine pellets for them.

The peat moss is an awesome idea, though I'm afraid that I have never heard of any place that carries it around here.

Your animals will never be smell free. Newspaper pellets smells better than aspen, wood pellets smell better than newspaper.

I find equine fresh is the best I can get for my money. Hardwood pellets made for wood stoves was too aromatic for me, and stunk bad when wet.

Softwood pellets (pine) are for me the best choice. I think the process to make them also has to do with the effectiveness of the odor control. (as in you get what you pay for)

Woody Pet is the same type of wood as Equine Fresh, and I'm convinced they are nearly the same thing.

I've tried several types of bedding: I started with aspen shavings, aspen and Sweet PDZ on the bottom, Cell sorb, Equine fresh, stove pellets, hardwood stove pellets, a mixture of any of the before mentioned.

Nothing works as well for me as 3 scoops of equine fresh in a tub. I use a deli cup to scoop, and all nursing females get 2 handfuls of aspen for a nest. Works great and I won't look back.

I notice that if I give too much aspen to the females when their pups are running around, the smell goes up considerably.

Just my 2 cents. It was really important for me to cut the smell since these rat butts are all in my bedroom, so the searching was crucial!

Peat moss should be available at any place that sells garden supplies. At least that is where I used to get it to use in fish tanks, but that was 10 years ago. I would assume it is still easy to find.

Over here it's sold both fertilized and unfertilized. I've always used the unfertilized kind.

They also sell this stuff that gardeners use to cover planting areas, here's a pic of the bag. I've never tried that but if I'd want a naturalistic enclosure that would be a cool substrate to try out.

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The peat moss is an awesome idea, though I'm afraid that I have never heard of any place that carries it around here.

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Connie, you live in WI right? Most of the peat sold in landscaping stores is probably mined in peat bogs in northern WI or MN. Around here you can find 50lb bales all year round. It might be called Peat moss, or sphagnum peat, or milled sphagnum, but usually is just called peat moss. Found in the nursery or landscaping departments of any Home Depot or Lowes or even WalMart.

I haven't tried it myself, but I might give it a shot just to try it out.

Mark

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Connie, you live in WI right? Most of the peat sold in landscaping stores is probably mined in peat bogs in northern WI or MN. Around here you can find 50lb bales all year round. It might be called Peat moss, or sphagnum peat, or milled sphagnum, but usually is just called peat moss. Found in the nursery or landscaping departments of any Home Depot or Lowes or even WalMart.

I haven't tried it myself, but I might give it a shot just to try it out.

Mark

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I live in MI, but close enough. That's a great idea though, I would never have thought they carry it year round. I'm thinking I have something else to try out! ;) Thanks people

i got some peat moss at lowes. HUGE (like 50 lbs) for less then 10 bucks... the bag says pure spagnum peat moss... but it is chopped up very fine. it looks almost like brown dirt. I picked it up. will see how it works...

If it doesn't work, i have a few bushes that can use it!!!!

Mike

ok, it is going in the yard! definantly NO GOOD! It was way to dusty! mouse ran around in it for a minute and he was COVERED in it! all over food bowl and food. LOL. another lesson learned.

Maybe if you sprayed it down a bit to keep the dust down?

no there was no hope for this stuff.... it was way too fine... it litterally looked like dirt.

Too bad, I guess what they sell here is a lot more coarse, it feels more like soft dried moss than dust.