Cleaning mice pans

Is there a secret to cleaning mice pans LOL it takes me forever cleaning my 24 tub rack the hoppers and weans get everywhere? Do huge rodent breeders really pick each individual hopper up, for cleaning every week? :confused:

When we had a bunch..depending on the age....we either scooped or gently dumped the whole cage (after hand picking out the adults).

For instance, if they are still fuzzies, etc...just scoop them up and put them in the new tub with mom. For hoppers/weans, scoop if they are all clustered, then either dump or pluck out the rest....or just dump the thing to start. As long as you are gentle about sliding them around and such, it wont hurt them.

I use cleaning day as my chance to pick up every mouse individually and make sure it looks healthy. This also helps keep them a little tamer. The exception is pinks; I try to avoid touching them to avoid giving the parents any excuse to make a snack out of them.

I am starting to notice my colony is getting big enough that this is getting impractical. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to handle it to make it quicker.

Every week I remove each pan from the rack, scoop out all the mice into a holding bin, dump the dirty litter, scrape the pan out with a putty knife, replace with fresh litter and move the mice back in. I don't even wash the pans and haven't in years. Mice live in a world of scent, they need their homes to smell familiar otherwise they don't feel as comfortable. I've found that if I wash the pans they actually smell worse after a few days because the mice will be extra busy re-marking their territory.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Every week I remove each pan from the rack, scoop out all the mice into a holding bin, dump the dirty litter, scrape the pan out with a putty knife, replace with fresh litter and move the mice back in. I don't even wash the pans and haven't in years. Mice live in a world of scent, they need their homes to smell familiar otherwise they don't feel as comfortable. I've found that if I wash the pans they actually smell worse after a few days because the mice will be extra busy re-marking their territory.

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We wash out our rat's cement tubs probably every 3 weeks to a month, depending on if it is gross or not. Usually it is just dusty so we either wipe it off with a damp sponge or nothing. Sometimes the rats like to male bedding piles and go pee/poo on the now bare part of the cage...that is when it has to be cleaned.

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Originally Posted by rocko2527

Is there a secret to cleaning mice pans LOL it takes me forever cleaning my 24 tub rack the hoppers and weans get everywhere?

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I've found having an extra tub for the rack makes a huge difference. You can just start with a clean, prepared tub, move the mice to it, clean and prepare the next, lather, rinse, repeat. Keeps from having to move groups more than once, and imposes a rather organized assembly-line mentality to the process.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Every week I remove each pan from the rack, scoop out all the mice into a holding bin, dump the dirty litter, scrape the pan out with a putty knife, replace with fresh litter and move the mice back in. I don't even wash the pans and haven't in years. Mice live in a world of scent, they need their homes to smell familiar otherwise they don't feel as comfortable. I've found that if I wash the pans they actually smell worse after a few days because the mice will be extra busy re-marking their territory.

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I walked into a rodent breeder’s shed that did not use cleaning solution while cleaning his rodent tubs, and I about passed out. The ammonia was so strong.

I use cleaning solution while cleaning out all of my tubs, and there is no buildup of ammonia. I start to notice a smell in the rodent room a couple of days before cleaning day. I clean once every seven days.

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Originally Posted by Wh00h0069

I walked into a rodent breeder’s shed that did not use cleaning solution while cleaning his rodent tubs, and I about passed out. The ammonia was so strong.

I use cleaning solution while cleaning out all of my tubs, and there is no buildup of ammonia. I start to notice a smell in the rodent room a couple of days before cleaning day. I clean once every seven days.

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Well then he just doesn't clean often enough or have very good ventilation. All rodent colonies will have a build up of ammonia no matter how often or well you clean. Proper ventilation is a must. If it's unpleasant for you, it's not doing the mice any good either.

If you scrap the pans well and don't leave any crusty stuff behind, the smell is very minimal. It's worked well for me for many years.

I use a much larger and taller bin as a kind of holding area for them. I hold their cage close over the substrate, scoop them onto it, then clean their home cage. I like to use all equi-fresh pellets in their cages as bedding, since they urinate so much and just generally stink.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Well then he just doesn't clean often enough or have very good ventilation. All rodent colonies will have a build up of ammonia no matter how often or well you clean. Proper ventilation is a must. If it's unpleasant for you, it's not doing the mice any good either.

If you scrap the pans well and don't leave any crusty stuff behind, the smell is very minimal. It's worked well for me for many years.

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Your correct, he didn't have very good ventilation.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Every week I remove each pan from the rack, scoop out all the mice into a holding bin, dump the dirty litter, scrape the pan out with a putty knife, replace with fresh litter and move the mice back in. I don't even wash the pans and haven't in years. Mice live in a world of scent, they need their homes to smell familiar otherwise they don't feel as comfortable. I've found that if I wash the pans they actually smell worse after a few days because the mice will be extra busy re-marking their territory.

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Mark do you scoop out hoppers to? I tried and they fly everywhere LOL hard to catch to :mad: It seems like if you have one jump they all start jumping like popcorn:rolleye2:

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Originally Posted by rocko2527

Mark do you scoop out hoppers to? I tried and they fly everywhere LOL hard to catch to :mad: It seems like if you have one jump they all start jumping like popcorn:rolleye2:

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Ha, I know what you mean. They're not called hoppers for nothing. My holding bin is actually one of those blue rubbermaid storage containers, one of the extra deep ones. I position it next to the rack and under the tub that I want to clean, then I quickly pull the tub out and stick the entire tub into the holding bin all in one motion. If I've got hoppers, a lot of them will pop out but are contained in the bin, then I scoop out the rest of the mice and clean the tub.

It's interesting to note that the adults, weanlings and of course the pinkies and fuzzies will stay in the tub and you have to pull them out by hand, but a lot of those hoppers will take off like a shot.