Tips to keep the smell down?

[suzuki4life]

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.

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.

[tsdsbd]

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

[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.

[Raptor]

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.

[llovelace]

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

Yes it does

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.

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

[Raptor]

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.

[Kyle1989]

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

[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

[Raptor]

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

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.

[ericzerka24]

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