how often do you clean the bedding?

[SquamishSerpents]

so i have 2 10 gallons that house 5 rats (1 male, 4 females) plus babies, and a 20 gallon that houses however many grow-ups there are until they get eaten.

the thing i wonder, is DOES MY HOUSE STINK!? i know ASF's smell a helluva lot less than mice or regular rats, but i just don't know how often i need to clean it so that when people walk in they don't go HOLY IT SMELLS LIKE A BARN IN HERE!

i mean, i can always smell a little bit of a ratty odor, but that's to be expected. i've asked my friends weather or not they stink, and they say "no not really i can't even smell them" but honestly, they could be lying haha. i wouldn't tell my friend their house smelled like a barn haha.

so just wondering how often i should clean, right now i'm using kiln-dried pine shavings. i get a bag that expands to 8 cubic feet for about $7.

[Danounet]

Well I cant find a smell to them, but the bedding will start to stink after 3 or 4 days. By the 6th or 7th day I cant realy stand it anymore. I usualy change it on saturdays.

[irishanaconda]

honestly, i change my asf tubs like 1x e/o week when they have babbies or sometimes i go once a month.... depending if they have a new litter

[Shadera]

I keep 1.2 in 10 gallon tanks, and I change their bedding weekly.

[pavlovk1025]

I change their bedding:

1) When I notice the smell...my wife has a strict no smell policy that if I violate, they go to the garage instead of the 2nd floor herp room. Insulated or not, the garage is like 40 degrees right now. So I stay on top of the maintenance.
2) When I wean a litter...since Im not buggin them the whole time...well most of the time when there is a bunch of babies around, I just clean when I wean.
3) Every week for the growout tubs...Ive got 60 little buggers running around...their pee corner gets so saturated with urine that it becomes one giant mess of soaked substrate. Comes close to violating the no smell policy.

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

It depends on what type of bedding you are using. The wood shavings or that fluffy cotton stuff will start to stink in a matter of days.

The aspen pellets (which I can only find at petco) lasts forever and you have absolutely no rodent smell at all. All you smell is the bedding and it smells really good. That stuff only needs to be changed every 2 to 3 weeks depending on how many rats are in that one cage.

I recently switched to the wood pellet bedding for livestock. You get it at big farm & feed supply stores. It comes in huge bags and only costs about $12 to $15 depending on where you go.

It is a mixed wood pellet so it doesnt smell as good as the 100% aspen pellets. (has almost no odor) it tends to crumble & swell a little faster than the aspen pellets too but it lasts almost as long and is alot more cost affective.

The bad thing about the wood pellets is its dusty. Gets rid of odor and is extremely absorbent but for nesting females you would want to put a couple handfulls of shavings in for them to make the nest.

[truthsdeceit]

I just got 1.2 and keep them in a tub about 2ftx1ft. I didn't clean the cage for 3 weeks after I got them still smelled fine but the bedding was getting dusty.

And now they've started just going pee in one corner so I just scoop that area out and move all the clean litter in that direction then ad new litter to the clean side. It takes about a week for the litter in the corner to become dust. I use the wood pelleted bedding, my brand has some mineral in it that's suposed to cut odor. All I know is that mice smell bad, reg rats are okay, and in comparison asfs smell like roses!

For the OP just watch your tank and clean when it needs it, when it looks dirty or starts to smell, whichever comes first.
How long will vary widely depending on enclosure size and the type of bedding you use.