# For the love of God, THAT SMELL!



## DxT2016 (Jul 8, 2017)

I know rats have an odour. I know male rats are worst. But there HAS to be something i can do to bring down the smell? I have my 2 boys in my craft room, and they're pretty well kicking me out. I have fleece lining their cage, but they tend to pull it up. As of right now im washing their cage liners every 2 days. I love the little buggers, but i have GOT to find a way to be able to breathe in the presence of their cage ?


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## SuperJesterPaw (Apr 7, 2017)

Are your rats litter trained? Litter training your rats can reduce the smell.


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## DxT2016 (Jul 8, 2017)

I have never had any success with litter training rats. I dont believe that a male rat will urinate in any one particular place... i could be wrong, please let me know if i am and where i can find info about how to train them keeping in mind that i work 40+ hrs/week  thanks for the reply!


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## SuperJesterPaw (Apr 7, 2017)

If you place some large, flat rocks into the litter pan, your rats will (most likely) urinate there more, because rats like to pee on rocks and flat surfaces. For more information about keeping your cage smelling nice, I recommend you watch "8 tips for reducing rat cage odor" by the Rat Guru on YouTube.


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## DxT2016 (Jul 8, 2017)

Wouldnt the rock absorb all the urine and smell even worst.


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## Shadow <3 (Jan 25, 2017)

Honestly, I'd switch to bedding. If your rats aren't litter trained, absorbent odor controlling bedding is going to work best for you. Fleece DOES NOT absorb urine, which is why people who use it have to place something absorbent underneath it. But fleece is over rated in my mind, I use bedding (Yesterday's News) and I only have to clean my 4 rats cage every week and a half. And they don't even smell until a day or two before cleaning.

Another thing you can do other than daily spot cleaning is to make sure that your wiping down the cage bars every few days. Urine gathers on the cage bars, and I find that by cleaning them frequently the cage smells much less.

Finally, I use natures miracle (a pet odor spray) daily to reduce odor. It's perfectly fine to use for rats, and it dries clean and odorless in minutes. You just spray down the bedding and cage (after removing the rats, food, and water) after spit cleaning, and it does wonders to eliminate odor (here's the product: https://www.petsmart.com/small-pet/...dtrade-small-animal-cage-cleaner-5163194.html). I also use glades apple cinnamon gell beads with no negative affects on my rats.

I've heard that both male and female rats can be litter trained. It's marking that can't be trained out of any rat. I've had girls that mark a lot (and spray pee out of their cage - gross!), so girls can be just as bad as boys. However, I've never put in the time to litter train my rats, and they always seem to pick one spot to poop on the most. That's one of the reasons I use bedding over fleece - it's easier to maintain and better at absorbing both odor and urine.

Urine rocks also need to be cleaned (I think boiled?) daily, or when they start to smell. They just encourage a rat to pee in the same place, which many don't usually do.


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## SuperJesterPaw (Apr 7, 2017)

The rocks would not absorb urine, but if they start to smell, you can clean them off with vinigar and water. Also, if you are getting a rock from outside, that is the only time you need to boil it. After boiling it the first time to rid it of any germs, you would have no need to boil it again. If you have no time to litter train, then I would agree with Shadow


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## Coffeebean (Jan 6, 2017)

Unfortunately fleece liners aren't suitable unless the rats are litter trained, they'll reek in no time, it's a total mess. I even take all my fleece out of my cage when I get new rats who aren't litter trained yet and replace it all with disposable liners like newspaper. Fleece isn't absorbent at all- even rats who use the litter box require an absorbent layer underneath to absorb pee droplets, like a UHAUL pad. All rats male or female will pee here and there, but the marking isn't enough to cause a lot of odor until a reasonable cleaning date, and my 6 rats don't cause any odor despite a couple of girls who like to mark until maybe a week has gone by? My cage doesn't have odor and really, rats shouldn't have odor coming from their cage unless something needs to be cleaned (if something stinks to us, imagine how much it hurts them!) Anyway, Since your rats aren't trained, bedding is your only bet with rats who won't use the litter box. Believe me if you switch to bedding instead of fighting with the fleece with these boys you will feel a lot better and the odor will go waaaaaay down.


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

Question for Shadow and Coffeebean about the bedding: do you put the bedding on each level of the cage? How do you keep it from getting pushed out of the bars and onto the floor? Or is there even a way to do that?

And you mentioned Yesterday's News bedding. What is the difference between it and Fresh News (or is there one)?

Thanks!!
Pindlelou


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## Shadow <3 (Jan 25, 2017)

You can either buy metal ferret nation cage pans with built in litter guards (they fit perfectly in CN's as well), buy litter guards for the CN (not recommended, I did this and they were SO hard to remove :/), or do what I do now and but a large cement mixing pan from a hardware store (I got mine from Home Depot, and once I trimmed and inch or so off each side it fit perfectly!).

I personally love the cement mixing pan, but you can get one that's shelf sized. If you want to put lots of bedding in the shelf, you'll probably be best off buying a coated FN shelf with litter guards built in to it. 

I've never actually had any issues with my rats scatter bedding off the shelf. I place a thin layer of YN on the shelf, and the rats never have any interest in kicking it out. Sometimes a piece or so will fall out, but it usually stays inside the cage. YN and FN are both heavy pellet beddings, so they're harder for the rats to kick out of the cage and if thy do fall out, they don't scatter very far.

I believe the difference between YN and FN is that FN is mainly made of recycled paper and has baking soda, while YN is made of both recalled paper and wood (including some soft wood) and has no baking soda. I like YN a lot, and since FN is so similar I bet it'd work just as well (though the baking soda might actually help even more with odor control). The only issue with these beddings is that they can be a bit expensive if you buy them in store. I've never bought them online, but I imagine it'd be more economical that way if you have more than one cage to fill.

Here is a picture of my cement pan (ignore the toys ) and my cage with the pan inside of it (ignore the 2nd pan, it was too small to fill the bottom level so I hung it up to act as a 2nd level):


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## Coffeebean (Jan 6, 2017)

Shadow pretty much summed up everything I was going to say.


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## Ratnamedbuddy (Jan 10, 2017)

I personally prefure using fleece and my boys aren't litter trained. I clean them out every 3 days (But poop scoop every day), to get rid of most of the smell I put all my fleece on a hot wash so there isn't any left over smell from the last time. I hold down my fleece with bulldog clips like the ones used to keep lots of paper together when a paper clip is to small. I also wipe down my cage every 3dsys with pet friendly bleach to get rid of any wee that's on the platform and gone through the fleece. 

I use to use a bedding called back2nature (I live in UK not sure where else they sell it) and I could leave it around 2 weeks before the smallest amount of smell was noticeable but I had to stop buying it because it was costing me £60 a month to fill my cage and I no longer get that sort of money.

Good luck finding what works for you best.


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

Great advice everyone thanks! And Shadow thanks for the pics...I wasn't sure what a cement mixing pan was, lol. About the smell...with the other rats I had, I would clean their cage thoroughly and the toys/tunnels in it, put new fleece in, but I would leave something in there that smelled like them so that they wouldn't feel like they had to go around peeing on everything. And within mere HOURS, the cage would start smelling like urine/ammonia!!! And the most I ever had in there were 4 (females). AND it was a huge cage...6O inches tall, 32 inches wide, and 20 inches deep. I was feeding them Harlan Teklad. I even tried that stuff you put in their water. So I'm always confused when people say that their rats don't smell. If it wasn't for the smell I would probably have at least 4.


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## Shadow <3 (Jan 25, 2017)

I have 4 girls in a SCN, and honestly the cage really doesn't smell till a week and a half in. I spot clean every their day, which is also when I change their water/refill food bowls. I used to keep lots of fabric in the cage, but like you it would SMELL within just a day or so (and at the time, I only had 2 girls). Now that I stick to only having fabric lined shelves and 2-3 hammocks, as well as YN bedding, the cage (and surrounding area) smells so much better. I live with someone who can't stand ANY animal odors, so it was important for me to find a way to make the cage odorless. The fabrics usually take a week or so to get smelly, upon which a quick wash has them back to normal. YN along with a bit of natures miracle daily helps me keep the area smelling just fine as well (and this is in a basement with highish humidity, so believe me, keeping it odorless is a feat in itself!). I'll probably always use bedding now, as while it may be less economical it allows me to keep my girls.


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

Does SCN stand for Single Critter Nation? Do you put anything under the fabric that is lining the shelves? Is the fabric fleece?


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## Shadow <3 (Jan 25, 2017)

SNC does stand for single critter nation.

I use folded fleece tucked into my shelfs. When I refer to shelves, I'm not referring to the standard one that comes with the critter nation. My standard shelf is covered with YN in my cage, just like the bottom pan.

When I say shelves, I'm talking about a white wire shelf that I zip-tied to the cage. I don't place anything under the fleece, as my girls don't pee on it (strangely enough, as the pee on everything else ). Instead, they'll often just stand or sleep there. If they did pee on it/mark it a lot, I would probably put some absorbent material under it (as fleece does not absorb urine). 

In this picture, you can see the white shelves covered in fleece (the one that the 2 black hooded rats are standing on):


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

Awesome Shadow! Your babies are so cute


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

Thanks Ratnamedbuddy! What is pet friendly bleach?


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

What if I used a couple layers of paper towels on the shelves, and replaced them daily? Do you think that would work?


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

Ok so I lined the shelves and the bottom floor of his cage with 3 or 4 layers of paper towels. No smell for 2 days, slight smell on 3rd day so I replaced them and wiped surfaces down with baby wipes. Only took 20 mins.


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## Shadow <3 (Jan 25, 2017)

Paper towel wouldn't be my first choice as its bad at controlling odor. If it gets soggy with pee or water, it could also possibly foster the growth of bacteria, which could cause something like bumble foot in rats. 

I actually use paper towel as bedding for my sick rats, as its very low in dust (my vet recommends it). But I change it daily, and even so it doesn't do a very good job of controlling odor (in my opinion). It's also not very economical, and I think investing in a bedding that can last 4 or so changings and only needs changings every 2 weeks is better than having to practically change out the whole cage every other day.

It's really up to you, but I find that pelleted bedding both absorbs odor and pee while not getting soggy, traits that I personally want in any bedding.


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## Pindlelou (Jul 26, 2017)

Good to know. I'll try the paper towel thing, changing every other day. If it doesn't stay dry then I will nix it and move onto the pellets. Did you say you use Fresh News?


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## Ratnamedbuddy (Jan 10, 2017)

Pet friendly bleach is basically a cleaner you can buy from Pet Shops to disinfect and properly clean everything with out it being harmful to your rats.


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