more info about my smelly girls..

[Tuppik]

My sweet girl ratties have recently started to smell!  They themselves aren't smelly, but their cage certainly is.  Even if I clean it out really well, it's smelling pretty badly by the next day.  I am changing their bedding about every four days now. I use recycled paper bedding and I didn't have these kinds of odor problems up until about a month ago. They seem perfectly healthy and happy, so I was thinking that maybe this had something to do with hormones?  They are about 6 months old now. 

[ratlets]

Changing the bedding out too often will cause them to want to scent mark more... making things more smelly.

What kind of cage are you using?

[Tuppik]

Black powdercoat, 24x14x36, 3 levels.

[Tinuviel]

I'm having the same issue. I have only three girls in a two-level ferret nation cage. I use fleece bedding.
I scrub the cage really well each time I clean it, and often do a double-wash on the fleece. I do leave them a few "rattie scented" things: their house ball on the first level and their hut on the second. These things are pretty enclosed and don't stink from the outside of the cage.

The cage lasts only two days before you can smell it all throughout our living room. My husband is particularly sensitive of smell, and notices it quite strongly.
I would love to be able to clean the cage every three or four days, but right now I have to do a complete cleaning every other day or it gets noticeable. 

[looneycartoonie]

I have a ferret nation and I used to use fleece. I recently changed over to towels and let me tell you that it's amazing with the smell. I can wait a good 4 days before I have to change it out. Not all of my rats are good with the litter box so I'm pretty happy that the towels can soak up so much of the smell.

[Tinuviel]

That is really good to know! I'm going to head over to the thrift store and get some towels to try out. Thanks!

[Addicted2Rats]

With towels, don't you have to worry about them catching theiir little toes in the loops of it?  I thought I heard some of the more experienced members talking about how a toenail can actually be totally ripped off that way?

Deb

[looneycartoonie]

Well I try to keep my rats nails trimmed down low, but I've never had problems. I use towels on all of my FNs and I have 22 rats with never a problem. I don't know if that makes me lucky or if the towels that I buy are just that cheap that they're not quite that fluffy.