First time rat owner: omg the smell!

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A

ayln

Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Messages
7
Location
California
Hi all, I'm a first time rat owner and obviously I have a lot of questions. First and foremost I guess the most, um, obvious question is, how do you keep odors down? I just adopted two boys who were neutered a "few weeks" before so supposedly they should be less stinky soon. They themselves aren't terrible but their pee/poop is still pretty strong; I keep them in a very large and well-ventilated room but if I'm close to the cage it's still a strong smell. The first day I had them I put them in my neutral quarantine room (a bathroom) and the entire room stunk up in only a 1/2 day. I walked in and was almost knocked on my feet by the smell, and my roommate said it smelled like something died. I initially put some cat litter pellets (Cat Country) in there which I thought would help with the smell, but nope. Right now I don't have any litter bedding for them other than towels just so I can clean up after them easier -- would something like Carefresh actually help with the smell?

Also, what would be the difference between an intact male smell and a neutered male smell? I've never interacted at all with rats before so this is the first time I've actually smelled rat pee. My rats' pee smell kind of sweet (in a weird way), a little like corn and kind of fishy. And the smell is more strong than "bad", sort of like how dogs that haven't had a bath smell strong but cat poop smells BAD. Either way, though, I live with other people and would rather keep all smells down to keep everyone happy.

Thanks so much!
 
How old are your rats? Rats have an odor but nothing as bad as you are describing unless you were housing large colonies and even then, it's a matter of getting used to the rat's natural odour like a dog or a cat has.
From how bad you are describing, I'm thinking maybe your rats are sick because they really shouldn't smell. I have 10 in a cage and I barely notice the odour.
How big is their cage and do you use any litter? I really like Yesterday's News for odour control.
 
What type of bedding are you using, what cage are they living in and what are they eating? I find rats do have a smell (neutered males much less than intact ones) but not like you're describing.
 
What were they being fed and what are you feeding them now? Can you post photos of their fur and tails? Also a link to a photo of their poo, sounds gross but we can tell a lot from how it looks. If it's abnormal that could help explain the smell.

I've brought home rats that smell just horrible, like what you are describing. After about a week of good food (and possibly a bath if they are filthy) the smell was greatly reduced. A few more days and the smell was gone entirely.

Carefresh is alright, but it's very dusty and can have mites in it. That doesn't mean it's unusable but it means you have to take precautions. It would need to be frozen to kill off the mites and "aired out" (mixed up a ton) to help get rid of the dust. Jorats' suggestion of Yesterday's News is a really good one. I also like the Planet Petco Small Animal Paper Bedding if you'd rather something with a similar texture to Carefresh. (The Petco bedding still should be frozen for mites, but I haven't gotten a dusty batch yet.)
 
Wow, such fast replies!

So I might have overexaggerated because I'm not used to a rat/rat pee smell so it is much stronger to me than say, rabbit poo/pee (but less so than cat poop). It's not deathly or bad, there's just a lot of it. The rats themselves, when I sniff them or sniff my hands after I've touched them, do not really smell at all. However, even if it is a natural rat pee smell, it's not terribly pleasant and any way to make it better (other than cleaning every hour) would be spectacular XD

Right now they are eating Regal Rat (Oxbow) which has fish meal in it, but they were eating something different before at the foster home. No bedding at the moment other than some towels but leaning towards either Carefresh or Yesterday's News.

One of the rats is 5 months and the other is much older. The rescue couldn't tell his age but he's probably a good year or year and a half. The cage is about 4x2x2, plastic bottom with coated wire.

I'll try to get a picture of them later. Their poo looks like sunflower seed shells but dark brown instead of black. The rescue told me they could have stress poops which are supposedly loose but I didn't see any of that in the cage, just hardish brown ones.
 
I feed my rats Oxbow and I find they smell the least on that. From the dimensions, it sounds like you have a SP ferret cage, the purple one with the three shelves and the green slides. I find SP cages stink when peed on... it's awful. If you can cover the shelves somehow, that may help. Otherwise, keep wiping them clean.

I have bunnies as well, rat pee does not smell more than rabbit pee but they urine mark so it may be more noticeable compared to a bunny that always pees in YN.
 
Oh good, at least I'm doing one thing right! Lol.

I actually don't have a multi level cage. It is a cage meant for a small rabbit or a guinea pig, so there's a little attached hidey hole, food bowl, and water bottle with hay rack. I put the hay rack on the inside so the rats can climb into it and use it as a little bed. I have taken out the hidey hole part because they would end up making a mess inside of it and it was not the easiest thing to clean, so not it's just 1 level with the hay rack "bed".
 
Younger rats do pee and poop a lot. And don't forget the more often you clean the more they have to "mark" it. Just take out the poop every day and the most soiled blankets and hammocks. Leave some stuff in there with their scent.
 
What else are you feeding besides the Oxbow? Some veggies turn them into little furry fart machines. You may want to monitor their water intake and make sure they aren't getting dehydrated, that can cause an animals pee to become concentrated and smell much worse as well.
 
My guess is that it was whatever the foster home was feeding...all food must be cycle through and takes about a week. Oxbow is a very good food for them. I also found no real smell with Harlan Teklad, but much more smell with Mazuri 6F which a lot of rescues have switched to because of the petfooddirect debacle in the U.S.
 
I've had a rabbit before and definitely rats shouldn't smell as much as a rabbit, especially the pee. You may want to try and litter train your rats to go in a pan with yesterday's news in it. It's very good for odor. And on a nightly basis it only takes a minute to remove the poops and wet litter and it will really lower the smell.

To litter train, just put the pan in there and pop a few poops in it. Every night, patrol and remove all poops that are not in the pan and clean the pan but leave a few poops in there. They will get the gist of it soon.

As others have suggested, the smell from whatever food they were having before may be what is making them smell.
 
My first two boys smelled this bad when i first got them. They were stuck in a tank and full of pee. It could be they could use a bath if their fur smells horrible. I have only given one set of rats a bath and it was those stinky males. I couldnt walk by their cage without smelling them and if i touched them my hands would have the foul odor as well.
 
Thanks all for your tips! One of the problems I found was that my water bottle kinda sucks so the water got stuck. I didn't even notice until I found that the boys were desperately drinking from it but didn't seem to be getting any water, so after it was fixed I noticed that the scent has been a LOT better. Hopefully the food will help the poop odor too.

I try not to feed them cruciferous vegetables because I know most animals can't digest them very well, resulting in pretty awful farts... Usually I just stick with lettuce.

Right now it just stinks if I open the cage and stick my head in, but I still haven't gotten around to getting them real bedding yet so I know that's the issue. So can I use Yesterday's News as bedding, or just litter? And is there any type of bedding I wouldn't have to pre-freeze and defrost :laugh4:
 
Only fabric wont need to be frozen. The others you should because they can carry mites or lice. If the lettuce is iceburg, switch to romaine or red leaf lettuce. Ice burg has a very high water level in it and it can cause for some runny poo's.
 
Now I've noticed that the poops are definitely worse than the pee... the pee just kinda has a weird pickle-y smell but the poops, oh man! I haven't been able to tell if one or both of them are not using the litter box -- I do see a fair amount of poops in there but still some rogue poops about as well as pee spots. I tried sopping up the pee with tissue and throwing them in the box, but they just pick them right back out and nest in them D:
 
It's a good idea to have a few water sources lest the water bottle gets stuck again. In my girls' cage they have two water bowls and a water bottle.
 

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