Read on the rat fb groups I follow that some people put vanilla extract in their ratties water bottles to help with the smell of urine... Thoughts??...
you should never add anything to a rat's water bottle
vanilla extract is sometimes put on rats when you are introducing them to each other to mask their scents. I did this one time, only to have the rats aggressively groom those spots on each other, once to the point of pulling out fur. Never did that again!
Some of those FB groups are full of misinformation and they are spreading really bad advice and info. It makes me shudder to think that with more forms of communication there is out there, the worse it's getting for rats.