How often do you clean your feeders?

How often do y’all clean the tubs of your feeders? What criteria do you use to choose the cleaning schedule?

I used to clean once a week~ but sometime over the last year as I added more and more tubs it has morphed into twice week~ which is not a bad thing for the cleanliness of my colony~ but is getting quite pricey buying all that litter, is taking a LOT of time each week and is turning into a bit of an issue getting 8 bags(yep~ the big 33 gallon plastic bags) of used litter into the trash can with out household garbage each week. My sons are getting tired of the trash day dance they have to do IN the trash can to stuff the trash down enough to get that last bag in there before pick up!

I’ve asked some people in chat~ and it seems most people are running more rats in each tub and only cleaning once a week~ so maybe I’m just being extra picky about the odor? It’s the ammonia odor I’m noticing and having to clean so often for. So this week I added extra litter~ and I’m going to try to let it go the full week and see how they look. Usually today would be cleaning day~ I went out and smelled the tubs and they don’t seem to bad~ but I’m not sure it will be able to go the whole week or not.

Time spent cleaning was the main reason I stopped. My boyfriend said I could breed them as long as he never had to smell them so I was cleaning about every 4-5 days. Sometimes I'd let it go an extra day or 2 if I had a new litter just drop. I'd like to breed again but it's such a commitment, means I can't go anywere for more than 2 days...my friends are happy to look after fish, plants and snakes but I wouldn't ask them to look after mice..

My lot get cleaned out once per week but they're in big mesh top vivs so there's plenty of room and fresh air for them.

You guys really should switch to alfalfa pellets as bedding.

I use it and I can go about month before the smell is bad. I usually clean them more frequently though, like every 2 weeks, as it just gets dirty before it starts to smell.

Like Amanda, I'm using aspen pellets but in a 45qt rubbermaid with mesh top and can get away with every other week. Just read an an article published by a university. They did some experiments with substrates for mice and found corn cob seemed to neutralize the ammonia better than the others. It didn't really state what was best overall though, can't remember much else about it at the moment.

Once a week here and we use shredded aspen.

It depends because I use the same tub for mice and rats. The rats are once a week for sure and the mice are from 10 to 14 days. On the mice it depends on the amount of litter I put in the tub.

I keep my mice on a mixture of aspen and a natural pellet litter (Can't think of the name atm) and I clean about ever 18 days. Don't have much of a smell, but like stated above, things get dirty before they start to smell

I use Yesterdays News & Good Mew bedding...I clean everyone out every 2 weeks...When I used Aspen, I was cleaning out every 5-7 days...

Well I'm definatly cleaning considerably more often than everyone else then.

I don't use alfalfa pellets any more~ but only becuase I began using compressed pine pellets ~Made to absorb to urine from horses~ supposed to help cut the ammonia smell and does help keep the tubs dry. Works just as well as the alfalfa pellets. I mix this with pine shavings. I tried just using the pellets (both the alfalfa and the compressed pine bedding) but I noted a LOT of the pups being smothered in the fine dust created when the pellets break down and lot more respitory trouble in my adults. So now I mix the two bedding types.

I use cement mixing tubs with hardware cloth tops in racks for the rats~ cat litter pans with hardware cloth in a rack for the mice. I'll put a pic in. I run 1.4 in the rat tubs~ I know of at least one other person running 1.8 in these tubs and says he only cleans once a week.

It occured to me today that maybe ventilation is the problem. The tubs are topped with hardware cloth~ but the air in the room doesn't move much. So I set up two fans in there today to really get the air moving. We'll see how they smell come this Sunday! I sure would like to go back to just once a week!