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!

forgot the pics
This is of the rat racks


And this is the mouse rack (has an auto water like the rats now)

I clean once a week using shredded aspen. Sometimes depending on the ambient humidity outdoors, I can stretch it to 10 days or more.

I really like the aspen pellets, but since I'm using Sterilite tubs in my mouse rack, they're more flimsy than cat litter pans and the fact that hubby never put rails to slide my tubs into..the weight from the pellets is too much at times. So when the humidity gets bad, I'll mix the pellets with the shavings and it do pretty good.

I've also started giving them a half-handful of timothy hay when I clean out. They chew on it and eat it and make beds with the rest. So now after 7 days it smells like a barn in there, which is a hell of a lot better than mouse pee. I figure the chlorophyll is good for the deodorizing effect, both internal and externally.

I'm honestly surprised your trash folks haven't gotten ticked at you yet. Around here they refuse to pick up if you've got extremely heavy things, more bags than they think you should (even though there's no written limit), or a large amount of animal waste. Since where I live in the country we don't have trash pickup, we'd take ours in town to my grandmother's and drop our trash off on the morning of pickup. Well they bitched about the large bags of litter I'd have every now and then, and refused to pick them up. So then I started hauling it a few miles to the county compactor, but even that was a pain.

I got sick of hauling the soiled bedding to the trash (not to mention the weird looks from the compactor guy), so now I've got a big Rubbermaid trashcan (33 gal or something) and I fill it up and drag it over to the compost pile. I've been adding in the ferret's litterbox "contents" and the guinea pig's soiled bedding (aspen pellets) as well, all in the name of beneficial waste breaking down types of bacteria. Tea filings from our morning cups and coffee grounds, and some dirt and tree leaves from here and there and water it down. I haven't turned it yet. Going to wait till it warms up I think. But so far its looking good. Hopefully it works out and I can use it in my garden. =)

I'm a bit worried about the trash guys saying something too~
We have these HUGE trash cans that the city "gives" us (But if someone steals your can you have to buy a new one!) and our trash truck has this huge mechanical arm that pics up the can and dumps it into the truck. We are not allowed to have any additional bags~ and we have to get the trash can CLOSED. So on trash morning my kids are out there jumping up and down IN the trash can trying to stuff everything down far enough to get our kitchen trash in there! It is kind of funny~ but the kids are losing thier sence of humour!

And when the truck stops at my place and picks up my can the guy gives me dirty looks when one "shake" of the mechanical arm doesn't empty my can~ it's packed in there so tight he has to shake it three or four times to get all the stuff out of my can!

HA! HA! HA! Cheryl. I was just imagining the scene with my kids in the trash! Really funny! I don't have mice yet but when we did house cleaning this summer, we had a lot of things to get rid off, so we compacted the trash so tight that the things often didn't get out of it when the guy was lifting it up with his truck! It was really funny too.
BTW, the mice don't need light? It seems on the pictures that your tubs are black and blue. Is it true?

yes, the rat tubs are black, and the mice tubs are opaque cream and blue. They get plenty of light and air movement through the top though. The pics make it look a little like the food hoppers go all the way back~ but they don't. There is a good foot of open hardware cloth (1/4") for the mice, and at least 2 foot (1/2") on the rats. I only put 5 layers in each rack so there would be room between each tub for air and light. There is approx 8-12" between each level.

I've used the semi-translucent sterilites for individual tubs~ but those often/usually have sharper corners and places the mice can get their teeth in a chew a hole. The cement tubs and cat litter pans are completely smooth inside and I've not had any chewed through in the two years I've been using them.

Another tip I learned to keep the urine smell down is to put vanilla essence into their water. Don't ask me why it works but it does! Another mouse breeder over here told me to do it and I dismissed the idea and my poor little sensitive nose couldn't take any more so I got some essence one day to try and I have never looked back. I currently have my mice in my living room and the only smell is one of wood shavings when I've just cleaned them.

Everyone must have tried a different vanilla extract than me. I tried both real vanilla extract and the artificial stuff, and neither of them worked.

Are people using the really potent flavoring stuff that comes in the small bottles that you get in a cake store? Or just the regular bottle you find in the baking aisles in the grocery store? The latter is what I used.

Taceas said:

I'm honestly surprised your trash folks haven't gotten ticked at you yet. Around here they refuse to pick up if you've got extremely heavy things, more bags than they think you should (even though there's no written limit), or a large amount of animal waste.

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I don't put the stuff in the trash. I just go back to the garden and scatter it around. I figure it should be good fertilizer. But then again I only have 3 tubs of mice, so I don't have as much waste as a lot of you.

Just out of curiosity...

I havnt ever dealt with mouse colonies before, but my biggest fear is escapees. I understand that if one does thing properly then there shouldn't be...

But how do you keep them in the container?! On the few occasions where I've dealt with feeding my snakes live mice, they can jump, and they can bite, and WILL be hard to catch. THose containers are so shallow!

How do you not have all your mice bail out on you everytime you pull out the container?

Michael,

The sides on such containers may be shallow, but they're slick. No spaces for little mouse feet to grab hold to climb out.

Adult breeder mice are pretty calm and complacent, and rarely jump high enough to escape. Young adults on the other hand do, but still don't really escape. That and adults backends tend to be on the larger side due to babies or just being well fed, and it doesn't cooperate half the time in trying to crawl out. =P

When you put mice into a life or death situation, then things tend to change and they'll jump or bite. But generally, they just walk around when you remove the tub from the rack.

The tubs slide into a space, and on top is wire stretched over a wood frame. So you're basically sliding the tubs into a stationary lid. Not really any chances for escape.