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Pooping Monsters!

kimbyra

kimbyra

cornsnake addict
Howdy Folks!
Last weekend I bought my first rodent groups - 1.1 mice and 1.1 rats. They are young adults. Although they were bred as feeders, and probably not really handled, they are very sweet and gentle.

When I went to spot clean and refill food and water last night I was shocked! They are poop monsters!!! Dookie pellets were all over both cages. They even either buried some, or some got buried when they were exploring and rearraning their aspen. Spot cleaning was useless. I was just grabbing handfuls going "OMG, they are pooping machines!" It was shocking I'll tell ya. I've read threads where it says that they usually go in corners like snakes, or choose one spot for a latrine, but this was everywhere. The cute little monsters took all of there food out of their dishes and hid it in various places, the mice made a "hide" under their exercise wheel and ignored both the little hides in there, ... I could go on but... it was all just rodent madness. Now I know that all of this is probably normal, and that their previous living conditions were like 100 rodents in a plain glass cage piled on one another on aspen, with one small food dish (It looked clean though?) so I'm thinking that there rowdiness is like one big party to them. They do seem to be enjoying themselves. So my question is...
Will they continue to poo everywhere? This is gonna cost a lot of bedding a week if they don't.
 
In my experience, mice and male rats will pretty much crap anywhere they feel like it. Female rats may eventually start using a specific corner.

For mice I use a pelleted wood bedding that keeps the smell down and change the bedding once a week. For rats I use aspen chips or shredded aspen and change weekly. The rats are in large wire cages so the smell never gets bad.

As for the food issue, thats why I keep my mice in lab cages with wire tops so they have to eat through the top and they can't stash the food. For rats I use wire lab block hoppers that hang inside the cage and hold like 2 lbs of lab block each. Same deal, they have to chew through the bars to get the block small enough to remove it, so no stashing.

I never even considered spot cleaning with rodents, it's just not possible. I guess if you are used to snakes and weekly defecation this may be a shock.
I have heard of rats being trained by providing a separate litter box with a different litter and keep putting their waste in the litter box and eventually they figure it out.
 
Thanks for the reply Flagg!
I guess rodents are just so new to me, that I'm like "What?!" I may try the different litter in a corner trick just out of curiosity to see if it works. You never know, I may get lucky with it.
I think I'll look into proper lab blocks also. That may keep the food away from the poopy. It reminds me of those horse hay ball looking things.
Cheers!
 
their diet can be the cause of all of the waste as well. A proper lab block would help, though it won;t stop them from stashing and hiding all the food away in the dirty litter.

Just avoid Kaytee brand lab blocks.
 
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