# what can i do to make them stink less



## wyliegirl

I have 2 does and 1 buck.I clean the cage regularly.I cant spray in my room as i have birds

I dont want to neuter/spay them


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## Cait

It should be only the buck that smells, and being with/near does will increase that. Some people swear by real vanilla or chlorophyll in the water, but tbh there isn't much that is very effective. Male mice smell - it has to be accepted if you're going to keep them. You could always keep the buck in your garage and just the does in your room.


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## HtrKid

Hmm... I never thought of putting just my bucks in the garage. Thanks for the idea.


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## Matt Haslam

i must be weird, i find the smell very addictive lol!


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## Cait

There were some big bags of popcorn at work today as we were launching a TV ad and the first thing I did when I entered our department was frown - when asked why I said that I have just realised that popcorn smells like mice :lol:


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## Matt Haslam

salted popcorn definately smells like mice!


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## moustress

Yes! I have noted that young bucks smell like freshly popped popcorn. Older bucks don't smell nearly as nice. Does have a mousey odor as well, but I find it can be minimized by not having a lot of plastic junk in the cage. Not that that stops me from giving them lots of toys and stuff; I've gotten used to the smell. There are distinctive smells to different types of populations of meeces; tanks with nursing young have the distinctive baby poop smell, and if you smell that smell without having any babies, it probably means you have a sick mousie.

I have several mesh bags full of zeolite that absorb ammonia and that helps somewhat. It's made for kennels and catteries, and can be recharged every few weeks by leaving it in the sun for a day. Mousie odor does tend to hang on in clothing, hair, and paper items, something I'm embarrassed to say I didn't notice until I took a trip out of town. Everything in my suitcase had a weird odor, and I couldn't figure out what it was. Now I keep items use in the mousery away from things I might use outside the house.


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## Jack Garcia

I also like the smell of mice. I long ago resigned myself to being thought of as weird. :lol:


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## MarlaAlVutha

One thing you can do to help with the smell if you are determined to keep them in the house is a couple drops of real vanilla or lavender essential oil diffused with water, you can put it in a mist bottle and mist down everything mouse related, not soak, just lightly mist. It helps to "cover" the smell. You will still have the smell in everything that shares the same airspace tho.


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## moustress

Tea candles in a well shielded holder work pretty well too. I think it burns off the more volatile elements of the stink. Have to careful with it, though...my mom would have had a hissy fit if I burned candles in my room. I suppose scented votive candles would do as well, although I am too fussy about artificial scents, and too cheap to buy the good ones except for special occasions. (Like when I propitiate my parking goddess.)


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## WoodWitch

Fresh Buck wee definitely smells like popcorn! I only said that to someone the other day.
I quite like the smell of Mice, it doesn't offend me at all........and weird is my favourite word


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## WillowDragon

I love mousey smell 

One one of my boys pees on me though, thats a hard smell to wash off! LOL (Especially Spartacus, he is REALLY SMELLY)


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## Jemma

Does bicarbonate of soda do any good? I've head of people having a small dish of it beside cages to absorb unwanted smells but I've never tried it myself so I wouldn't put any money on it helping...


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## SarahY

It does a great job of removing the smell of our dogs from the carpets, so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

ETA: I too love the smell of mice. What a crazy bunch we all are :lol:

Sarah xxx


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## WillowDragon

SarahY said:


> It does a great job of removing the smell of our dogs from the carpets, so I don't see why it wouldn't work.
> 
> ETA: I too love the smell of mice. What a crazy bunch we all are :lol:
> 
> Sarah xxx


Hey Sarah, you have Sparty's brother... does he REALLY smell too? hehehe Might be a family thing.

W xx


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## Jack Garcia

I've found that my show mice smell less than the petstore mice I've met. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect it's related to the much-lessened male aggression in the show mice which might correlate to a lower testosterone level in the males. It would make sense, I think, since some (not all) show males can live together perfectly fine.


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## WillowDragon

Jack Garcia said:


> I've found that my show mice smell less than the petstore mice I've met. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect it's related to the much-lessened male aggression in the show mice which might correlate to a lower testosterone level in the males. It would make sense, I think, since some (not all) show males can live together perfectly fine.


My Sparty really REALLY smells...lol Noticably stronger than any other of my males I have, or have had in the past. It can't be diet, because he gets the same food as all my males.

W xx


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## Jack Garcia

Hmm...I wonder if mouse pee smell has ever been studied in the lab? I'd like to read a good article about mouse pee.


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## zany_toon

I too am weird and love the smell of mice


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## Elven

Weird, I also like the mice-smell. Not too much though. That cleaned-yesterday smell is the best, but not the cleaned-week-ago... But rats, they smell horrible. No matter how often I clean their cages, it is allways bad.


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## SarahY

It is true, rats absolutely honk  They'd stink a couple of hours after cleaning out and washing their tubes and shelves. The mice are nowhere as strong and I have more mice than I did rats. Plus, mouse-smell is much more pleasant 

Sarah xxx


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## WillowDragon

I have to say, rat smell never bothered me either! lol

Personally I think rat females small alot more than mouse females, but i think male rats smell less than mouse males!

W xx


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## Yelena

Dumb question but have you seen that lavender scented sawdust stuff?

I saw it in the store last night as was wondering if it would cause any harm. Apparently its just saw dust that they put aloud of lavender in and then separate.

I dont mind the smell of mice but dont like the idea of my whole apartment smelling of them lol. Then again, I worked in a cinema so the smell just bring back bad memories :lol:


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## Jemma

I used lavendar scented pine shavings once - can't say I'd recommend them. Aside from the inherent issues with pine shavings, the lavendar was pretty overpowering and just smelled unpleasant when mixed with the pine. Maybe that's just to my nose though.

I like the smell of my mice too and, to be honest, I rarely notice it unless I have my head in their cage but I do use Tap-a-drop when I have visitors. I figured folk who aren't used to the smell would notice it more but I've never had any comments. Either the Tap-a-drop helps or I have very polite guests!


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## Yelena

haha! Fair enough. Might go and have a wiff of the shavings and see if I like them. If not my incense will block the smell of anything. As long as its no where near the cage the bash brothers should be ok


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## Norman's Mom

Personally, I wouldn't use anything like candles, incense, air fresheners, or anything that is smoke or scent-related anywhere around my mice. Mice have super delicate lungs, and the use of these items can irritate them badly, even make them sick. As for Lavender laced. or rose-laced bedding...both of those plants are actually natural repellents for rodents, and often used to keep wild mice out of places around the home. It smells pleasant to us, but to a mouse, lavender or rose smells awful.

Honestly, I have found that access to weekly cleanings, spot cleaning for those that are real messers, good food and clean water helps clear up smell better than most fancy smell-products.


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## Yelena

Well I sniffed the lavender stuff and tbh it didnt smell of lavender which was a tad weird- more like chemicals so I will not be buying that.

I lit an incense stick in my bed room (the boys are in the living room) and it completely got rid of any smell. The living room didnt smell of incense but didnt smell of popcorn. Good result really. I wouldnt light anything near them as they are tiny and the last thing I want to do is harm them.


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## Cait

I have to say that having asthma does have one upside - I know what is likely to irritate respiratory problems in my animals because it does in me :lol: That's why I choose the bedding I do, because it's dust free and has no phenols like pine. I don't use hay for the fancy mice because I have hayfever and so does my OH :roll: but I do give it to the harvest mice as there are far fewer of them and it doesn't provoke the same reaction. Most air fresheners, incense, smoke etc type things make me sneeze or give me asthma so I don't use them anyway, but it's kind of hard to explain it to someone who has no problem with breathing them in what an immediate effect they can have.


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## Yelena

my boyfriend has asthma but incense/ candle smoke etc doesn't really effect him.

Think with it being in the other room the boys should be ok but I'll keep an eye on them just to check,

Actually, I'm doing that anyway incase their bickering becomes more than just a power struggle


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## cat

gjw titmuss do bedding called megazorb, got a bag meself.. from the reviews i have read online its rated highly.


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## SarahY

Megazorb is a nice, soft bedding. I liked it, but it does smell a bit funny and the smell varies from bag to bag. When you have as many mice as I do it doesn't control odour very well, but it's perfectly fine for a few mice.

Sarah xxx


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## Matt Haslam

back to the original question

.....

a clothes peg!


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## Cait

:lol:


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