Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Mine are in an unheated/unfinished room. It gets close to freezing in there. I have been bringing the females inside the main house to give birth and raise their babies, (or until I feed them all off) but they stink too much when there is more than one cage inside. They are in 10 gal tanks (one mom and her babies.) Then I put mom back into the cage with mr. stud rat until she's ready to have more. Do I need to worry about it being too cold for the babies?

Thanks -

Amy C.

Mine is in the basement, and it does stink a bit from time to time, but for the most part it's not too bad. My basement gets about 50F and they do fine. I have never tried to keep them outside.
Justin J

I keep my mice and rats in an unfurnished room that is heated to 70F in the winter. I don't notice much of a smell except in the day or two before I do the weekly cleaning. The most likely reason you notice a strong smell is the cage is too small for amount of rats you have in it and isnt' cleaned often enough. I use much larger tubs than most people recommend here, finding a 10 gal tank way to small for even a single rat, must less a colony of 3 or 4 rats.

What I have are two large rubbermaid roughneck tubs with hardware cloth (1/4" mesh) taped over holes I cut into the lids for ventilation. Since I have only a small breeding colony, I don't use the overhead feeding hoops that some do. I just feed them in ceramic bowls, and change it once or twice a day, as needed. Water is in your typical sipper bottle setup with a siimple custom made hanger.

This is the first year I've had my mice/rats/gerbils in a separate building. We only moved here in August, so we're still learning about the yearly weather cycles. We have an AC installed (to keep the temps below 90* during the summer) and for the time being I have a heater installed in the "mouse house" that goes on when it gets REALLY cold. By the end of March I'll probably unplug the heater, and turn the AC back on (I'm in AZ, where sometimes we can go 100 days in a row with 100 high temperatures).

I think if the temp is below 55 or even 60 it can kill the pups, but shouldn't disturb the rats or mice. I often wished I could set up a system where I could use the waste heat from the mice to keep all the snakes warm, as they sure produce enough of it!
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~Sasheena

I live in Wisconsin and am currently keeping about 200 rats and 300 mice inside my house/basement. I clean every three days and have a exhaust fan that runs 24 hours. I will be moving my rats and mice out to the work shed tomorrow, the room is insulated so I will see if I have enough rats and mice to keep it warm around 50 to 55 degrees should be fine. If not I was told by a rodent breeder to cover each rack with plastic. The plastic will hold the heat under it which will keep the rats and mice warm! If I have to do it I will let you know how it works out!

NP