Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had a nice breeding colony of two female rats and one male, for months now, to feed my snakes. I decided to acquire another female, and now she is ina quarantine tank, but she has this weird smell in her cage. Not like your normal rats-in-aspen smell, but it smells kind of like bird droppings (I don't know of any other way to describe it, lol..) She does not look unhealthy, and her crap looks normal, but the substrate is what smells actually, not her.
Could she have some sort of parasites? Or maybe it was just the food type they used at the store where I got her, leaving her system? I just use regular old rat blocks for food, and I think the store used some sort of fancy fruity rat food.
In any case, has anyone ever noticed anything like this?
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2.1 Ball pythons: Goblin, Nothing, and Bela
1.0 Boa Constrictor Imperator: Apache
0.1 albino Cranwell's horned frog: Bene
1.0 Tiger salamander: Slasher
1.0 black kittycat, Inky
A bunch of Oscar cichlids, one giant pleco, huge breeding lot of "fancy" (read: deformed) goldfish, and me an' the boyfriend.

>>I have had a nice breeding colony of two female rats and one male, for months now, to feed my snakes. I decided to acquire another female, and now she is ina quarantine tank, but she has this weird smell in her cage. Not like your normal rats-in-aspen smell, but it smells kind of like bird droppings (I don't know of any other way to describe it, lol..) She does not look unhealthy, and her crap looks normal, but the substrate is what smells actually, not her.
>>Could she have some sort of parasites? Or maybe it was just the food type they used at the store where I got her, leaving her system? I just use regular old rat blocks for food, and I think the store used some sort of fancy fruity rat food.
>>In any case, has anyone ever noticed anything like this?

I have noticed a difference in smell in rats on other foods or substrates. I even think PEW smell different than colored rats....go fig. It will likely go away with time on your food and substrate.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

Yeah it seems to be going away today after cage cleaning. Maybe just the old food getting out of her system.
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2.1 Ball pythons: Goblin, Nothing, and Bela
1.0 Boa Constrictor Imperator: Apache
0.1 albino Cranwell's horned frog: Bene
1.0 Tiger salamander: Slasher
1.0 black kittycat, Inky
A bunch of Oscar cichlids, one giant pleco, huge breeding lot of "fancy" (read: deformed) goldfish, and me an' the boyfriend.