It depends in part on male vs female; male rats and mice mark territory (and sometimes even their favorite walking paths, so beware if you let them roam) with urine. Back when I kept rats and mice, the female cages would always smell better than the male cages, no matter what I did.

Now I keep pythons, and both male and female cages don’t stink lol. I have to admit that the smell is the biggest thing I don’t miss about having pet rodents.

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

Ive only ever met 2 people in my whole life that had pythons, and they were both extremely laid back and nice people!

A whole lot of people seem to think anyone with pythons is defacto some kind of horrible person...

In my experience, I have run into far, faaar more people who are horrible to their cats, dogs, fish and rodent/ferret/etc. pets.

I was raised with dogs, and have had a cat... it is incredibly easy for me to tell a bad dog owner. Sooo many people barely give them the training or attention they need, and then act surprised when they behave horribly... or in some cases, basically have ptsd from being abused. =(