Garters smelly?

[Stefan-A]

I don't know if any of you have run into that claim or if you agree with it or not, but it is often repeated. Apparently a fish diet is supposed to make their poo smell especially bad. The only time I've had a bad smell experience with my snakes, was when I used paper towels as substrate, but then again, the corn I had was just as bad. Maybe even worse.

Is there any truth to it at all? Has anybody noticed anything like that?

[Snaky]

If my kingsnakes poop, you don't want to be in the neighbourhood either...


But I have now quite some garters and you always smell them a bit when you enter the room, although I thoroughly clean the cages at least every month ( otherwise I just take away the poop I see ). But I think if I had a room full of other snake it wouldn't be different.

[drache]

I've used newspaper as a substrate and it's not been smelly
recently Ive tried carefresh and that's smelly
not sure about the difference in diet

[adamanteus]

I use quite a lot of fish. My Garters don't smell. You can't smell them when you enter the room.

[Stefan-A]

Neither can I, that's why the claim doesn't make sense to me. Started to think that either my sense of smell is defective or my garters are.

[Sid]

I have the same experience as James. I feed a lot of fish and don't have an oder problem.

Sid

[Stefan-A]

I thought about asking this in my opening post, but couldn't a bacterial imbalance cause the stool to be extra smelly?

[adamanteus]

There can be many causes, I guess. Amoeba invadens causes a hideous stink!!:eek:

[enigma200316]

I agree with James no smell and use atleast 50% fish diet.....

[zooplan]

I agree that there is no difference in order to clean maintenance, but garters use thier must against predators like us;) and because they feed more often and have fluid feces they need to be cleaned more often or with more effort.
So its only a reason to lazy people:confused:

[Stefan-A]

I guess I'll have to start setting people straight, then. :D

[zooplan]

...and you have to become very firm in it...
this seems to be an never ending story

[Thamnophis]

About 50% of the food is fish in my "gartergarden"
If I clean out the enclosures regularly I have no smell-problem.

[jasuncle1972]

I don't know if any of you have run into that claim or if you agree with it or not, but it is often repeated. Apparently a fish diet is supposed to make their poo smell especially bad. The only time I've had a bad smell experience with my snakes, was when I used paper towels as substrate, but then again, the corn I had was just as bad. Maybe even worse.

Is there any truth to it at all? Has anybody noticed anything like that?
I've noticed that if I feed each snake a large amount of fish that they smell.