My local pet store carries bags of clay, pine, newspaper, wheat, corn, etc. kitty litters. But they also have a bulk bin full of what looks like rabbit pellets. (What goes into the rabbit, not what comes out.) I’ve asked two different clerks, neither of whom are cat owners themselves so they couldn’t say anything about it personally but both assures me that the stuff apparently sells very well.
I’m not happy with the dust (or eco concerns) with clay litter, and the wheat one I’m using now (Swheat Scoop) doesn’t clump as well. Both, however, have another disadvantage: they get tracked throughout the house. I think switching to these larger pellets would cut down on the mess, but I wanted to know: how well does it work? Absorbency? Ease of scooping?
For the record, I tried the silica crystals a while back, and while they look pretty they are sharp as *shit *if you step on a bit barefoot, so both the Other Shoe and I nixed that option posthaste. These are round, cylindrical shapes, so I’m hoping that will at least not hurt underfoot!
These are kind of popular for horses, so that’s where my experience is. basically, the pellets are made of compressed sawdust. When they get wet, the pellets expand and devolve into sawdust.
Since this product doesn’t clump, I presume you scoop out the poops and replace the entire litterbox once it is fully saturated with pee.
I tried to switch my cats to it once, when they were a little less than a year old. One of them refused to poop for two days. When he started walking funny, I took pity on him and poured some clay on top of the pellets. He immediately dashed in, balanced carefully with all four feet on top of the pile of clay, and deposited the single largest cat turd I have ever seen. He then glared at me and declined to bury it.
The shelter I do foster kitties through provides this litter to its foster families. I hate everything about it. It smells much more than ordinary litter - it can’t really absorb the poop, and the smell of the cat urine combined with the smell of the pellets makes me ill. I buy my own clay litter rather than use it. The shelter owner prefers it, though, and so do other people, so I guess you’d have to try it out yourself. Personally I think the shelter would smell a lot better if they used something else.
Even though they leave tracks in the house, you could try combining the wheat litter with clay litter to improve the clumping qualities.
My kitties managed to track litter (I didn’t like those pellet things, btw)no matter what kind was used. Then my apt. manager suggested putting their box in the spare bath tub. When I did the same, it eliminated almost all tracking. After I put down a bit of astro turf it was completely contained.
Even if you don’t have a spare bathtub, a turf mat would help.
It gets tracked everywhere as sawdust. It smells bad once it’s in use. My cats hated it. Using it is basically like living in an unkempt stable, unless you completely replace the litter twice a day. Do not want.
I second using a litter mat of some kind. It keeps the tracking down quite a bit, unless your cat, like mine, likes to do the long jump out of the litterbox. I wonder if I could teach her to use the toilet instead?
There was a kitty litter called Yesterday’s News on sale here. It was made from paper and not sawdust. I bought it once. My cat’s refused to walk on it. Out and out refused. They did not, however, stop pissing and shitting.
My cats did this and I solved it by facing the litterbox opening (mine is one of the covered ones) toward the wall. There’s about a foot and a half of clearance, which is enough to be covered by the mat. It also cuts down on the smell.
Personally, I loved it. I bought the special boxes that allowed the sawdust to fall into the bottom of the box so kittehs wouldn’t be standing in catpee sawdust. I used Feline Pine and I thought it smelled good.
It doesn’t clump and without the box inserts, they tracked sawdust all over the place. I liked it so much that I didn’t mind sweeping my entire house every evening.
After successfully using it for 6 or 7 years, my cats revolted. Everyone used the litterbox room for output, but they didn’t use the boxes. I’m now using clumping litter. If you do transition to it, send me an IM and I’ll send you the box inserts.
Actually, anyone who wants one of the inserts can IM me. I have 6 inserts, free for the taking. (well except for shipping)
I’ve been having problems with my kitty using the box to pee. She seems to prefer the carpet right now and that is a huge problem.
So I went looking for different litter for the second box to see if that would change anything.
Looked at the pellet stuff, but wondered about it falling apart when wet and being tracked around. The other Wheat or Corn/Wheat ones were all loose fine ground stuff and the thought of my long-hair tracking that around was enough to put me off that.
Ended up buying the crystal stuff to see if she’d use it.
My folks use it. They like it fine, but even though they’ve got a three cat household, their needs are pretty light. (They’ve got a kitty door set up and they live way out in the country, so the cats mostly poop in the rose garden.) Still, I never notice a smell and they’re happy.
Cookie Monster didn’t hate it, but the pellets and wet sawdust got stuck between the pads of her paws and she walked it all over the house so I discontinued use.
The single best litter I’ve ever used is called Cat’s Best, which is based on “untreated domestic fir and spruce wood”, and clumps like you wouldn’t believe. If you remove the clumps, what’s left is bone dry and never smells. Great stuff but not sure if it’s available outside Europe.
My secret though is to make a deep bed of pellets. I made THESE at home using cheapie Rubbermaid-type totes, and I cut a hole in the top using a plate as a template. I have 4 boxes. two w/ lids on and two w/ lids off.
I put a good 3-4" at least of the pellets in the box. When I started with them I expanded about 1/2 what I put in w/ a little water and put that on top of the plain pellets, to make the change a little less drastic. I like the deep litter because the urine then trickles down through the top pellets and is absorbed by the lower layer, which keeps the smell down. I pick poop daily and give it all a little bit of a stir every so often. I’ve also found that the wet spots do tend to be in the same place, so I use a miniature dustpan to act as a shovel and scoop the worst of the wet out every few days, then give it a stir so the dry pellets absorb moisture from the damp stuff I couldn’t get.
BTW, if you have a farm supply store nearby the horse bedding pellet (Equine Pine at Tractor Supply, for instance) is about $2-$3 cheaper. And it’s compostable, if you have the room to do it
I want you to know that I laughed my everloving ass off at this story and, as soon as he got home, I told it verbatim to Mr. Horseshoe. He normally :rolleyes: a little when I start a sentence with "I read on the Dope just now that … " but even he was almost in tears laughing so hard by the end of it.
I just realized that by posting it, I violated the prime directive! Here’s some compensation. Little guy (around the age he was in the story); big guy.
We use the Tidy Cats Breeze system. Cats go on the pellets, urine drains through to a little pee-pad in a drawer underneath. We love it…no tracking, no dust, easy to clean, and much less frequent complete box changes. It’s a little expensive to get started, but totally worth it.
they are sharp as *shit *if you step on a bit barefoot, so both the Other Shoe and I nixed that option posthaste. These are round, cylindrical shapes, so I’m hoping that will at least not hurt underfoot!
