I have an Omega Rolling box and three other boxes that I use with pine pellets. The Omega is new and I"m not sure I like it, but the cats seem to. The other boxes are rotated a week in use and a week out airing, so the plastic doesn’t get funky.
StG
Have you seen one in person kanicbird? Because nothing sticks to the inside, the screen system scoops the dirty clumps well before the litter touches the sides of the ball. If there is the proper amount of clumping litter used, even uncovered poop gets rolled in the litter before it hits the screen, so it all falls cleanly into the bin. The inner surface is also super slick plastic, so everything slides easily.
Cats may be fastidious, but I can tell you that I have 5 of my 8 who use this one box regularly, and they appear to prefer it over the old fashioned box that’s right next to it. That box is clean as a whistle because it’s almost never used.
Something that hasn’t been mentioned is that the litterbox itself will get stinky. I bleach mine out every weekend and replace them every year.
I guess I’m out of touch with the times. I just have a plain old plastic litter tray that I scoop every few days; we just have the one cat. We keep it in the basement by the storage shelves. I never notice any odor from it and neither does my mother when she stops by (and everybody knows mothers can smell things bloodhounds miss). I guess my cat must just be extra fastidious or her diet of extra mice doesn’t lend itself to stinkiness.
Seconded.What a difference. Use the recommended littermaterial, though. Litter should be fine and very clumping.
Judging from the user reviews, the manufacturer had them made for a while by someone who made flimsier versions. If that is the case, just return them untill you get a sturdier version.
Shakes, it could be that the smell has seeped into the plastic. (ETA flatlined said so) It is recommended to replace litterboxes every couple years anyway.
The problem with the litter robot is that occasionally an odd-shaped dook laid close to the edge of the hole will work its way out at a critical moment and fall into the rotatey-unit, resulting in a cat turd autosmeared around the outside of the globe. This may stimulate both gag and suicide reflexes in whoever has to clean it up.
We’ve had the Litter Robot for 6 years now. Never a spot of bother. It has paid for itself many times over by helping to save sifted litter. Litter: That World’s Best stuff. No problems with smell whatsoever.
Q
Could she just do her business in the yard? My husband, who was in charge of all things litterbox, had a " system" in which one litterbox, changed once a week and not scooped out in between, was supposed to serve three cats. My husband claimed the thick layer of newspaper on the bottom did the trick. I’m not sure what trick; after the first day, all three cats went outside and pooped in my flowerbeds.
So I changed jobs with him and that is when I bought the Omega Paw Rollaway.
We had a Littermaid Elite for a while and it was great for all three cats because it scooped itself and all we had to do was empty the tray daily. Unfortunately, the motor in the newer model isn’t as good as the old ones, and it died on us after a year. The older model we had lasted 5 years. Since we can’t afford to be replacing these things annually, we’ve now got three regular old boxes. Those round ones look really neat, and I’d LOVE a self-flushing model, but they’re really expensive! All I can say is I do NOT recommend the LitterMaid automatic boxes, because they’re crap.
It’s about as loud as a kitchen mixer on low. A little motor slowly turns the sphere, thus sieving the clumps. If any cat should be scared by it, it’s our rescue, but she’s fine with it. Clean-up is simple, so there’s less inclination to put it off and therefore owner and cat alike stay happy.
No, what you said makes sense, it was just the idea of the yucky stuff being tumbled. From the standard box cat urine will not always clump in a hard enough clump, and break up a bit when it is scooped. The rolling would seem to scatter that all over and mix it with unused litter and also leave traces of it on the insides. From what I’m reading here that doesn’t really happen.
Heh. Sounds like a NASCAR race for kitties. MEOWRRRRRRRRR!
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I use the Breeze Cat Litter System. Been using it for 2 years now after more than 10 years using those crappily made self-scooping (ha!) litter boxes. I have 3 cats and just the one litter box. As long as I scoop every day or 2 and change the pad/diaper thing every few days, there’s no smell in my house.
I like the robothingie mentioned upthread, but it looks awfully small.
I have 2 cats, 3 boxes, scoop daily. One box is used for urine only, the other 2 for feces. I don’t know how they decided that, they just did.
I use Fresh Step Crystal litter and I will not go back to clumping litter for anything. Very little dust and no smell at all. Scoop out the feces and stir the litter daily. Change litter completely every 2-3 weeks and clean boxes.
We don’t let her outside (too many raptors and coyotes), so she’d probably just poop in the vegetable bin in the fridge. She’s a mean little critter.
I was at a local store today that resells items returned to Amazon and other online retailers. They have a gimmick where the longer something is on the shelf the higher the discount. They have a CatGenie 120 that on Monday will be about $100 including sales tax. Unfortunately, the only place I could hook it up the cats don’t go.
StG
This is excellent. It’s made from corn. There’s a wheat-based litter, Swheat Scoop, that’s equally good and maybe a titch less expensive per pound; it’s also available in some supermarkets rather than being carried only by pet stores. Tends to be less dusty and track less than clay-based litter and is great at glomming onto and eliminating odors.
You might also want to attack the problem from the other end: the food. I switched my eight cats* to a totally grainfree diet and saw a significant decrease in both the smelliness and bulk of their fecal deposits.
*Eight cats, nine oversize litterboxes scooped daily; then I go muck out for four horses. Poopology R us.
Here’s my problem, and it’s driving me crazy.
I have one cat. I keep the litter box pretty clean… I scoop usually every day, maybe miss a day here and there, but it never gets out of hand. I clean the whole box out very well every month.
I don’t have a problem with the odor. What I do have a problem with is an obsessive-compulsive cat. No matter how clean the box is, the cat will start scratching at it – the litter, the sides of the box, inside, outside, etc., - and he’ll go at it for a good 10-15 minutes at a time, numerous times throughout the day, whether he’s just gone or not.
This is very annoying during the day (I work at home), but it’s become a real problem when he does it at 4 in the morning. It’s very loud, and I live in a loft-style condo… I can’t put it further away than it already is from my bedroom. He wakes me up doing this almost every night.
Is there any way I can stop him from doing this?
I’d say to try to locate the box in a place that’s as out of the way and hidden as possible. It sounds like your cat is sorta trying to “bury” the whole box. So if it were in a place that somehow seems more “buried” and out of sight, the cat might not have the impulse to do it. Think secluded corners, underneath other furniture, or even in a cabinet under the bathroom sink if you get desperate.
The other more simple option is to try one of the litterboxes that come with a cover. That way it already seems kind of buried.
Anamorphic, voltaire’s idea is a good one. On www.ikeahackers.net, you can see several ideaswhere people took a 15-30 bucks Ikea chest and made it into the kind of secluded litterbox your cat might want.