I am thinking about getting a kitten. How long will it take for it to learn to use the litter box?
Not long at all. Their natural instinct is to bury their waste. Put the kitten in the fresh box straight away, so she knows where it is. If she makes a mistake, immediately put it in the box and put the kitten in there too. She’ll get the idea soon enough.
If you can wait till after it’s been weaned to take it home, and let it stay with it’s mother for a bit longer you won’t have to do much to train it. If mom has good litterbox habits, and is a good teacher she’ll show them the ropes. (The kitten really needs the time past weaning with mom to learn socialization/manners anyway. It’s just a matter of how impatient the owners of the mother are.) You’ll just have to remind the little one where the litter box is a few times. You can also check the index here for serveral in-depth “how to” guides.
When we brought Cuervo home, he was three weeks old, abandoned (or lost) by his mother and essentially clueless. He barely had the strength to stand for long on his own. The first complete day we had him, in quarantine in the upstairs bathroom, I came home from work with a litter box and litter. At that time, he was living on a couple blankets on the floor. While I was in with him setting up the litter box, he started to urinate on a towel I had scrunched up in the corner. I snatched him up, and placed him in the litter box, where he just continued doing his busienss.
He finished, turned around to look at it, started pawing in the sand, and eventually skritched litter over it.
Cuervo loves his litter box . Sometimes we even catch him napping in it.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. Rhiow was nearly dead when we found her, and just barely weaned. She doesn’t cover her poo, because she was never taught to do so by her mother. She was too young to leave her mother when we rescued her, and it shows. We love her anyway, and sigh and cover her mess when she’s done. We use clumping litter, so urine clumps up. We cover the poo so it doesn’t stink if it’s inbetween cleaning/changing.
Adding, if you were speaking of a feral coloney, and it’s survival techniques you’d be more correct Q.E.D. Domestic cats have to learn such things though, it’s been bred out of them. It’s now handed down from Dam to Kit as lessons.
We got Bixby from a shelter at 4wks old. He took to the box immediately, but hasn’t really gotten the cover your poo with litter thing. He scratches like mad at the box, but he’s scratching the box, the wall, anything nearby, but not the litter inside. Sometimes he manages to get it covered a bit, but it’s more luck than anything.
No. They need only to be shown where the box is. The rest is pure instinct. From this and other cites:
You can take a young kitten from it’s mother (I don’t advise doing so, I’m just saying you can for purposes of this argument) at a very young age, long before any “lessons” have been given, and it will naturally learn to use the litter, as long as you show it where the box is. If you don’t show it where the box is, it may find its own substitute, such as a potted plant or a pile of clothes–anywhere it can satisfy its natural urge to bury its eliminations.
Respectfully Q.E.D. , you are mistaken. Your cites are faulty. If it were pure instinct as you claim, than there wouldn’t be so many web sites and pet care books advising people how best to deal with their darling cat shitting all over the house, much less not covering their poo. It’s not pure instinct any more, it’s been largely bred out. There are exceptions, and maybe those are what you’ve been fortunate to encounter? Some cats may be “throwbacks” and have stronger instincts, but in general the domestic cat population of the world does not instincitively know how to use the litter box. It seems that way because people get the cats after the mother cat has taught them. They begin early, but the lessons aren’t complete until after weaning. Maybe one of the board’s vets can better explain, like Vetbridge? (You are a veteranarian, aren’t you Vetbridge?)
Adding, think of it this way. In the wild cats shit where they please on their turf, and cover it so predators can’t track them. The idea of going to the same place every time isn’t one they practice. They might have favored spots that are safe, but not the same place.
It only took us setting up the litter box for our darlings (6 weeks old at the time) to get the idea. They have never varied from it. <knocks wood>
Not contending that cats prefer sand to go in btw, just that using a litter box and covering their mess is instinct. It’s learned, for some cats less so than others, but still a taught thing. Either by humans or their mother. It works best when their mother can teach them from an early age and have time to completely get it through to them.
I meant to say I wasn’t contesting the idea that cats like to do their business in sand, but I phrased it very poorly. 
Covering the mess is instinct, and I stand by that assertion. Kittens which cannot find a suitable place to go in time will eventually just go anywhere. They will almost always still TRY to cover it up, by scratching the floor around it. It’s just not possible to breed out such a powerful survical instinct in as short a time as we’ve been selectively breeding cats. I do, however, agree that using a litter box is not instinctual, per se–there aren’t any litter boxes filled with Fresh Step in nature. But, a kitten doesn’t have to be taught HOW to use it. Once they’ve gotten the idea that the box is the only suitable place to eliminate, the rest is nature.
This is correct, when we brought home our new kitten all I needed to do was show her where the box was and she knew what to do right away. Be advised though that the first few times you need to hold the kitten to trim it’s claws it might get scared and leak a little bit (as ours did). Always use an old towel! 
Still, the very best thing is to leave a kitten with its mother for a minimum of 6 weeks; some breeders suggest 8 or 9, or even longer. Given the chance, a mama cat will teach her babies everything she knows, not only the litter box use but other socialization.
If you’re rescuing a shelter cat or other foundling, of course, you don’t have that option. We rescued an abandoned kitten that was near dead with malnutrition and illness. Our vet estimated his age at about 4 weeks, and he (the kitten, not the vet) learned litter box use with great ease.
You must have been very fortunate, because I’ve had more than one cat who didn’t cover their poo, and as you can see there is at least one other poster here who has had a similar experience with one of their cats. I’d say some cats get stronger instincts, while others don’t. For goodness sake, there are cats breeds out there who can barely breath, due to selective breeding. (Just like apples are nice and red, but have no flavor anymore.) If just a “short time” of breeding can do that to them, don’t you think that the tendency to survive via covering poo would also be bred out? Domestic cats are dependent on us. Look at the case where the woman had to spend the night in the woods. I’m saying “in general” to mean all over, leaving out the idea that there are farm cats who have stronger instincts because there are lots of city cats who don’t learn some of the survival techniques a barn cat would need. In general, as it stands now a mother cat teaches her young to cover their poo. It used to be a basic survival instinct, but it isn’t now. We’ve bred them to be more docile, and willing to live indoors their whole life, they don’t need to know how to keep predators off their trail.
My older cat has gotten lazy and started refusing to cover his; it might just be his way of saying he doesn’t like sharing a litter box with this new ursurper (it’s been about 6 months now). The funny thing is that the new kitten very kindly covers up his poo for him.
I don’t remember (as usual) where I heard or read this, but it was alleged that this could be a display of dominance; i.e. “I’m so much the alpha I don’t even have to cover my shit.”
Often a cat who refuses to use his litterbox or cover his poo has dominance issues.
The two kittens I am fostering taught themselves to use the litterbox. When they were still tiny kitlets I had put an empty tissue box in their incubator to give them something to sleep/play in. They immediately started doing their business in it, so I lined it with duct tape and put litter in it. The faithfully use the litterbox in the bathroom they are in now.
[hijack] When I got the kittens, I just took for granted that one was male and one was female, since that was what I was told. I never verified the information. Guess what? “Lily” is a male. Mr. SCL is now calling her/him a cross-dresser. [/hijack]