Poll is up and running. Though again, I’m aware the results won’t prove anything.
An option you left off - Two catpans, separated, and I live with two cats. Which is my scenario 
At least one other person has also said that in the discussion thread for that thread. I screwed up.
It’s effectively impossible to fix a poll once you’ve hit “reply”. I did include an “other” option.
– so far, at least, N+1 seems to be a minority, though not nonexistent, way for Dopers to deal with the issue.
(It occurs to me that I also left off ‘one or more cats who eliminate in the house but no catpans, they just go where they please or use the houseplants’; but I think it’s quite possible that nobody would have picked that one.)
No cats is the most votes, but N+1 is the highest with cats. So far.
It’s changed since I posted that; and apparently changed again since you posted, as N+1 is now in third place. When I first posted N+1 was pretty far down the list.
There are currently 7 votes total for various situations involving more cats than catpans; and 7 total for at least one more catpan than the number of cats. This may be skewed a bit, however, because I voted for 3 different situations I’ve lived in (some of them longer than others, but the poll already had a lot of options); and one person, I don’t know who, has voted for two situations, but I don’t know in which direction(s) those votes lean. (There are also some people who have the same number of pans as of cats; including the ones who have two and two, an option I failed to include.)
ETA: The real question, of course, is how many different combinations of cats really needed N+1 number of cat pans; but I don’t really know a way to word that poll. I, and some others here, have had a lot of different combinations of cats; some people have presumably had only one combination; and some people may have provided N+1 pans for one or more combinations of cats who would have been also happy with fewer pans.
The poll may change again, in either (or any) direction; I’ll give it a while longer.
Yes, N+ is in third place, but 1st place is- i dont have any cats, and 2nd place is- I only have one cat.
Hmm, litter boxes.
I’ve lived with cats most of my life. When my family only had one litter box and two inside/outside cats. Sometimes they both used the box, but often one would decide that they’d just rather use the yard and consistently went there instead.
In recent years, I’ve lived with only inside cats (too much traffic for comfort with inside/outside). When we’ve had more than 2 cats, we’ve had N+1 boxes. When we had only two, one was yoinked off the street and raised from a kitten by the other. So, they were pals and didn’t hassle each other about the box. They did seem to want to both only poop in one and pee in the other, which box received which elimination seemed to vary week by week.
When I adopted another adult stray that attached herself to me on top of those two, N+1 dispersed was really the only way to go. The additional cat was a nervous girl, and really wanted some sort of privacy when she did her business. The two cats we already had ran hot+cold with her, and would occasionally hassle her whether she was near one of the boxes or not. Mostly, they ignored each other, though.
We later yoinked two other kittens out of the local feral population before they crashed and died on our patio, and we suck at the adopting out portion of fostering them. So we ended up with five cats. Four got along great, one of the new kittens got along well with the nervous girl, but N+1 boxes scattered around the house seemed the only way to go at that time. It’s not like the cats patrolled “their” box, though. It seems most of them would just use the nearest box they could find. But it also seemed that some would try to pick the one they were most likely to feel safe from someone metaphorically busting open the bathroom door while they were going, because they could be reasonably sure that there weren’t other cats around at the moment.
Nervous girl went to the happy hunting ground not too long ago. We didn’t bother ditching any litter boxes afterward, so we’re technically running at N+2 boxes now (yeah, no option for that in the poll, I accept we’re an outlier). Now one cat generally goes exclusively to one box, the rest just seem to pick whichever is closest at the time. The one benefit of extra litter boxes is that you can usually relax your cleaning schedule a bit if your cats are like most of mine and will spread the wealth. A cat can only pee and poop so much, after all.
Good luck @Orville_mogul! Before we adopted the most recent two kittens, we tried to adopt a teen-aged guy from the backyard that seemed so friendly he almost had to have been a dumped pet (the first time I met him, I could pick him up). Sadly, every time he saw our oldest male cat, it was on, and a shrieking and hissing chase would ensue. Fortunately, we did find him a good home and he seems totally happy there.
With 16 cats there is no way I could have N+1 boxes.
I do have six boxes, plus free access to a cat-safe outdoor yard.
Three boxes are side by side in one room, and are different in size and rim style.
Three are in another room but in different spots, and one of those is a robot box.
They all get varying use, and some of that is weather dependent. Several of my cats never go outside, some only rarely, and a few spend more time out than in. When the weather gets really bad box use definitely goes up.
I have in the past had a cat stop using boxes because she got ambushed badly. That was a giant headache.
One catpan for one cat is less than N+1.
However, leaving that and the “other” votes out of it, at this point the tally stands at:
At least one more catpan than cats: 10 votes.
Fewer catpans than cats: 7 votes.
So yes, more cat pans than cats is in the lead. However: fewer catpans than cats plus the same number of pans as cats would be in the lead if added up that way. And, more to the point: a significant percentage are doing just fine with fewer catpans than cats or with all their catpans close together, so quite a lot of people have combinations of cats in which nobody’s preventing anybody from using the pans (plus which, some of the N+ households may not actually need N+ pans, but the humans may not realize this.)
So (leaving aside that this certainly isn’t a statistically accurate poll of all humans living with cats), I stand by my original position: that N+1 pans may be necessary in some households but are not necessary in all of them. If you’re having trouble fitting that many catpans into your living quarters, or just don’t want to: try fewer pans and see what happens.
Yeah, but the reason for having N+1 is issues among multiple cats. Not gonna have those issues with one cat.
You just think N+1 litter boxes is not needed- and sometimes you are right. But it is not the way to bet.
Not always. Sometimes the issue is a particular cat – perhaps an aging one – needing a pan in a particular place. And some cats like to piss and shit in different pans. One or the other or both of those presumably explains the people who have two or more pans for one cat; and may also explain some of the people who have N+1 boxes for two or more cats.
For a while I did have a third pan – because I had an aged cat who needed a pan in the room where they mostly slept, in addition to the two downstairs which were plenty for three or four cats, a situation which had been fine for the aged cat during most of their lives. This has happened more than once over the years.
It’s been a few months and I want to post an update. We removed the last of Poppy’s bandages and released her into the house three months ago. She can go anywhere in the house at any time. Her legs look good and she is running and jumping normally. The surgery may have been pricey, but at least it was a success!
So physically things are good, but socially we seem to have reached a plateau. There is little outright aggression between Poppy and the two indoor Siamese, but they are not friends. Poppy is quite defensive with both Siamese, and even when Junior makes mostly friendly overtures, Poppy hisses him away. Simba is a different matter and has been actively bullying Poppy. I have seen him chasing her several times and have also seen him blocking her route up and down the stairs. And they have tussled a few times (nothing serious). This is of course what we have seen when we are home; I don’t know how it is when we are away.
As a result, Poppy spends most of the day sequestered in safe locations, primarily under the dining table. The only time that she seems at ease is at night when she comes upstairs to spend the night (the Siamese sleep with my daughter on the ground floor). Then she will jump on our bed purring madly and very affectionate. But it is only at night, and she jumps off the bed as soon as one of us moves at all. As a result we literally have a only a few minutes of ‘normal’ interaction with her each.
I honestly don’t know whether she is happy or not. It is not like the other cats are beating her up or that she is shaking in fear. It is just that she doesn’t like being near them and therefore isolates herself most of the day. I should add that she has still shown very little interest in the outdoors and has never tried to get out.
We are seriously considering releasing her outside to see what happens, knowing that she may never come back in. My two kids are actually urging me to release her. But will she be happier outside? How do you tell if a cat is happy anyway?
Any advice?
If she’s not trying to get out, she may not want to get out. If you put her out, she may be afraid you won’t let her back in. If you do let her out, I’d make sure that she can get back in, and that this is obvious to her; if she does prefer to be in, she’d likely be seriously upset at being shut out.
It seems to me that much or possibly all of the problem is with the one bullying cat; but it is that cat’s house also, after all. Would it maybe work to have an upstairs cat and a couple of downstairs cats? Would it be worth trying Feliway? (I’ve never used it, only read about it.)
– what is going on with the brother cat? is he still outside? does he seem OK?
We’ve always had between 4 and 6 cats in our house for the last 20 years.
Some cats like each other. Some don’t. Some are best friends for years and then all of a sudden start fighting. Some go the other way. Cats are weird. Some never come upstairs during the day. Some never come upstairs at night.
So long as they’re eating and drinking regularly and aren’t peeing outside the litter box I’d say let them be cats and don’t overthink it.
So, during the last few nights Poppy has started peeing in our bedroom (including twice on our bed!). I think it is because she is afraid to go downstairs to use the litterbox as the Siamese are nearby. Clearly they are bullying her.
She also spent most of Tuesday hiding in a very tight space under the sink in the laundry room. It took all day to find her because that was such an unlikely place (I had even looked in there at one point but only briefly as I couldn’t imagine how she could fit)
We have decided to release her on the weekend. We will lock the Siamese in the basement and will leave the door to the backyard open. We won’t push her out, but will let her go at her own initiative. I am confident that she will stick around the house and will come regularly for food as she did before. And if she wants to come back into the house we will let her. But I would be quite surprised if she does. As Pixel_Dent noted, peeing outside the litter box is one sign of an unhappy cat.
Agreeing that Poppy is clearly unhappy, and that this may be worth a try.
I would make sure that she can get back in, not only immediately, but in general – obviously you can’t leave the door permanently open, but I’d leave it open for a while and then notice whether she’s trying to get back in on future days and open the door for her if she is.
I just wanted to post what will probably be the final update of the Poppy story. In my most recent posts I mentioned that Poppy didn’t seem very happy living in our house and that she was not getting along with the other cats. Well, a month ago we finally decided to release her back outside. I thought the kids would resist the decision, but they were actually more for it than I was. It just seemed hard to let Poppy out knowing that she most likely would not want to come back into the house and would be living in a less secure environment. And it was hard for me as I was her primary caregiver during the previous six months and she did indeed have short periods when she was very affectionate (more affectionate than the Siamese in fact). But those periods were brief and infrequent. So one Saturday morning about a month ago we locked the Siamese downstairs, shut the doors to all the bedrooms and bathrooms, propped open the door to our backyard, and herded her from her refuge under the dining table into the open space of the house. For an hour nothing happened. Poppy showed no interest in the open door and found a new refuge under a coffee table.
(The most eventful thing during this hour was when a big Blue Bee entered the house. It is technically a carpenter bee with a huge fuzzy violet-black body and iridescent indigo wings – our family likes them a lot. I gently captured the bee in a yogurt container and carefully carried it outside, all the while imagining a scenario of taking an injured bee to the vet 
)
After an hour we decided to help move matters along, so we gently nudged Poppy from under the coffee table. What happened next was unexpected but we should not have been surprised. Poppy ran back toward her preferred refuge in the dining room, and when she saw the door was shut, she started freaking out. She was running back and forth across the open space of the house, almost literally bouncing off the walls, hissing at us all the time. But for some reason ignoring the open door to the backyard. But after a minute of two, my wife entered the house through the front door, and Poppy sprinted out that door into the front yard.
She has been outside ever since. We didn’t see her for the next 48 hours, but she eventually returned to the back terrace where we keep her food and water. And soon after that she started appearing with her brother. Things are now back to the pre-injury situation where we see her at mealtimes and she occasionally lets us pet her. She has shown no interest at all in entering the house. It is a bit sad that after all the time (and money!) we invested in her, she doesn’t seem to be any different with us. However, while the last minutes she spent in our house were stressful, it served to remind me that she is still a wild cat at heart, and we did the right thing to release her.
So that is the Poppy story. She will probably continue to hang around the house with her brother until something happens to her. I have taken out accident insurance for both cats, so if they get injured again (and if we manage to trap them) the veterinary care won’t be so burdensome.
She’s different in that she’s alive and healthy; which she wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t invested that time and money,
So thank you for doing that. And I’m very glad that she and her brother are back together, and continuing to come to you for food and occasional pats. That might just be the life that she wants; and her trust in you hasn’t been destroyed, or you wouldn’t get the occasional pats.
It’s possible that when she gets old she may decide to come back in again.