Anyone have any experience with the Cat litter robot or other such litter boxes?
I’ve always had a cat, but they’ve always been primarily indoor/outdoor pets. Well, we just recently rescued a second kitty as a companion to our first rescue and these must be indoor only pets. I had no idea.
It takes me a good 3 or 4 minutes every morning of digging (ick) with that rake to keep two boxes clean enough to not stink up the house. I know it doesn’t sound like much time, but it’s starting to really squick me out and I don’t want to start regretting our decision to rescue both these kitties.
So I’m looking for solutions. I’d welcome any and all suggestions. Max and Maddie would appreciate it too. Thanks in advance.
Two of mine will use it; one won’t. That is OK because with three cats I still have a regular box-the Littermaid just takes the pressure off and also allows me to travel for a day or two with no harsh consequences.
The Littermaid still has an ick factor when it is time to empty it, which I can get away with every 7-10 days, ymmv. And when it is time to really the clean the thing, like take it apart and soak everything soakable, it is obviously more work than a plain box. But I still think it is worth it, for me, because it does reduce just regular day-to-day ick factor.
I’ve had mine a year and a half with no malfunctions or terrible jams. I’ve never actually tried any of the timer settings.
I used a Litter Robot for a while. I stopped using it only because I moved to a small apartment where I didn’t have room to set it up (thinking of setting it up again now that I am in a bigger place). It did work as advertised. Never had any technical problems with it.
I felt it was a superior design over those littermaid style self cleaning boxes.
The cats accepted it without any issues. One of my cats has a tendency to hang her butt out when she uses a litterbox so I put a strip of cardboard over the bottom part of the doorway to encourage her to stay in it properly and everything went fine.
I gave my then brother in law a cocker spaniel. It, most unfortunately, kept my sister’s cat’s litter box clean, and took car of the cat’s hairballs as well.
I had a Littermaid and it didn’t work out for us. We had 3 or 4 cats at the time, though. The problem is that they’d use it frequently enough that it wouldn’t have a chance to rake the litter (its timer resets if it detects motion) and too much would build up and it wouldn’t be able to rake through it, or sometimes it would get clogged on the rake and make a mess… in the end it was as much work keeping the mechanism clean as scooping a regular box would be, so we gave up on it.
Here’s a short thread I posted about a year ago (it also has a link to a 2005 thread). I’ve been thinking of resurrecting it with an [UPDATE], but this is a better place.
Background: we had two cats and three litter boxes; daily cleanings kept them pretty nice. We’d already switched to the crystal litter a few years back and love love loved it. I posted the thread because a third cat was in the process of adopting us.
YMMV, but we are in catbox heaven. About once or twice a week I head down to the basement and scoop out the solid waste reservoirs, stir the crystals a bit, and add a bit of extra litter. Given how they work, this is a very quick process—almost no time at all. You don’t have to do this, but from the get-go the litter pans are more expensive individually, and it’s easy to get them to last for a lot longer. Once a month or so we close up each pan’s box, dump it, and replace it with a new one.
Again, YMMV and I cant’s speak to how much better/worse these are than their competition, but for us they have worked out fantastically—they’ve lived up to every claim their marketing department could come up with.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. It’s good to know I have some options. I’m going to be getting one of these very soon.
Not the Cocker Spaniel, Muffin. That would creep me out more than cleaning a box!
We use a method that our local shelter uses - a sheet of newspaper and a handfull of litter per box. We just pick up the newspaper with the solids inside and toss it three times a day.
We use less litter overall, and we always have a clean litter box. We use just enough litter for them to cover the mess with. Works a treat.
Thank you Gleena. I may try this method. Sounds like a good way to save some money. They are eating and pooping us out of house and home, so this may be a big help.
I’ve owned a Litter Robot two times – once around 2003, I think the first version, and again starting in 2020, I think they call this one version 3? We have two cats, both relatively young (1-2 years old).
I absolutely love this thing.
Yes, it’s expensive, but they have improved the design substantially from that earlier version (yay, engineering!) and it went from working pretty good to working great. This thing saves me like 5 minutes of poop-adjacent work every single day. I’d buy it again in a freakin’ heartbeat.
Two caveats:
It is a bit bulky so make sure you have room for it. Also, the price. It does work really, really well in my experience so I’d personally say it’s worth it but YMMV.
I don’t know that I’d bother with the wi-fi enabled one, all it does is alert you when the litter tray is full via your smartphone. I walk by the unit every time I go in and out of my office, so I see the blue flashing light that indicates “time to change” regularly anyway.
I’ve also taken advantage of the explosion of cheap chinese robotic stuff on Amazon to automate feedings and watering (well, cycling water with a filter), too.
