We have three cats and two Booda Domes. We clean the litter daily and smell is never a problem with Dr Elsey’s. I think it’s called Precious Cat.
I presently use a silica gel cat litter. With a single cat, it lasts one month and complteley absorbs liquid, so there is no odor from urine. Seriously, I can pour fresh litter into the pan, dump 4 ounces of water onto the litter, wait 10 seconds, it it will be completely dry to the touch. When the cat’s pee in it, the white crystals turn yellow from absorbing the liquid.
In my experience, it’s not as dusty and what dust there is is white, so I don’t get dingy grey dust all over the place. It almost totally eliminates odor.
Downside, while it is totally inert and is not bad for the environment, it can’t break down any further than it current state, so it doesn’t biodegrade (I’m looking into switching to a compostable litter). The litter is so clean, some cats feel that they don’t need to bury their poo and just leave it sitting on top, and that does produce odor (but it doesn’t last long and if it really bugs you, you can use the scooper to cover it with silica). My late cat Lenny never buried his poop with that litter, Squiggy does.
Shoot, forgot a downside and missed the edit:
When you change the silica litter, it’s best to keep the cats out of it until the dust has settle. There is less dust than regular clay, but when you pour it there is still dust, and given how super-absorbent it is, I don’t want the critters inhaling it as a powder.
ETA: P.S. We tried Fresh Step and found it disgusting. Kind of like trying to cover up nasty armpit stink with perfume.
I prefer Cat’s Pride, less dust. I thought the wheatables stuff in no time at all had a terrible stank and hardened like a mofo in the box. I may need to try the crystals!
Also, have you thought about using a siftable litter box? They are faster and you get everything out in one shot.
Petsmart sells a nice one - pricey (about $24) but seems worth it.
Another vote for Fresh Step!
One of ours had undiagnosed diabetes . Primary symptom? Constant and copious amounts of pee… you better believe we know litterbox stink intimately. We’ve also used every brand of litter known to man… err… cat, both on their own and in combination.
Feline Pine: I love this stuff. It’s great for normal kitties (read: ones who don’t generate massive amounts of pee), it’s cheap, and it’s about the lightest kind of litter I’ve found which makes it easy to carry home from the pet store. Plus it’s (supposedly) enviro-friendly, compostable and flushable. Score. Not all kitties like the texture of it, though… YMMV.
S’Wheat Scoop: Also good, plus the benefits of clumping. This is the one we’ve settled on, in a 50/50 blend with standard clay litter - on its own, it does an okay job of clumping, but the clay seems to make for more solid (read: easier to scoop) clumps when it’s time for cleanup.
Clay Scoopable (various brands): Too much dust, too much fragrance, and too easy for the cats to track all over the house. Plus the overwhelming “perfumey” smell of most litters just covers up the stink, which means your house ends up smelling like a combo of baby power and cat poo. Blaargh.
Crystals (various brands): Ew. Big fat ew. These contained the stink for a day or two, and then were completely overwhelmed by Ariel’s wondrous pee-generating abilities. I wasn’t ready to replace the entire contents of the box twice a week, sorry.
Another BIG life-changer was the Booda Dome. Yes, it’s pricey. Yes, it’s big. But there’s something about the design that helps contain the stink incredibly well, so that you don’t have to put a clothespin on your nose if you end up missing one day on litterbox duty.
Having owned (or been owned by) indoor cats for years, let me emphasize and expand on what was said above: What matters is what you feed your cat. The wetter and stinkier the food, the stinkier the poo. It is a law of nature as immutable as the law of gravity. High quality dry food (I use Science Diet) will result in less poo, and less stinky poo.
In terms of litter, I like feline pine. Thanks for the tip about the horse bedding, StG!
Brynda - You can buy it at either the Co-op or at TSC.
StG
The World’s Best is World’s Best. Love that stuff–easy to scoop, easy to flush, zero smell. Love it!
(Note: This only applies to Original Formula; I think the Multi-cat formula stinks)
My aunt has several cats. I dont know what brand litter she uses but I do know she has one of those electric auto-scopper box things, a very good room ionizer (one of those machines that eliminates odors) which also takes care of smoke odor, and vet recommended cat food (yes, the cat food makes a difference in how their waste smells).
To walk into my aunts house you would not know they smoked and had multiple cats. Until you sat in a chair covered with cat hair, and see my aunt light up a cig. I think they own 2 or 3 of the air filter things.
Yesterday’s News… locks in both moisture and urine odor!
With the two new kitties, who are still mostly confined to one room, I’m using Johnny Cat Multiple Cat (non-clumping) in a box with a liner. I’m scooping the poop into a Litter Locker and running a small air cleaner. So far, so good.
Another vote for Fresh Step with Dual Action Crystals and carbon. It NEVER smells. Also I recommend a covered litter box like the Booda Dome . Also it’s nice to have a scoop with a holder, like this
.
I hate the perfumed , scented litters - they make me sneeze and my SO gets a headache from them. I can’t imagine what my cats think!
Dr. Elsey’s unscented, here. I love the way it clumps. It seems hard to get unscented litter - most cat litter makers seem to think everyone wants perfumed, smelly stuff.
We must have the world’s most pissy cat. He absolutely won’t use anything but clay litter. I’ve tried cedar, paper pellets, that Wheat stuff, etc. All he did was piss in the corner. I finally went to Exquisicat Extra Strength Scoopable (Petsmart brand?), and he’s now a happy cat.
I like Swheat Scoop combined with a covered box. My boys’ stink is contained quite nicely. I also liked Feline Pine, but Mr. Kitty preferred the floor when I put that in his box.
Well, yesterday I got Fresh Step, and so far, so good. It does have a stinky air freshener smell, but it’s a lot better than the previous smell. I’m still considering toilet-training, though… that’s gotta be like, the holy grail of cat ownership, teaching your cat to use the toilet! I want!
I use Fresh Step too. The Fresh Step with carbon seems to work even better than the regular kind.
I also definitely agree about the type of food making a difference in the amount of smell. I feed my cats Nutro Natural Choice, and it seemed to cut down on the smell even more than Science Diet did (at least in my case).
If you hate scooping (like I do), I also highly recommend the Litter Robot as your litterbox: http://www.litter-robot.com
It’s expensive, but it seems to be less prone to malfunctions than the other kinds of automatic litterboxes, so if you hate scooping badly enough it might be worth it. 