I’m talking about one of those electric kitty litter boxes, that have motion sensors and timers and doohickeys that automatically scoop kitty litter after a cat uses the box.
This is their website: http://www.littermaidstore.com/
Does it work as advertised? Do you need to use their particular kitty litter for any reason (I assume not)?
My sister has had one for years and is very happy with it. She only has one cat.
StG
I know we’ve done this once or twice before, and as a cat owner I read with great interest. As I recall, the responses boiled down to one or two people really liking them, with no problems, and most of the others saying they encountered mechanical or other problems (e.g., kitty didn’t like it and therefore didn’t use it).
Me! Two cats, six or seven years. One problem, caused by my darling husband hosing down some parts that aren’t supposed to get wet. It was just out of warranty, too, but he called them anyway and they sold us a new one for half price, which I thought was more than reasonable (seeing as it was entirely our fault).
You don’t have to use Litter Maid litter, but it does say to use Premium brands of clumping litter. We used Arm & Hammer, which was okay, and then Cat Attract for two years after some litter use problems caused by recurrent UTI’s, and now we’ve switched it over to Tidy Cat (Cat Attract being rather more expensive). We’ve had no problems with those three litters.
Personally, I would recommend looking at the Litter ROBOT - http://www.litter-robot.com/
From what I’ve read, the “rake style” automatic litterboxes are prone to malfunctioning when the rake gets clogged with litter. The design of the Litter Robot is different in a way that seems a little more reliable (instead of pulling a rake through the litter, it’s a sphere that rotates to sift the litter - kind of hard to explain without showing it to you).
I’ve used the Robot myself with my two cats without any mechanical problems. The Robot is a little pricey, but I think it might be a case of “you get what you pay for”.
The only trouble I ran into with the Robot is that one of my cats likes to stick her butt out the opening and peed on the outside BUT I was able to remedy that by putting some duct tape on the bottom part of the opening to encourage her to turn around once she climbs in. That little detail fixed the issue (the other cat had enough sense to turn around without any help!).
A friend of mine had one. Her cat was so terrified of it it peed in the bathtub for 2 months before it would even try to use it.
We have 2 cats and have used this litter box for several years. It seems to work fine. One of our previous cats would wait for the rake to move forward and then jump in behind it to use the box so the rake would push it back to the other side. But she was just weird.
Our litter is Tidy Cats Scoop for multiple cats.
I cat sat for a cat who had one of those.
It made the cat almost no work for the time she was staying with me.
I wouldn’t have a cat without one! I had two of them in the many years I had my kitty. The only reason the first one wore out was because I got it too wet when cleaning it.
I adore my Litter Robot, to second what lavenderviolet said. The design is very simple and it’s much more low-maintenance.
I have had one ever since Squirrel joined our family. Love. It. I only have to deal with the kitty box once a week, and the liners cost about a buck each. I use Clean Scoop (I think. I don’t have a box out right now; I need to pick some up! It comes in a purple box.).
I got one for my mom. It didn’t work at all for her cat. He was very old and had some sort of weird kidney thing. His litterbox was very difficult to clean manually and the LitterMaid couldn’t do it at all.
So I inherited the box. Our 5 cats had no problem with it, but it didn’t last very long. The rake gets clogged fairly easily and then it stops working. Eventually the motor quit and we gave up on it. It was cool while it lasted, though.
We replaced it once under warranty with no problems.
OTOH, a friend has one for her two cats. She’s used it for years and loves it.
I’m trying to convince the family to spring for the LitterRobot but the price (and bad experience with the LitterMaid) is causing trouble.
ETA: if your cat tends to urinate to the sides of the litterbox, you may have trouble. Mom’s cat would pee down the sides, which aren’t very high, and make a huge mess. The box is a pain to clean because of the mechanical parts and slots and such.
I have the Litter Robot. The only problem I’ve had is when I was a dumbass and forgot to empty for, like, two or three weeks. Eventually the poop piles up in the drawer and gets in the sphere’s way and it is SERIOUSLY FUCKING NASTY. Do not do that.
But that was my fault - generally speaking, the Litter Robot is golden. My cats were freaked out by it for about five minutes, but started double-dog-daring each other to go in and were using it that night. You have to be vigilant to make sure it hasn’t run out of litter, but on the whole, thumbs up.
I had a LitterMaid and didn’t like it. My big kitty drinks a ton of water (no, it’s not diabetes, he’s always done it) and the bin would fill up every day. I found emptying the bin to be a bigger pain than scooping the litterbox and I didn’t like how the tines would get gumpy. It felt so great when I finally gave myself permission to stop trying to make that thing work and get rid of it. Now I have a jumbo litterbox in a very nice wood cabinet and I think it’s much cleaner just scooping everyday.
Add one more to the didn’t like it pile.
We have two cats (no pictures, unfortunately), and the in-laws got it so the eldest child wouldn’t have to sully her hands with manual labor. It was the rake kind, and had the problems that lavenderviolet previously wrote. The rake got clogged with litter & would push the piles back & forth; the ones that made it to the bin, usually ended up going under the bin & onto the floor. The rake eventually just stopped working and we used it as the spare litter box. It ended up being such a huge hassle, it’s living in the shed simply to appease the in-laws.
Not good
My first one broke. Replacement got stuck about a day or two after I got it. It happened when it was raking, and started to heat up the litter. Smelled like it was burning. It didn’t feel safe - I returned it.
Susan
Sounds like the Litter Robot is somewhat more reliable, and as an added plus, works with standard 8 and 13 gallon garbage bags.
Good thing I asked; I hadn’t known about the Robot alternative, and had been worried exactly about the “rake gets clogged” problem when I looked into how it worked, especially as we have two cats and would ideally like to check/change the litter twice a week (when we put out the trash).
I’m comfortable with the price difference as long as the risk of “crapping out” is correspondingly lower. (Har!)
Thanks for all the replies!
If you want to see how the Litter-Robot sifts the dry litter from the clumps, check out the demo on their site:
http://www.litter-robot.com/litter-robot-demonstration.aspx
It’s kind of cool and clever. The rakes are nasty. I saw somewhere that a cat owner kept a putty knife near by to scrape off the dried poop. Doesn’t sound like a fun job.
You summed my LitterMaid experience up perfectly. I happily scoop now and after 2 years of looking at it collect dust…I threw the LitterMaid in the trash.
The LitterRobot looks cool but I am NOT spending that much on it.
I think the robot is a good design, but 300 bucks? You’ve got to be kidding. I wouldn’t spend 300 dollars on a toilet for me, much less one for the damn cat! Besides, my cat likes a lot of space, so I got one of those big plastic trays that you mix cement in and I use that (or rather, the cat does). You can fill it with two big boxes of the clumping litter, the sides are high enough so that the cat won’t pee over the side, and cleanup is very easy. I have it out on the patio, so it’s not actually inside the house. Works like a charm.
