Litter Matters

After about two weeks of testing out three brands of cat litter, I’ve decided to use a mixture of Ever Clean and Breeders Celect (paper litter).

Cat’s Pride was good for odour control, but it has too much dust and was not cost-effective for me because I’d end up scooping a lot of good un-used litter (because it doesn’t clump).

I also found out from various sources that the clumping agent is actually just good old-fashioned CLAY. There are no chemicals. The chemicals are only found in the scented litter, not in the clumping agent. As clay is pretty harmless, so there should not be much danger in using clumping litter as long as our cats don’t start eating the litter (and my cats don’t).

And what about Breeders Celect alone? Well, I tried that too, and it was only after mixing for 2 weeks that Tiger finally went into the 100% paper-litter tray (double layered tray) to pee, and I was watching with bated breath…about to rejoice….

The pee went through the paper pellets, everything seemed to be working well, until….

I lifted the top tray and found Tiger’s voluminous pee flooding the bottom tray. Even 8 layers of paper failed to absorb all of it and there was this layer of “urine soup” (!) on the bottom layer which was dripping from the top….yucks.

And I started wondering how I was going to clean this if I left it there for 4 hours while I was at work.

Hmm….no go.

So, I returned the double-layered tray to Cathy (thanks very much, but it didn’t work out), and have decided to mix Breeders Celect (paper pellets) with Ever Clean (super-clumping litter). I discovered that paper litter is so good at odour control. It used to still smell a little with Ever Clean, but ever since mixing, there has been practically NO smell at all. By the way, I use the UNSCENTED Ever Clean.

So, that’s my litter news for now…it’s working well….so far!

�That’s Tiger posing beside the box.

�I’ll place the paper pellets on top of the Ever Clean.

It helps a lot – there’s less sand being kicked out. But after a few rounds, the cats would have mixed it well! Then, I’ll just keep adding the paper pellets until I need more sand. The downside is that when I scoop, some of the un-used paper pellets will also be scooped up. Unless I have time to separate them, it also results in un-used pellets being thrown away.

But it’s still more cost effective than using Ever Clean alone. But I hear there is another clumping litter which is even more expensive than Ever Clean. That would be OKO Plus, but it boasts of real quality ingredients. That’s something which I can’t afford!

About OKO Plus:

Voted “Best Buy Litter 2006″ and “Highly Commended Litter 2007/08″ by Your Cat magazine, Cat’s Best OkoPlus is the only wood based clump-forming, biodegradable eco cat litter on the market. Made from 100% pure organic fibre, it binds liquid and odour effectively inside the fibre and boasts up to 3 times higher yield than mineral-based cat litters. It is compostable and 100% biodegradable, and, depending on local disposal laws, can be disposed of safely via your toilet. 40 litre bag.

Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2012/03/04/litter-matters/

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