Cost effective cat litter
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Cost effective cat litter
| Thu, 10-21-2004 - 8:46am |
Hi Everyone,
DH and I just adopted our 4th cat. I posted here about introductions and things are going pretty well.
We now have 3 litter boxes but I still use disposable litter. How many of you use clumping litter and does it pay off with multiple cats? I'm afraid to make the initial investment and end up going back to disposable. I also don't know if this would work for me as I use box liners. Would I end up just not needing those?
Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom.
Renee'

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I think the scooping litter is less expensive in the long run than the disposable.
I think the clumping liter may be cheaper or almost as cheap in the long run, as others said, b/c you're not emptying it out all the time & constantly buying more. It is more expensive to buy. I can see from the responses that other folks are going to say "Eww!" to me, but I never empty mine completely. I haven't for quite a few years, & it seems to work fine for me & my furkids. You'll need to experiment to find the best one for your kids. I understand that it varies w/your cats' pH. I believe that, since different people swear that different brands clump better. I went through a bunch of brands that didn't clump very well for me, until I settled on Arm & Hammer. Don't settle til you find one that clumps HARD & completely. I don't think the liners would matter either way.
I think Leslie's idea of trying it in 1 box is an excellent idea. See if your kids come to prefer it, or at least use it as much as the others. Be aware that it takes a little time for the pee to clump. You can't scoop it immediately after your cat pees. A lot of us have said before that our cats line up to use the box right after we clean it. LOL. I now prefer that to their using it just as I'm about to clean it, 'cause then I have to wait. LOL.
Katz
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I can't really tell you what to do, since all cats are different, but I can tell you what worked great for me.
Have you considered a mix of the regular cat litter and the clumping stuff? Put a shallow layer of the regular clay stuff on the bottom, then cover it with a slightly deeper layer of the clumping litter, and let the cats mix it up as they scratch. (And the key, with any amount of clumping cat litter is DON'T try to cheap out and try for shallow coverage -- it just sticks to the bottom and doesn't do much for anybody. Much more expensive that way. Use a minimum of three inches in the pan.) That way, you still get scoopable clumps (though not quite as hard as some people prefer) but you're not using only the expensive stuff. I've found this costs less than using clumping stuff by itself, and it cuts WAY down on the smell over the regular litter. You probably wouldn't need to use the liners at all, just clean the whole thing out as needed.
By the way, if you want to try it out as inexpensively as possible, you might try the Special Kitty brand clumping litter from Wal-Mart as a first time thing. It's something like $5 for 30 lbs, so it's not like you'd be throwing money away for something that might not work. And if you and your kittens like the experience, then you can shop around for the more expensive stuff if you want to.
Penelope
I run a Family daycare also. I am a nanny school graduate and after nannying for 7 years I opened up a Family Daycare. I have been doing the daycare for 8 years now.
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