Purrs In Our Hearts - Cat Forum UK
Cat General => General Cat Chat => Topic started by: Gillian Harvey on November 08, 2010, 19:09:50 PM
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I used to use this years ago, but then preferred clumping, but just thought I'd try it again (the cats love never knowing what cat litter they will be finding in their trays LOL! :evillaugh: )
Anyway, I'm finding it turns to sawdust much quicker than I remember (might just be my memory playing tricks on me - was a long time ago!) I had a similar number of cats when I used it before, so its not that there are more cats using it. So, do you reckon all wood pellet cat litters are the same, or do they vary and are there one's that don't just turn to sawdust after one or two little wees?!!! ;)
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I used it when I first got Tilly because it was what she was used to but found it turned to sawdust very quickly I used to do a full change every couple of days
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They vary incredibly!
The best one I think is Smartcat and my pet shop order it for me. The onlty problem I am finding is that the old pellet size has become bigger and fatter and not so good for little paws.
The time before last I had two large bags with the old size so thought they had finally gone back but last order of 3 bags are all larger pellets again.
I cover it with some Morrisons pellets, which do turn to saw dust immediately but works better under paw and dont use so much of Smartcat.
Smartcat is sold as being different to all other wood based pellets as being made from wood flour and it certainly works better and have been using it about 15 yrs! I think since it first came out.
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I used it once and it turned to sawdust straight away so ended up being incredibly expensive as I was throwing away lots of fresh pellets while trying to scoop out the dust and ended up fully cleaning the tray every couple of days. The one I used was Bob Martin I think, from ASDA and it came in a brown paper bag.
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I always used to find I had a lot of waste with it. Tried the recycled paper pellets which were a bit better but still quite a lot of waste. I'm now using Cats Best Oko Plus Cat Litter which is made from 100% organic fibres, it clumps very well and there is hardly any wastage at all :D
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Smartcat is sold as being different to all other wood based pellets as being made from wood flour and it certainly works better and have been using it about 15 yrs! I think since it first came out.
Ah, thats interesting, think that was the one I used to use, maybe I'll give that one a go, or maybe I'll just go back to chick crumbs......oh I don't know, I keep changing my mind as to whats best. I like Cats Best and I use that for all the foster cats, but I can't use in the house because of the tracking, Cats Best Gold is better on the tracking front, but I have to order that specially from the pet shop, or get it online, and I like to just go into pet shop and pick up what I want.
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Do you have a Jollyes near you (is Chippenham close by?) If so they do Cats Best Natures Gold in Jollyes so no need to order it in.
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We use Smartcat in 24 litter trays and I only use 1 - 30litre bag a week - I only just cover the bottom of the trays and scoop at least 4 times a day and I do sieve the stuff and have fab scoops it can take a bit of time but it is good stuff we have grey goose clumping, a couple of :rofl:paper and one mixed lot including compost as Riley feral still won't go near a tray unless it has compost in it fortunately the others don't like to get their paws dirty :shocked:
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Do you have a Jollyes near you (is Chippenham close by?) If so they do Cats Best Natures Gold in Jollyes so no need to order it in.
Yep, my Jollyes is the Chippenham one, but ours doenst do CB Gold only the normal Cats Best unfortunately :( , well it didnt last time I went, but that was some months ago now.
We use Smartcat in 24 litter trays and I only use 1 - 30litre bag a week - I only just cover the bottom of the trays and scoop at least 4 times a day and I do sieve the stuff and have fab scoops it can take a bit of time but it is good stuff we have grey goose clumping, a couple of :rofl:paper and one mixed lot including compost as Riley feral still won't go near a tray unless it has compost in it fortunately the others don't like to get their paws dirty :shocked:
Do you use just an ordinary kitchen sieve? what scoops do you use? I use just an ordinary large metal serving type spoon for scooping. Where do you put all your trays?
All my trays are in my understairs walk in larder cupboard in the kitchen, but I've got a bit fed up of banging my head on the ceiling every time I stand up from doing the trays LOL! so looking for new locations - but not got much choice really! I would love a dedicated 'cat room' where all the litter trays could go with plenty of space between them and room to store litter, food etc etc, oh well keep dreaming!
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Gillian ours have the downstairs study with 12 grit boxes and a kitten pen, Miss Skye from Sunny Harbours has hers in the ensuite bathroom she has to herself with attached bedroom, 5 in the family room, 2 in the upstairs study, 1 in our bedroom - its used as jump point to the shelving unit to the top of the wardrobe, 4 in the cat room downstairs, one in the kitchen a corner one and 2 in the downstairs toilet
I will take a piccie of the scoops and post as we use 2 sorts and they both work just depends on how my RSI is as I tend to drop the lighter one on bad days making the litter travel further for clean up :rofl:
We have open, high side covered and various other sorts, the kittens love the corner ones currently :shocked:
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I use a litter scoop thingy that has holes in but separate the used litter from the unused. Have to scoop trays a number of times a day cos birmans will not use the tray after its been used....sigh.
I also only cover the bottom and a 30 litre bag lasts about 2 weeks, sounds like Liz takes a lot more care than me LOL and I am not gonna seive and stuff cos spend enough time already :innocent:
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We sieve as we have to take the litter to the tip for disposal and an extra five mins sieving can be a small saving on the pennies after all look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves:)
Its not cause we are living in Scotland if you know what I mean :hug:
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I use the Pets @ Home one & a full bag last's Daisy a month with a complete change every couple days.What I have done is put the litter box into a large,sturdy cardboard box like the one's cabbages come in to keep the litter & mess inside.
Plus it gives Daisy something to clean her claws on!
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:rofl: :rofl: I know exactly what you mean lol
It takes me so long to get up and go to bed that I dont have any spare 5 mins and litter trays are a total pain especially when having to keep cleaning up after Misters Piddlepants Birman when decide they wont use the tray!
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I use PaH woodchip litter too - it smells nice but it does turn to sawdust fairly quickly. However, I love the fact that it's flushable cos the litter tray is conveniently next to our toilet.
I also have a litter mat http://www.petsathome.com/shop/litter-mat-by-pets-at-home-15239 (http://www.petsathome.com/shop/litter-mat-by-pets-at-home-15239) which is really useful!
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We sieve as we have to take the litter to the tip for disposal and an extra five mins sieving can be a small saving on the pennies after all look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves:)
Its not cause we are living in Scotland if you know what I mean :hug:
It never occurred to me that you'd have issues disposing of all the litter! :doh: I like OkoPlus cos it's quick to scoop, and clumps all go down the toilet to be composted so relatively eco-friendly. Would imagine your brood could block a whole army barracks worth of toilets! :rofl:
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We have a septic tank so no flushing of litter in our last house we flushed all the sawdust litter - oh sometimes I miss being connected to the main sewer till I see what we save on our Council tax and the septic tank is only emptied every 3 years ;D
We also recycle our litter in the garden skip at our local tip so its a win win for us ;D
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We have a septic tank so no flushing of litter in our last house we flushed all the sawdust litter - oh sometimes I miss being connected to the main sewer till I see what we save on our Council tax and the septic tank is only emptied every 3 years ;D
We also recycle our litter in the garden skip at our local tip so its a win win for us ;D
;D Your set up sounds way more eco-friendly than the average household! Our council are :censored: : despite the law obliging ALL councils to provide recycling collection for ALL households, we have two small dumpsters for ALL the waste from fifteen flats. ALL that waste goes to landfill, other than what is eaten by rats or rummaged through by vagrants. :censored:
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I bought some Cats Best Oko Plus Cat Litter at the weekend but I can't bear the tracking - the stuff got everywhere! - so I've gone back to wood pellets. Apart from the tracking though, it seems quite nice - clumps well and is flushable.
However, I now have most of a bag left and I don't want to throw it away - would anyone local (Kent) like it? Maybe one of the rescues?
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For me the low wastage far outweighs the tracking...but I guess it depends on where your trays are.
Wish I was local to kent as I am using it for my rescue kittens as well as my own three. Hopefully someone nearby will be able to make use of it. Even if its a rescue not on here :)
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I use wood pellets cat litter either morrisons or PaH. I don`t scoop the litter I found it easier to use disposable gloves and nappy sacks to dispose of the poo. I then dispose of it it the dog poop bin 2oo yards from the house. Well it gets emptied about every day
andrewina
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was it oko gold? I thought that didn't track too badly
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Not Gold, this one: http://www.petsathome.com/shop/clumping-okoplus-wood-pellet-cat-litter-10ltr-by-cat-s-best-15263 (http://www.petsathome.com/shop/clumping-okoplus-wood-pellet-cat-litter-10ltr-by-cat-s-best-15263)
It's odd - I put it down on Saturday and the following day there was just a little scattered in the bathroom but when I got home on Tuesday, the stuff was everywhere!
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I used to use that one but went over to gold, it clumps the same but the bits are bigger so they don't follow the cats all over the house lol!
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My two have Friendly Natural from Friendship Estates at present. It has a nice minty smell. I get it from the feed merchant where I buy horse and chicken stuff.
I've tried a few other wood based ones but they seem incredibly expensive and as you say go to dust, yellowish and not nice.
For short hair cats baled white wood shavings are pretty good and very cheap to use. A bale costs about £6.00 and lasts for weeks, but it does tend to walk a bit.
There's no perfect answer is there? I try to encourage them to go out after meal times and visit the bottom of the hedge!
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I've tried all the different sorts of litters going (inc Catsan) and I actually think wood pellets are the best for absorbing and smells. Yes, they do turn into sawdust once moist but sawdust is an excellent absorber so it's all good as far an I'm concerned. And it's so cheap too!
All of the dust does get the kitchen floor a bit mucky but my beloved handheld DustBuster takes good care of that!
S.
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I used to use wood pellet cat litter but my oldie decided that it was a no go after getting a water infection and would urinate outside the litter tray rather than use the wood based cat litter, by pure chance the place where I got it had run out so got a bag of Sophisticat Antibacterial for only 59p more than I was paying for the wood based and there has been no problems since of urination outside the litter tray.
When I mentioned it to Vicky she suggested that she may have associated the wood based litter with the pain of urination and have tried a couple of times to go back to wood based and she will not under any circumstances urinate in it so have decided to stay with the Sophisticat litter which does trail less than the wood based and absorbs the smell more.
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I never got around to trying this stuff - we've stuck with OkoPlus - but it did sound interesting and there may be a stockist in your area
http://www.friendshipestates.co.uk/vmchk/friendly-natural-cat-litter/view-all-products.html
A quick Google and someone says it is not dusty :wow:
http://forum.caithness.org/archive/index.php/t-70047.html
Some positive reviews mentioning lack of dust on their own site (although may be cherry-picked)
http://www.friendshipestates.co.uk/pet-product-reviews/reviews-of-friendly-natural-cat-litter.html
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That's the one I mention in my post above.
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I used to use the Smartcat one when we had Uncle M as he really liked it- I loved the smell of it too, and definitely found it didn't turn to sawdust as quickly as other wood pellet litters I had tried. The Munchkin prefers the Smartcat paper-based one (on the odd occasions he uses his tray).