Cat issues

murfie

I am have trouble with one of our 2 cats, she is having litter box rejection and is pissing on clothes, bags etc that may be laying around. She will even jump into the laundry hamper and pee on the clothes in their.
We have tried a new litter maid litter box but its not keeping the litter clean enough that she feels ok to go in their.

I am looking at this cat genie self cleaning litter box, I wonder has anyone ever used it and can give me advice. Or please recommend alternatives. We have tried so hard to correct her but its getting to the point we may have to look for a new home for her as my wife and I have just begun trying for a child, cat pee and a pregnancy don't mix well together!!

Your help is greatly appreciated

Westwood

A quick question. do you live in a house/apartment with outdoor space and could install a catflap?

murfie

Right now we are in an apartment, our previous apartment we had an enclosed balcony area where we had 2 litter boxes, but if we let those get anyway dirty with pee and poop she would not use them. Right now we have the box in the laundry room and they have no outside access. its gotten to the stage where i need to clean it every day to keep her happy!

When we get a house I will let them out, with the hope they don't run away. This cat has been indoors all her life, but she was rescued in the wild as a kitten, she is feral cat, which may be the problem. The older cat is fully domesticated breed so goes in the litter no matter what.

PCros

Not to unusual to change the litter every day, alot cheaper than one of those machines that have to be near a water source.

murfie

well that just it, is it cheaper? and me not being a cat guy am getting sick of changing it every day! Who said cats were clean animals :rolleyes:

These are my wife's cats, but i am the litter box cleaner person!!

But the price is what i am trying to figure, with the extra for the self cleaning box does the self cleaning aspect of it offset the cost of normal litter and the cleaning every day?

i am leaning to the self cleaner as we have done everything else!!

Call me Socket

What type of litter are you using? Is it that grey stoney stuff that semi sets after getting wet?

PCros

Call me Socket wrote: »

What type of litter are you using? Is it that grey stoney stuff that semi sets after getting wet?

Yeah that stuff is rubbish turns into cement, I use the wood pellets, nice smell and they take in the pee and hide any odours.

Murfie..it only takes 2 minutes to change the litter. Cats are clean, they hide their business, can you imagine a dog in an apartment?
Where would you put that machine so its hooked up to water?

Call me Socket

PCros wrote: »

Yeah that stuff is rubbish turns into cement, I use the wood pellets, nice smell and they take in the pee and hide any odours.

Yeah that's why I asked...I wouldn't piss in that either, even if it was clean.
I used the wood pellets too....they're brilliant, soakage is excellent, and even when there's a few pees done it still smells nice. When it gets wet the pellets in that small area turn to sawdust- very easy to shovel it out. If both your cats are adults you'd want to be cleaning out the litter tray every day anyway. Just shovel out the wet sawdust, pick out the poo, shake the tray a bit, and it's like you've refilled it....clean, still full of pellets, and smelling good!

murfie

thats interesting, ya we are using the grey litter, arm and hammer is the brand. But your right if its wet enough it does turn into cement!!! Thats what is annoying me really and is what is stopping the automatic scooper from racking the litter. Wood pellets you say, i will look for them in the supermarket today, might change and see how they like it.

PCros

murfie wrote: »

thats interesting, ya we are using the grey litter, arm and hammer is the brand. But your right if its wet enough it does turn into cement!!! Thats what is annoying me really and is what is stopping the automatic scooper from racking the litter. Wood pellets you say, i will look for them in the supermarket today, might change and see how they like it.

Cool. Make sure you get the big 30kg or 40kg bags, cheaper and last ages. You might not get them in the supermarket, I get mine in Atlantic Homecare or in a pet store if there is one nearby.
Good luck!

Call me Socket

PCros wrote: »

Cool. Make sure you get the big 30kg or 40kg bags, cheaper and last ages. You might not get them in the supermarket, I get mine in Atlantic Homecare or in a pet store if there is one nearby.
Good luck!

Ditto... You won't get them in a supermarket. I got mine in a petstore, they only had the very large sack of it, about E17 if I remember correctly... It lasted a month, and I had 5 kittens and their mother using it

Call me Socket

Just realised I'd some left and had a look in the shed....
It's a sack, 30 litres, E19.50, and the brand is Beauticat. The pic on the sack is a cartoony drawing of a cat and a house and stickmen kids....colourful.

Blueprint

Have you had her checked for urinary tract infections? A lot of cases of cats having litter box issues are caused by UTIs and they don't necessarily show any symptoms apart from the inappropriate peeing. My younger female was suffering with this before and was peeing places like the dog's bed.

MsFifers

I hated the wood pellets when I and my cats lived in an apartment. The sawdust stuck to their fur and got absolutely everywhere. I also didn't find that it masked the smell as well as the clumping litters.

When you say you don't like cleaning the litter tray - do you mean scooping it out, or actually changing the whole thing and washing out the tray?

I would have to scoop out their trays 2 or 3 times a day - you wouldn't want to walk over pee and poo in your bare feet so we cant expect our cats to either!

You shouldn't need to wash and empty the tray more than once a week I would think. Its possible your cat is just upset about not being able to go outside anymore. Could it get to sit on a window ledge or anything? Mine used to love to spend their time sitting on the ledge looking at the world go by.

The other thing is maybe it doesn't like where the tray is positioned. Can you try leaving it somewhere else more convenient for it, and see if that helps?

bunyip123

Agree with an earlier post, sounds like it could be a UTI, particularly with a female. Easily solved too.

Does anyone else use plastic in the bottom of the tray? Sounds like you are all doing an awful lot of cleaning/washing. I know it costs a little maybe, but i put a plastic layer in the tray, then wood pellets, saves on all the mess and hassle, just fold it up and bung it out - and give the tray a rinse. no muck/pee embedded in tray.

PinkTulips

i switched to the wood pellet stuff ages ago too, the slightly higher cost is worth it. had to buy some clay stuff last week as the hardware store was out of wood pellet and i was damn near reduced to tears trying to clean the damn tray [vomit]

it stank, it solidified if even one cat used it and they left clay pee footprints all over the dining room [double vomit]

we buy pampuss locally, but am going to start ordering online as it's cheaper, try www.petconnection.ie.

i have 3 cats and have to scoop out 2/3 times daily, that takes about 2 mins or less. i don't really need to do full changes very often as the sawdusty stuff is so easily removed when you scoop and it doesn't stick to the sides of the tray.

none of mine will use it if it's in any way dirty (technically they should have a tray each but i have 2 toddlers and a baby and simply don't have enough child inaccessable areas to put trays for them..... we live in the middle of the countryside and the damn creatures should be going outside anyway!

can i just ask though, if the cat is your wife's and you're not even a cat person why are you the sole litter tray cleaner? my dp will take care of the cats if i'm not here, he'd never leave them hungry or with dirty litter but if i'm here they're mine to look after as i'm the crazy cat lady who keeps adopting them.... i'd never expect him to deal with them and he'd never offer to do it. i'd suggest you have a chat with your wife, if she's not looking after her cats now she certainly won't be inclined to when she has kids

The Sweeper

There's a product and concept down here called Oz-Pet. I'll describe it, and you can see if you can replicate it in your house.

You'll need a wood pellet litter - one that's not instantly absorbant, but does mask odours.

Go to the hardware store. Buy two plastic under-bed storage boxes - cheap ones, maybe six inches deep, but bigger than a normal litter tray. With the lids taken off, they should be stackable, so the top one will fit inside the bottom one, with an inch or two between the two bases.

Place one of the boxes on a surface like an old piece of wood. Carefully (slowly, with a narrow bit) drill as many holes as you can manage in the bottom of the plastic container without cracking the box (this is why you use a cheap one).

In the base of the intact box, sprinkle about a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda, and a handful of cat litter. Stack the 'sieve' box inside the intact box. Fill the 'sieve' box with wood pellet litter.

*The high sides and large area of the storage box will help stop your cat kicking litter out of the box, and prevent 'miss the box' accidents because it's a bigger space.
*When your cat pees, the pee will trickle through the litter, through the sieve holes and collect in the intact bottom box. It will be absorbed by the handful of litter in the bottom box, and the bicarb will nullify the smell.
*You will still need to scoop the poos - you don't want to leave these more than 24 hours or they WILL start to build up in the box.
*Every second day, shake the boxes - this will cause the 'sawdust' part of the wood pellet litter in the top tray to filter through to the bottom. Take the sieve tray out of the intact tray, rinse the intact tray and put another handful of litter and shake of bicarb in there. Re-stack the sieve tray and the trays are ready to go again.

There is no way around picking poo out of the cat litters regularly - no matter what expensive self-cleaning scheme you try. The best thing is to pick and flush away the poo the minute you hear scratching. But hell - I can't even be bothered doing that all the time myself, so I just try and make sure I poo pick the litters as often as I can. Having more litter trays and using the system above actually makes for less cleaning during the week - e.g. you can go 24-36 hours without picking a poo, and you can go eight or nine days even without having to totally change the litter trays.

The intact tray is simple to clean - as long as you don't put too much cat litter in it. Just tip pee and litter into the toilet and flush, then rinse with scalding water and wipe out with a piece of kitchen towel to dry.

Call me Socket

Wow! Brilliant!

Call me Socket

bunyip123 wrote: »

Does anyone else use plastic in the bottom of the tray? Sounds like you are all doing an awful lot of cleaning/washing. I know it costs a little maybe, but i put a plastic layer in the tray, then wood pellets, saves on all the mess and hassle, just fold it up and bung it out - and give the tray a rinse. no muck/pee embedded in tray.

I tried that more than a few times....they cats tore it to shreds when they were digging for the perfect peeing spot!!:rolleyes:

PinkTulips

that's brilliant MAJD! i'm so going to be using my limited diy skills to make one of those next weekend

i also tend to swoop down and scoop poo into the loo the second they're done scratching, i always regret it if i don't and the smell oozes around the house

Chiaki

i think we are avoiding the problem here! cats are clever, she knows she is meant to go in the cat litter. uti may be the problem, litter re-training or else (like my cat) she is annoyed and this is punishment for something.

PinkTulips

Chiaki wrote: »

i think we are avoiding the problem here! cats are clever, she knows she is meant to go in the cat litter. uti may be the problem, litter re-training or else (like my cat) she is annoyed and this is punishment for something.

yes, it's punishment for not cleaning the tray!

my 2 males do the same thing, if the tray is filthy they actively seek me out, make a paticular mowing noise for a few minutes and if i don't get up right there and then to clean the tray they **** on the floor in front of me! needless to say i've only twice made the mistake of not responding to that paticular miow :D

murfie

PinkTulips wrote: »

can i just ask though, if the cat is your wife's and you're not even a cat person why are you the sole litter tray cleaner? my dp will take care of the cats if i'm not here, he'd never leave them hungry or with dirty litter but if i'm here they're mine to look after as i'm the crazy cat lady who keeps adopting them.... i'd never expect him to deal with them and he'd never offer to do it. i'd suggest you have a chat with your wife, if she's not looking after her cats now she certainly won't be inclined to when she has kids

Ha, don't worry I do make it very clear that i don't like doing it, but she has a thing about the smell and gags when cleaning. I don't and trying to be a good husband I do this for her, we trade off, she does all the laundry!!

But thanks for all the fantastic suggestions, I will try the saw dust/pellets option as that seems to be the most effective. I didn't see them in the supermarket this weekend but i will try the pet stores during the week.

I am primarily a dog guy, but the cats we have, have grown on me and are very sweet. We nearly had another feline addition last night, my wife and her sister found a less than 2 week old kitten on a walk last night! :eek:
I said no way are we keeping it!! 2 cats and a dog are enough, but it was very cute, light grey and white patches!! I nearly backed down!!! Her sister took it home........phew!