3 cats but one isnt using Cat litter

Headshot

Hi All.

Kinda new to the cats care game. I have 2 females and 1 male. They are around 4-5 months old kittens, they are the apple of my eye however the the male is driving me nuts that he doesn't use the cat litter.

When the kittens came first they use just shredded paper in their litter box as just a temporary solution and the male cat had no issues with that but I get World's Best Cat Litter

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009ZUGJEW/ref%3Dppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And the females take it to it without any issues, really impressed with them and the cat litter is superb but the male cat nope not a chance, it's infuriating.

I'm wondering should I give pellets a go, would that be a good equivalent to shredded paper?

Is there anyway I could even get the male cat to use Worlds best cat litter?

taylor3

I have 2 cats myself. At the very beginning I had 2 from the same litter one male and one female. The male was wrecking my head peeing everywhere even on the sofa !!!! The female was absolutely fine, no issues. I buy the wood pellet cat litter and find that works well. I had to physically pick up the male cat place him in the litter tray and take one leg/paw in my hand and imitate the litter shuffle thing that they do themselves when they use the litter tray. I found that helped. Long story short he went missing and never returned (this was 10 years ago) I replaced him with another female cat and she too has no issues using the litter tray. Maybe it's a male cat thing, I don't know. Hopefully other cat people have some helpful tips. Good luck with them. I know cats can be fussy.

Headshot

Hmm so interesting one.

If I physically pickup the male kitten and try to introduce him to the cat litter but he goes nuts and refuses to put one paw in the litter box unless I force it, would that point towards he's never going to use it?

Faith

Cats are picky creatures. My cat point blank refused to use World's Best cat litter. He likes the wood pellets and after wasting a fortune on trying to change litters without success, we just went with his preference. If your male cat isn't using the litter and won't even stand in it, he's being quite clear in his communications! Cats do us a favour by using litter trays, so he's unlikely to yield further by suddenly using a litter he hates. Meet him in the middle with this one.

Try another litter, like wood pellets or you could try Breeder Celect, which is made from recycled paper: https://www.petstop.ie/collections/cat-cat-litter-litter-trays/products/breedercelect-cat-litter?variant=42491253391580

Also, make sure you have enough litter trays! Many cats don't like to share trays. The rule of thumb is one litter tray per cat and one extra, so you should have 4 litter trays for 3 cats.

We use Cat's Best and its great, but if your cat doesn't like it, Breeder Celect is very good too.

Headshot

Just to update the thread, I'm delighted the male is finally trained in using the cat litter box

I started off with a litter box with just paper and he started using this and gradually over time I started replacing the paper with this:

https://www.maxizoo.ie/p/cats-best-original-43-kg-1103723/

and now here we are and no more paper and using using the Cat's Best Original

I also found it's important to praise and treat the cat after using the litter box, this really helped in getting use to the litter box I found.

Graces7

My two (newish) island strays have never used a box and one had never been indoors before, but they uses one spot on the lino well away from anything they can damage. Easy to clean up. Just now out here the weather is too bad to expect them to head outside. And no carpets or rugs etc. I think it is where they go that matters as mine have never abused a chair or my bed etc.. When the weather eases I will try paper etc again and on from there. I am home 24/7 so it is easy for me to know..