How many litter boxes does your cat need?

[bgirl29]

I was going to say that on our noon news the other day they had a vet on that said you should have one litter box for each cat plus one extra. So ppiglet I cannot imagine where you would put all of those boxes either.

 

[Kitty 34]

We have 4 cats but we trained them to ask to go outside to go potty. They really hate it when it's zero degrees out but they still go out. We have a thicket right behind the house where they find spots to go.

 

[DVCLiz]

I have the Litter Robot and it is the best invention ever!!! I don't ever actually "scoop" the box because it cleans itself by rotating and emptying into a container under the box. I "change" the liner bag every few days - there's not enough odor to bother me or even make me notice it until a few days have gone by.

 

[Rora]

We have 2 kitties and they share 1 litterbox.. Thankfully we haven't had any trouble!

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Imzadi - how old was your cat when she was taken away from her momma? I've noticed the not-covering-poop thing seems to be related to kittens who didn't have momma kitties to teach them this bit of information.

We have one non-poop coverer in a cat who came to us as an adult. The kittens we've taken in have had big cats to teach them, even if their momma didn't. . .

Something that works fairly well in my house to keep cats away from areas they've started peeing in is double sided carpet tape. It's a pain to lay down, but cats hate it. (And on the plus side, it's really funny, in a mean way, to watch a cat get double sided tape on his/her paw. . .we usually intervene as soon as we can stop if we're home. . .I have come home to tape in a sticky wad and a cat hiding under the bed, however. At this stage in the game though, our cats SEE double sided tape and make a wide berth around the tape.)

 

[OK!]

That is one spoiled kitty!! You cover her poo???

I have to cover the poo, too, or the smell will all but blast me out of the house. Ugh.

 

[dolphinrescuegirl]

Get a litter robot. It is $300 but it is so worth it!!!!!! My cat started pooing outside her box as well but the robot solved that problem. Missy doesn't cover her poop either and the robot completely revolves so there is no rake to get messed up. I used to have a rake one and it broke and quit working cause of her. I gurantee this! http://www.litter-robot.com/

 

[SpecialK]

We have one cat and two boxes - a regular one in the mstr. bath and an automatic in the basement. I scoop the regular one at least once a day and she still uses both. I got the Littermaid with the plastic tynes, not metal, and it works great.

**Our cat only stops covering her poop when the whole litter box needs to be dumped and cleaned.

 

[DisneyMissy318]

We have 4 cats but we trained them to ask to go outside to go potty. They really hate it when it's zero degrees out but they still go out. We have a thicket right behind the house where they find spots to go.

Us too! People are amazed when we say we don't have a litter box. We live in a rural area - we have a doggie door and the cats let themselves in and out. I not having to worry about the litterbox! No 50 lb. bags of litter to schlep... definitely liberating!

 

[MomofKatie]

My kitty, aka..."The Boss"... was a feral cat for a year and a half. I found him, had him neutered, which he still hasn't forgiven me for, btw, and took him to the groomer. (That's a whole crazy story in itself...lol). He started using the litterbox right away without problem. I bought him an automatic litter box, never had one single mishap. A YEAR LATER...my MIL brings her dog with her for a visit. This was just this past Christmas. My kitty started peeing in my favorite chair!!! The one where I sit and pet him. Then he started pooping in it. He also pooped in a box I had on the KITCHEN TABLE He's always been kind of moody, so when he stared to want me to hold him all the time, I figured something was up. Prior to this, as you cat owners know, I was considered "Staff"...not "mommy"...lol. So, The Boss, who is NEVER allowed outside got fleas from the dog so bad that he was in distress. I took him to the vet, and the vet said he was very allergic and was miserable. Also, he had been eating the fleas and gotten tape worms. He had lost about a pound. Well, she gave him 2 pills and a shot of cortisone, along with some flea protection that lasts 2 months, and he seems to be better. I started putting his litterbox in the room where my chair is and slowly moved it over the course of about a week back to it's original spot. Well, it was working fabulousy. No accidents, happy kitty. Then BAM! He peed in my chair twice in 2 days. I always clean the chair as well as I can. I spray it until it is soaked with ODOBAN, and even tried cayenne pepper, suggested by the vet, to get him to stay away from my chair. No go. Now I have to throw away my chair, and dh is mad, and I just want him to go back to being trustworthy again. The vet says he's all better. He just "prefers" my chair now. I put tinfoil with sticky tape on it every night and he seems to leave it alone. Dare I hope he goes back to his original potty habits? I'd like to keep the cat AND my dh...lol.

Try a product called Feliway. It comes in a spray or as a diffuser (like Wallflowers) that you plug into the wall. It is a pheremone spray that gives cats a "mellow, we feel calm and happy" feeling. It can be used for nervous cats, multi cat households where the kitties don't tolerate each other well, introducing new cats into a household, and inappropriate urinating/spraying. Cats won't go where Feliway is sprayed. We get it from Amazon.com, but our local PetSmart has it, and our vet sells it, too.

We use the diffusers, one upstairs and one downstairs, for our 3 cats. They didn't get along too well- lots of growling, hissing, and swiping at each other- but after a week of the Feliway, they are actually grooming each other calmly! They probably won't ever be best friends, but they can now co-exist peacefully.

My mom used Feliway when her male began spraying in the corners. He saw a stray outside, and got all territorial. After a month or so of using the Feliway, he never sprayed again.

As for the litter boxes- we have 3 cats, 3 litter boxes. They are all within a few feet of each other in our master bath. I scoop once a day, and they all have really good bathroom habits, thank goodness. We do have one non-coverer, but the other 2 seem to come along behind him and cover it for him!!

 

[Scornelius]

From what I've read, those automatic boxes only work if the cat covers their poo. Otherwise, you get poo stuck all over the rake.

If you use the crystal litter, there should be no problem. We have an automatic litter box that DH bought when I got pregnant, and it's the best $150 we ever spent. There's a time delay of 20 minutes after the cat leaves the box, and that gives enough time to absorb the moisture from the poop before the rake pushes it all into the little box. I haven't had even a whiff of feline waste products in over 7 months!!

We also have 2 cats, and have never had any issue at all with pooping outside the box.

 

[Imzadi]

Imzadi - how old was your cat when she was taken away from her momma? I've noticed the not-covering-poop thing seems to be related to kittens who didn't have momma kitties to teach them this bit of information.

I'm not sure if that is the problem although I got her from the pound when she was 12 weeks old. She didn't even know what kitty litter was. She played in it until I took her paws and did the scratching motion until she caught on.

She does know how to cover. But, she will only cover her poo if the litter is brand spanking new & freshly poured. Then she's digging in the box for several minutes, covering nicely. So she does know how. But, once the litter is used twice, she will never cover again, even if I scoop & pour in fresh litter on top & mix it in.

I guess I can't blame her, I wouldn't want to dip my paw into urine soaked litter, even if it had been scooped out. I just cant afford to be dumping all the litter after two uses. I tried both putting in inches of litter so she'd have enormous amounts to dig and cover, (didn't work,) to using as little little as possible as she won't cover, and adding on more after each use.

I did realise one thing last night. Sometimes, she will poo, then jump out of the box and start pawing the ground next to the box. Then she'd look back and see if the poo was covered.

Umm, no, you have to be IN the box and actually scratching the litter for it to cover. She'd always scratch some more, but didn't seem to get that correlation. (Again, she does it fine when the litter is new.) Finally, she'd give up, and meow to tell me to cover.

Last night, I realized, I had placed the new box in the spot she'd been scratching. She did cover reasonably well last nite. Although it was new litter, too.

Maybe all this time she just needed a longer box and more space to scratch? It only took 6 years to figure this out. I might switch to one of those plastic, under the bed storage boxes as they are longer. But I don't think I can find white plastic trash bags long enough to use for liners. Right now, I'm using the tall kitchen bags, and they just fit enclosing each box. I don't want to go changing things up too much, so that a different problem is created and she won't use the box at all.

 

[Otto's Doll]

Another vote for the Litter Robot here - actually 6 votes! We have 6 cats and have had the litterrobot for 4 years - no problems at all. I take it apart once or twice a year to clean it all out and sanitize it. Best invention ever!

 

[MickeyMouseGal]

Is it a covered box? The odor is much stronger inside of the box and many cats don't like that. Try an underbed storage box. They are bigger and give the cat more room to get out of their waste. Some cats don't like a change of litter because of different textures/perfumes. If the brand or type of litter you use was changed recently, change it back.

Cats are bad about having negative aversions to things. If she has recently had a painful BM (due to colitis, diarrhea, constipation, etc.) she will 'blame' the box for the pain and be afraid to have a BM there because of it. So of course, the first step is to address the medical problem and then next to fix the behavioral aspect. Sometimes a new box in a different location will fix this. If not, some cats need to be retrained to use the box by confining them to a small area (bathroom, large dog crate, etc.) for a few days.

 

[brytorlyn]

That is what I like about the crystals....if you have to cover the poo anyways then why not just scoop it out. With the crystals the poo is flushable. We keep the litter box in the bathroom and we usually scoop and flush very promptly because as mentioned uncovered poo is terrible. The urine is neutralized by the crystals and so that controls odours.

It is a little more expensive but a bag lasts close to a month. We usually use a 1 1/2 bags since our litter box is large. This lasts around a month.

 

[klmall]

That Litter-Robot sounds wonderful but I can just see our 14 years old 'crazy' cats watching it move after they have used it and never wanting to go near it again. They dislike anything that moves or makes a noise.

We have two cats with 2 litter boxes of clumping litter in the basement. Once in awhile one of them will start going outside the box but I think it's when I've not scooped the box as often as I should. In our case, I think the offender is our nervous cat who also has a thyroid problem. Sometimes she waits to pee or poo outside the box to when I'm downstairs right there and can see her doing it. Aren't cats great communicators?

 

[Imzadi]

Is it a covered box? The odor is much stronger inside of the box and many cats don't like that.

Cats are bad about having negative aversions to things. If she has recently had a painful BM (due to colitis, diarrhea, constipation, etc.) she will 'blame' the box for the pain and be afraid to have a BM there because of it. So of course, the first step is to address the medical problem and then next to fix the behavioral aspect.

No cover but the box had one of those high snap on rims to keep the litter in. But I took off the rim when I added the other box. I figure maybe the rim was too high and comfining or it kept the smells in.

I was wondering too, if she had eaten something that didn't agree with her. I usually give her a partial can of Fancy Feast. She's allergic to fish and some of the flavors don't have fish as an ingredient. It's possible I might have accidentlally picked up a flavor with fish in it.

That is what I like about the crystals....if you have to cover the poo anyways then why not just scoop it out. With the crystals the poo is flushable.

I didn't know the crystals litter is flushable. Which brand do you have?

I go through grocery bags like crazy scooping out poo. Now that stores are going green & big on bringing your own bag, they aren't been double bagging like they used to. I'm running low on bags. It would be nice to flush the poo instead.

 

[OctMtnWoods]

Litter box is right near toilet and we use Tidy Cat scoopable (the blue one). Everytime I'm in the bathroom, I check the box. If there is poo, I flush it. Its fine since there is very little litter stuck to it anyway.

Any clumped liquid, I scoop to the corner of the litter box because kitty has eyesight trouble & would end up stepping in the clump & tracking the mess throughout the house. You don't want to be flushing large clumps like this down the toilet.

I kept one of the buckets & lids that the litter comes in. I line it with Walmart bags and its in the bathroom closet. At the end of the day, I scoop all the liquid clumps from the corner of the box and into the lined bucket and snap the lid back on. It does not smell at all. The litter does a great job with any odor. When the bag is full, I throw it all in the trash. I keep the bucket & lid & keep reusing it.

I've learned the hard way to just keep up with it everytime I'm in the bathroom or I have more work for myself cleaning up more locations.

 

[Imzadi]

I like your system. I use the red label, Tidy Cat Scoopable. That stuff gets so sludgey when it gets wet that I've been afraid to even flush the poo. I'll have to look & see how much poo realy gets stuck & if I can flush it here.

 

[OctMtnWoods]

Yeah, I found if I waited till the end of the day to just scoop the liquid clumps, then it had already wet all the way to the bottom and it was just a sludgy mess to deal with. This has been easier to take care of even though it means I'm doing it more times a day. On the otherhand, its most likely she pees more than a normal cat right now.