Kitty Litter

Anyone who has cats, especially indoor cats, knows about cat litter. And everybody has their preference, but really, which ones are best?

Clay, clumping, recycled newspaper, saw dust pellets, rabbit food… rabbit food? Yes, rabbit food. That’s what we use at the veterinary clinic I work at. It works a lot like the pine saw dust pellets we use in our house but doesn’t have the odor absorbency found in a majority of other cat litters. So although it’s the cheapest option when purchased in the fifty pound bags at the feed store, it may only be good for people who change their feline friends’s litter out daily. However, like newspaper and pine dust pellets, the fecal removed litter is compostable.

The most commonly used litter, clay, is also the heaviest and grossest to deal with. It’s difficult to clean out the litter box and generates a massive amount of dust, even the so-called reduced dust formulas puff a cloud of clay when poured into the litter box. I may be biased on this, but past experience, and the fact that this is my blog and my opinion, has led me to realize this is probably the worst option of those on the market in terms of the health of your cat and yourself.

Clumping litters have a lot of benefits, as it clumps both urine and fecal matter, making it easy to scoop daily and keep a clean litter box. However, those small particles end up between your kitty’s toes and they track it all over. Fortunately they’re small and easily vacuumed or swept away, but still, with it stuck on your cat and the fact that cat’s groom their entire bodies, they’re also ingesting whatever chemicals are in the litter. I don’t know about you, but just thinking about a clumping litter being eaten by a cat makes me imagine a disastrous event in the making in terms of intestinal blockage if it clumps in the digestive tract.

Newspaper litter, basically pellets made from old newspapers. Okay, so, here’s my observation on newspaper pellets. I just can’t imagine that they are able to absorb odors very well. Have you ever wiped up a pet mess with paper towels? Not so great at making the stink go away and if you let it sit for a while the paper will start to dissolve. Wet paper in a litter box that smells of urine and not just any urine but cat urine which is like piss on steroids? Something tells me this is also for people who change out their litter daily. I’m not that ambitious.

Lastly I’m going to talk about pine sawdust litters. It seems that as far as absorbing, not just covering up, odors, it works extremely well. While yes, those pellets do dissolve into sawdust after liquid hits them, the natural odor control found in pine keeps the smell down. The downside is of course the sawdust, which, unfortunately, does track. However, I’d rather step on sawdust than the hard clay litter that also tracks. The good news is that the urine-soaked pine saw dust poses no health risks to yourself or your cats because the particles in the box are too heavy to float in the air and anything ingested by your cat is easily digested. Bonus in that it is compostable once any poop is removed. If you think that is gross, we also compost our chickens poop and the chemical compound in it that is perfect for helping break down everything into a nutrient-rich additive for the vegetable garden is ammonia. Anyone who’s cleaned out a litter box knows what ammonia smells like, which is what urine breaks down into. Ammonia breaks down compost-to-be and the added pine saw dust will simply be part of the final compost product. Of course, if you already compost chicken, rabbit, horse or sheep manure, you may not want to bother… unless, you want to save your garbage for non-recyclable and non-reusable waste. Then, by all means, compost the litter after tossing out the poop.

If it isn’t obvious, I’m a bit biased towards the pine sawdust pellet kitty litter. Not only is it the most odor absorbing litter I’ve ever used, but it is the longest lasting litter I’ve come across too, making the higher price actually become the most cost effective.