Post by Mitra on Feb 2, 2008 16:24:21 GMT -5
Most of you have herds of cows. I have a herd too, of cats.
I have 11 cats who live in the house. That sounds a lot worse than it is because for seven of them, living in the house means that they can access the basement through a cat door we put in. They are not otherwise "in the house". There are four with proper house privileges. When it's warm, they go outside. During that time of year (about 6 months) I spend part of each day as their "Doorman".
I share my office with the litter box for the four house cats. In the basement, I have three more litter boxes to service the seven who live there. When I didn't have other animals, I didn't notice how much I spent on cat litter. I still tried to buy "economical" clumping cat litter but really there is no such thing. Now that I have a lot more animals and there is competition for dollars for all the animals' upkeep, the litter had become a "situation". Not such a big deal in the summer but this winter with snow coming as early as it did, it became an issue.
Then I made an astounding discovery. Some of you may remember that before we had the barn we kept the baby piglets in our basement in a pig box my husband built in the corner. After the piglets were moved outside and we cleaned the pig box out, an area that's roughly 6' X 6', we filled it about 4 inches deep with pine shavings. It was a quick and easy way to de-pig the basement. A month went by and I noticed that in spite of the snow covered ground, I was not finding a lot of cat poop during my daily mining operations. This was puzzling. The basement smelled great and I was having to scoop a lot less. It turned out, they were all using the pig box as a giant litter box! For one month, they used it, pooping and peeing without ANY smell! We cleaned out the pig box and were astounded at how many cat poops there were in there! We sealed off the box and then filled each of the three litter boxes with pine shavings. A bale of pine shavings costs $5.00 here (less than one box of clumping cat litter which I was buying three at a time) and will last... I don't know, a month later and I still have more than half a bale of shavings left. There is no scooping. I just dump the entire box into the woods and put fresh shavings in it once a week!
I have been tortured by this litter box in my office for years! My daughter and I scoop it daily, sometimes twice just to be able to work at the computer. It's got pine shavings in it now too and there is ZERO smell and it also only gets dumped once a week. The problem is that I haven't figured out a way to keep the shavings contained to the litter box. Not a big deal in the basement but in my office across the carpet...... Every time a cat exits the litter box (the hooded/domed kind) a trail of shavings is left behind. Maybe an AstroTurf welcome mat or something will be the answer. For now I'm happy to vacuum up the shavings. I'd rather make a few swipes with the vacuum than to scoop any day.
I noticed at the store that there's a new scoopable cat litter made from pine saw dust. It's quite expensive but I'm sure it works if my experience with the shavings is any indication. I'm just thrilled to have discovered that the pine shavings I've been using for chickens, pigs and cows, can also be used for the cats so effectively and economically.
I have 11 cats who live in the house. That sounds a lot worse than it is because for seven of them, living in the house means that they can access the basement through a cat door we put in. They are not otherwise "in the house". There are four with proper house privileges. When it's warm, they go outside. During that time of year (about 6 months) I spend part of each day as their "Doorman".
I share my office with the litter box for the four house cats. In the basement, I have three more litter boxes to service the seven who live there. When I didn't have other animals, I didn't notice how much I spent on cat litter. I still tried to buy "economical" clumping cat litter but really there is no such thing. Now that I have a lot more animals and there is competition for dollars for all the animals' upkeep, the litter had become a "situation". Not such a big deal in the summer but this winter with snow coming as early as it did, it became an issue.
Then I made an astounding discovery. Some of you may remember that before we had the barn we kept the baby piglets in our basement in a pig box my husband built in the corner. After the piglets were moved outside and we cleaned the pig box out, an area that's roughly 6' X 6', we filled it about 4 inches deep with pine shavings. It was a quick and easy way to de-pig the basement. A month went by and I noticed that in spite of the snow covered ground, I was not finding a lot of cat poop during my daily mining operations. This was puzzling. The basement smelled great and I was having to scoop a lot less. It turned out, they were all using the pig box as a giant litter box! For one month, they used it, pooping and peeing without ANY smell! We cleaned out the pig box and were astounded at how many cat poops there were in there! We sealed off the box and then filled each of the three litter boxes with pine shavings. A bale of pine shavings costs $5.00 here (less than one box of clumping cat litter which I was buying three at a time) and will last... I don't know, a month later and I still have more than half a bale of shavings left. There is no scooping. I just dump the entire box into the woods and put fresh shavings in it once a week!
I have been tortured by this litter box in my office for years! My daughter and I scoop it daily, sometimes twice just to be able to work at the computer. It's got pine shavings in it now too and there is ZERO smell and it also only gets dumped once a week. The problem is that I haven't figured out a way to keep the shavings contained to the litter box. Not a big deal in the basement but in my office across the carpet...... Every time a cat exits the litter box (the hooded/domed kind) a trail of shavings is left behind. Maybe an AstroTurf welcome mat or something will be the answer. For now I'm happy to vacuum up the shavings. I'd rather make a few swipes with the vacuum than to scoop any day.
I noticed at the store that there's a new scoopable cat litter made from pine saw dust. It's quite expensive but I'm sure it works if my experience with the shavings is any indication. I'm just thrilled to have discovered that the pine shavings I've been using for chickens, pigs and cows, can also be used for the cats so effectively and economically.