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What are your favorite (and most effective) types and practices with kitty litter that you have found?

I use multiple different types and mix them together depending on which cat is going to be using the box. I also have one of those Breeze boxes from Tidy Cat (I got it for free) and it works surprisingly well.

Do you do anything out of the ordinary to keep your house/catbox smelling fresh?

I have covered litterboxes with the swinging doors and I swear by the extruded pine kitty litters (Feline Pine and the generic brands). I tried the clay ones and the crystal ones, and the litterbox always stank - even right after I scooped it it still smelled bad and I was cleaning the boxes at least twice a day.

With the pine stuff I clean the litterbox every few days and the only time it smells at all is right after there's a fresh poop that wasn't properly buried or if they've been peeing a lot - a very faint wet pine smell happens, which isn't unpleasant.

The pine pellets just break up when they get moist but the sawdust and any poops dry out really nice and quick.

They don't like it as much as the softer litters just as far as feel on the paws. I did a trial run with one box of pine and one box of Swheat Scoop, which they liked to dig in but which stayed sticky and wet when peed on and got tracked everywhere. The odour control wasn't bad, but there was always a faint lingering smell of wheat and waste, which was kind of nauseating... both sweet and grainy and disgusting. When we had both litterboxes they usually chose the Swheat Scoop one.

Yeah that's my only beef with the pine pellet litter. If I buy another litter box I will be looking at the ones with a built in sifter. Right now, I scoop out the poops, push all the litter to one side of the box and then sift the sawdust into the other side of the box and put the good pellets into a plastic bag. Then I dump the box full of sawdust into the trash and dump the bag of pellets back into the box. It's a little annoying but not too bad.

I'm also mildly concerned about phenols since there's been at least one study that shows that heat processing doesn't remove all the phenols and exposure to them can cause respiratory problems and elevated liver enzymes. However, this study was done on pet rodents, who are in their cage with their litter all day every day, where as cats spend no more than a few minutes in the litterbox per day, so I'm not overly concerned, as I haven't heard of any studies showing heat-treated pine litter is actually harmful to cats, and I figure it has to be better for them than breathing in a lot of clay dust (plus the odour and environmental benefits) so I won't be changing my litter any time soon.

The whole pregnant + toxoplasmosis thing has really been blown out of proportion. First, it's unlikely that your cat is carrying toxo to begin with - they would have had to pick it up from a contaminated source. Second, even if your cat is a carrier of toxo, unless you actually get cat feces in your mouth you're pretty much safe. I'm not even sure if there are any documented cases of pregnant women contracting toxo from their cats.

As long as you thoroughly wash your hands after cleaning the litter box (and we all do that anyway right? whee ) you really don't have much to worry about. You're much more likely to contract toxo from under cooked meat. (More info: http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_care/pregnancy_and_toxoplasmosis.html )


Hmm... finding an more environmentally friendly litter when you have a picky cat could be a real challenge. Have you tried Yesterday's News? It's soft, small pellets of recycled paper.