Clumping Kitty Litter

[LostAngeles]

http://www.thelighthouseonline.com/marina/articles/clump.html

As it wasn't an article by any kind of veternarian, I was iffy about it but concerned as we have two brand new kittens and clumping litter. Then I came across the word "holisitic" and all my skeptical warning bells went into full goddamned swing.

Anyone with any veternarian knowledge able to tackle this article better? It really seems like woo the more I look it over.

[scribble]

Anecdotal, but I swear by the Arm & Hammer brand clumping litter. Doubly so now that I have an automatic catbox, which requires a clumping litter. All of my cats are in perfect health.

I might add, my most recently purchased kitten *loved* sleeping in the (freshly cleaned) litterbox, and would always hop in there after we'd change it. He cleams himself as much as any normal cat and we never noticed any problems. (He still loves to play in the litter box, but he doesn't lie down in it anymore)

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by LostAngeles
Anyone with any veternarian knowledge able to tackle this article better? It really seems like woo the more I look it over. All I can say is, I've never heard of this problem. Clay litter is widely used, and my feeling is that if it was producing intestinal obstructions in young kittens, the profession as a whole would have noticed, there would be papers about it in the regular journals, and great warning notices would be springing up all over the place.

As you say, the "holistic" credentials of the people doing the scaremongering do ring some warning bells.

I'm open to correction by someone who has come across reports of this, but I've seen plenty kittens trained successfully and healthily on clumping litter and it would never have occurred to me that it might not be safe.

Rolfe.

[rebecca]

I've studied both sides of the issue, and it seems to me like the answer is "dunno." The people selling alternative brands benefit from telling you clumping clay is bad, and the major brands have something to gain from telling you it's not. Some vets say they've never seen a link, some vets say there's an obvious link, particularly for some kittens and senior cats.

Everything else I can find on it is anecdotal: my cat used the clumping clay stuff and died, or my cat used it for years and is healthy.

As for me, I lost a fairly young male cat to a blockage and was told that it "just happens" sometimes in cats of his age and sex. I used the clumping clay litter, but I have no idea if that's what caused it and I never asked, as I didn't know of the controversy at the time.

So today, I have two cats and I use Vetbasis, which, yes, I buy at a "natural" food store as it's right down the street. It is the best freaking litter ever. It clumps, but it's not made of the maybe-dangerous clay, I think it's wheat or corn. Best part: smells like lavendar. My apartments smells great, the cats smell great, everybody's happy. So really, once I found that stuff it didn't matter to me, as the clumping clay crap could never compare to this.

Hope that helps! :)

[gnome]

The question I have is--what about those automatic litter systems.

I have heard a few people here speak well of them, but when I was browsing them at the pet store, some people told me to avoid them and that they worked horribly...

Maybe it's a question of brand choice?

If you have one and it works well, could you tell me which one you have? And is it reccomended for multiple cats (4)?

[RichardR]

Originally posted by gnome
The question I have is--what about those automatic litter systems.

I have heard a few people here speak well of them, but when I was browsing them at the pet store, some people told me to avoid them and that they worked horribly...

Maybe it's a question of brand choice?

If you have one and it works well, could you tell me which one you have? And is it reccomended for multiple cats (4)? Go to the Automated Litterbox Central Forum. (http://www.litterbox-central.com/forum/) (Yes, there really is a discussion board on cat litters.) Read through and you'll soon form an opinion.

btw, I have the Litter Robot (http://www.litter-robot.com/), which is the best available (although not perfect). DON'T get the Littermaid - poorly designed and more trouble than it's worth, IMO.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Clumping kitty litter is the Devil's work. I want to clean the poops out without have to drag out great globs of sticky, gloppy, stinking kitty litter. It's disgusting enough without having big wads of smelly glop.

~~ Paul

[gnome]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Clumping kitty litter is the Devil's work. I want to clean the poops out without have to drag out great globs of sticky, gloppy, stinking kitty litter. It's disgusting enough without having big wads of smelly glop.

~~ Paul

Funny, that's what I thought about regular cat litter before switching to clumpable.

I also am a big fan of the Arm & Hammer. No glop problem that I've noticed yet.

[evildave]

Originally posted by RichardR
Go to the Automated Litterbox Central Forum. (http://www.litterbox-central.com/forum/) (Yes, there really is a discussion board on cat litters.) Read through and you'll soon form an opinion.

btw, I have the Litter Robot (http://www.litter-robot.com/), which is the best available (although not perfect). DON'T get the Littermaid - poorly designed and more trouble than it's worth, IMO.

I like the three-pan system, better.

There are two identical litter pans, and one that has a grill. You lift the grill out, and there's all the poops and clumps. Dump this out in the trash. Then stick it in the empty pan, pour the litter in, put full pan in empty pan, add litter to taste.

The problem I had with the 'Litter Mate' device I used were two-fold. First, it was noisy. At 2:03am, you hear a whirrr-rr-rrr-rr-r...rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rr, and knew the cat had 'gone' a little while ago. In a smallish home, this is a problem. The second was reliability. The device would give out, or jam, or whatever. I went through three of them.

Then came these miraculous three-pan litter boxes. Brilliant. The one I currently have is totally enclosed with a cat flap. It has a handle on top. I can carry it outside to the trash cans to do the operation without any mess. I put a plastic litter track catcher in front of the door, and the litter tracking is way down, too. It's also deep enough so the litter doesn't get clump in the sifting grill.

[BobM]

I want to clean the poops out without have to drag out great globs of sticky, gloppy, stinking kitty litter. It's disgusting enough without having big wads of smelly glop.

You either have strange cats or a lousy brand of cat-litter. There's nothing in mine that I'd call a "wad of smelly glop". I use Tidy Cat Anti-bacterial.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Gnome said:
I also am a big fan of the Arm & Hammer. No glop problem that I've noticed yet.
Whadaya mean? I've used that stuff. Horrific. I want to drag the scoop through the litter to remove the poops, without running into huge brick-like globs of clumped-up litter.

Perhaps I should try one of these robo-boxes.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Bob said:
You either have strange cats or a lousy brand of cat-litter. There's nothing in mine that I'd call a "wad of smelly glop". I use Tidy Cat Anti-bacterial.
It's all a giant wad of smelly glop. Everything within a foot of the box is smelly and horrible.

I think I see the difference between us. You may be going on objective smell and sight, while I am experiencing the entire subjective kitty-litteresque horror, in all it's H.P.Lovecraftian gruesomeness.

~~ Paul

[Psi Baba]

On the clumping/blockage issue, a few years ago here in Pittsburgh, a K-9 police dog died after getting into bag of clumping cat litter and eating a large quantity of it. The litter hardened rather quickly and they were unable to save the dog. Naturally, it was very distressing to the officer who was caring for the dog. If that can happen to a German Shepherd, I don't see why it couldn't happen to a kitten, especially if the kitten is deliberately eating the litter (as some cats do, though I'd love to hear if anyone knows why).

[gnome]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Whadaya mean? I've used that stuff. Horrific. I want to drag the scoop through the litter to remove the poops, without running into huge brick-like globs of clumped-up litter.

Perhaps I should try one of these robo-boxes.

~~ Paul

Those "bricks" are the litter clumping around the cat urine, as it is intended to... else how get rid of that?

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Psi Baba
On the clumping/blockage issue, a few years ago here in Pittsburgh, a K-9 police dog died after getting into bag of clumping cat litter and eating a large quantity of it. The litter hardened rather quickly and they were unable to save the dog. Naturally, it was very distressing to the officer who was caring for the dog. If that can happen to a German Shepherd, I don't see why it couldn't happen to a kitten, especially if the kitten is deliberately eating the litter (as some cats do, though I'd love to hear if anyone knows why). I don't see why it can't be a problem, what strikes me as odd is that given the widespread use of the stuff, a straw poll of the vets round here only generated a bit of headshaking when I asked if anyone had encountered anything like that, or even heard about it.

If it was at all common, I'd have expected that the whole thing would have been publicised around the profession. Contrary to what some people seem to think, the litter manufacturers would be completely powerless to prevent such publicity.

Rolfe.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Haven't read the thread but I was thinking how the phrase "Clumping Kitty Litter " could be a great exclamation or curse phrase.

edit to add:
Especially from Burt Ward to Adam west in relation to Catwoman :)

[evildave]

I suppose it's all according to the likelihood that your precious little pet will eat cat litter.

I can see two scenarios:

Too stupid (i.e. the dog), or too hungry.

I've seen dogs eat poop before. If it tasted good to the dog (don't ask), the dog might eat it, or the dog might eat a lot of it based on the smell of one buried turd alone. So, we have a risk for dogs.

Would a cat eat cat litter? I've seen momma cats 'clean up' after kittens. It says something for making sure momma cat doesn't bed down with her kittens close to the litter box.

But kitty really would have to eat a lot of litter. Not just incidental bits stuck to poo that smelled good.

Yuck.

Of course, I've also seen dogs and cats poisoned from eating plants, or eating poisoned rodents that had eaten poisoned rodent bait. On the package it says the rodent will go outside to die. Guess who else might be outside and curious about a sick rodent?

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by evildave
Of course, I've also seen dogs and cats poisoned from eating plants, or eating poisoned rodents that had eaten poisoned rodent bait. On the package it says the rodent will go outside to die. Guess who else might be outside and curious about a sick rodent? Yeah, but that happens all the time. If you've got a spare hour or two I'll run you through the last couple of dozen cases we've had in. Veterinary pathologists spot 'em a mile off.

But the first person I asked about the kitty litter was the guy who has spent the past five years doing all the post-mortems that come into our lab (except on his days off when thanks to the retirement of the senior partner I have to do them now), and he just shook his head. I'd have laid a fair bet that if this was anywhere close to a significant risk we'd have had at least one sob story in the lab to diagnose by now. And James would know a solid lump of clay kitty litter if he found one in a kitty intestine - it wouldn't exactly be a diagnostic challenge, it would be blindingly obvious. But he's never seen it.

Rolfe.

[rebecca]

Regardless of whether or not eating the litter is bad, I thought I'd clear up why a cat would eat litter.

It's generally not something they do on purpose. Litter gets stuck to their paws (particularly for cats with poor litter behavior, like kittens and senior cats), so they lick their paws to clean them, thus digesting the litter.

If the litter is dangerous, I think the reason why you wouldn't hear a lot about it is because most cats don't eat enough of it to cause a significant problem, and of those that do, vets and owners aren't asking the right questions about why the animal has died.

That's a big "if," though.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Gnome said:
Those "bricks" are the litter clumping around the cat urine, as it is intended to... else how get rid of that?
Don't bother. Let the urine trickle on down to the bottom and change the entire pan periodically.

Now I hear that this stuff is causing kitten deaths! What more do you need to realize the magnitude of the horror?!

~~ Paul

[evildave]

As I keep saying, the three-pan system works great. You don't scoop. You don't grope. You don't do anything but lift, dump, lift, dump. No power. No batteries. Clean sand.

The clay, in a stomach, probably would turn to mud. If you soak the clumpy stuff clear through, it lets go, becomes goo. Probably uncomfortable on the way out...

As for the clumps sticking to the kitty's feet, nope. The sand does, though. That gets everywhere.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by rebecca
If the litter is dangerous, I think the reason why you wouldn't hear a lot about it is because .... vets and owners aren't asking the right questions about why the animal has died.I still think we'd have seen cases. You're talking about unexpected and/or unexplained death of a young animal. We get tons of these in for post-mortem. It's exactly the sort of situation where the owner often wants to know, and the vet says "well, let's just get a post-mortem and see what that says." Not always, of course, but quite often.

And yet, of all the sad little feline corpses we dissect, nada.

Rolfe.