Monday, February 18, 2013

No More Store Bought Kitty Litter


I have the world’s best kitty. She is basically a dog that doesn’t have to be let out to go to the bathroom. She greets me when I get home, cuddles at night, and follows me around the house. The only problem has been the litter box that I hate so much. She has been so patient when it comes to me switching out the litter, though. She’s almost 2 now and has been with me long enough to know that I have been searching for a better solution than clay litter.
I’ve been on a hunt for a while now looking for something other than the traditional litters. I used the “Mimi Crystals” litter which is fairly cheap $4.88/ 4 lbs, but it’s full of chemicals and doesn’t help the odor that much. I tried the all natural feline pine stuff, which is fine, except that the pellets get thrown everywhere and again, the smell is not taken care of.
I finally gave up on the smell issue when I moved into my current apartment because the cat has her own “room” which consists of the breaker box, the water heater, and the A.C. unit. I can shut the door if it gets really bad and I just put an air freshener in there.
While searching for other options to save money, though, I ran across “recipes” for using paper as litter. Because I work in a bookstore, and because we throw out a ton of paper (this kills me!), I started a “recyling box” per se that I had managers throw paper in and I took it home when it got full. Some of the recipes called for soaking the paper for an hour with baking soda and meshing it and letting it dry for 2-3 days. I do not have that much time or patience so I found out that you can just use paper! This does not eliminate the smell at all and the paper kind of disintegrates, but really, it’s free so I just said whatever.
I tried this out but the biggest issue I noticed was that Miss Kitty is so staticky that she picks up paper so that it ends up everywhere. I looked at a few more options and finally found one that is perfect. I still use half paper, but I add have cedar chips now too. This takes care of a few issues. 1. No staticky kitty tracking paper. 2. Adds more volume to the litter so that there aren’t issues cleaning it out at the end of the week. 3. Smells fantastic. 4. It’s super cheap. A huge bag was $7 and I only need a small amount. I’m waiting to see just how long this lasts, but it looks like it should be quite a while. So I still get to reuse that paper instead of throwing it all away, and now the other issues are fixed. Win-Win.

And here is a picture of her just because she's adorable :) 


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