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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
EF kitty litter?
is there such a thing? I'm out of my usual scoop away and am looking for alternatives, but need to act fast if i want to do a slow transition. i saw some pine stuff at trader joes that said it can later be used as mulch. really?? i thought that was a no no because of the meat cats eat....anyway, any rec's?
Re: EF kitty litter?
Sure, there are lots! These come to mind:
Feline Pine
Yesterday's News
Swheat Scoop
Feline Pine comes in pellets or in a clumping formula. The pellets are essentially compressed sawdust. So, when they get wet they break down into sawdust. The pine absorbs odors well. We've used it from the beginning and haven't ever had any issues, but not all cats are cool with using the pellets because the texture is so different. If you use it, I'd suggest taking advantage of the free bag offer they have on their website first and switching over really slow. If all goes well, I would recommend getting a sifting litterbox because otherwise the sawdust will track. The pellets don't track much at all - maybe a few pellets each week?
I don't know how the clumping formula is.
Yesterdays News is made out of recycled newspaper.
And Swheat scoop is made out of wheat.
I'm not sure what manufacturing processes get used to make them, but at the very least they're all probably better for the environment than your normal clay or crystal type litter because they'll all biodegrade.
We use World's Best and really like it. I don't know how EF it is, but it has to be better than the clay kind and the brands with fancy fragrances.
We also sometimes use Feline Pine. I prefer the sawdust kind to the pellet kind.
I don't like Yesterday's News at all. I think I've tried Swheat, but I can't remember if I liked it or not. Although, if I liked it I'd probably still be using it...
Leopard in Acacia Tree, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania 2009
Crafty Owl Blog
Oh, another post just got me thinking about this - if you decide to go with a litter that can be flushed, please don't flush it.
For one, even if it's flushable it's still really hard on pipes.
Second, there have been studies about the declining sea otter population on the west coast. A lot of the sea otters that have been found dead were infected with toxoplasmosis, and cats are the only animals known to shed the organism's eggs. It's been suggested that the sea otters have been infected by cat feces that were flushed. Most facilities aren't designed to deal with pet waste and can't treat it properly before it's returned to the environment. Hence the reason many plants request you not flush any waste other than human.
So (and this may be a dumb question) what do you do with the cat poop when you scoop? And what do you do with the litter when it's time to change it? I'm not putting cat poop in my yard, sorry. Is it just better on the environment when you put it in the trash than regular litter?
I've been meaning to ask about cat litter lately too so I'm glad someone asked this. I feel guilty everytime I scoop the cat poop into a plastic bag and toss it in the trash. Plus I'm almost out of plastic bags because we use reusable bags now. Help a slowly transitioning to green sistah out, please! ;-)
I honestly don't know what to do with the poo (or clumps if you use clumping litter), or the actual litter.
Right or wrong (and feel free to tell me if I'm wrong!), I scoop the poop and put it into a plastic bag. I wasn't as green in the past, so we have a small trashcan and some regular small trash bags that I use. Same goes for the litter, only it goes into our regular trash. In the future, I'll try and use biodegradable ones. But I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do or what.
Is it safe to just dump the litterbox out in the woods behind our house? I don't know if cat pee contains anything bad to harm other animals like their poo may. It's just sawdust and cat pee at that point. If we had a house, maybe the litter could be composted?
Sswheat scoop was pretty bad and didn't absorb much pee at all. My cat hated the texture, so we switched back to our old stuff.
My cat also pees in the same exact spot in her litter box EVERY time she pees, so that might have had something to do with it.
This was the World's Worst Cat Litter for us. 1 my cats refused to use it and 2 it attracted insects. I could not get rid of them. I'm sure they are still in the apartment now. I'm glad we moved and were able to get away from them.
Us too. We caught our cat eating it just after we cleaned the box! Threw that one away quickly!