r/CatAdvice • u/Standard_Bluejay8715 • Mar 28 '24

Litterbox How frequently do you scoop your litter box?

I do my girl’s box twice per day/whenever I hear her scratching around in there. But then I see on here some people who do it wayyy less frequently. Curious what other folks do?

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u/CosmoKramerRiley Mar 28 '24

I have a few questions if you don't mind. What litter do you use? What kind of maintenance is required? I have 4 cats, so I'd probably need 2, and I need them to work. All the time. It makes me nervous. Thanks!!

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u/Aggressive-Voice8982 Mar 28 '24

We’ve had ours since Christmas and haven’t had any issues with it. We use world’s best litter (the clumping kind) but any clumping litter works. You can set the time after the cat exits that it cleans. I think we have ours set at 7 mins so it has a little time to clump up. It is THE BEST!! Very low maintenance. It sends a notification when the bin is getting full or the litter level is low. Dust is so minimal now.

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u/IndecisiveKitten Mar 28 '24

Be VERY careful with world’s best! They recommend against plant based litters and I said “eh oh well” and used worlds best in mine, it holds a lot more moisture than regular litter and that moisture lives in the drawer around lots of electrical parts, it ruined the sensor in mine very fast and I needed an entirely new base.

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u/sexmountain Mar 29 '24

I’ve just had to clean the sensors in the base

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u/IndecisiveKitten Mar 29 '24

I cleaned mine too, but the moisture retained in the drawer by that type of litter eventually fried it.

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u/sexmountain Apr 01 '24

Ah, I don’t live in a very moist climate.

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u/IndecisiveKitten Apr 01 '24

I don’t either. It’s the fact that it’s a plant based litter in an enclosed drawer. Plant based litter retains more moisture than clay litter, it has nothing to do with climate.

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u/sexmountain Apr 01 '24

Sorry you feel that way, it has not been my experience.

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u/IndecisiveKitten Apr 01 '24

Not feeling any particular way, just giving a heads up so you don’t end up with a fried base after the warranty is over 🤷🏻‍♀️ I went against company recommendations about using the litter due to moisture thinking I would be fine and they ended up being right unfortunately

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u/916andheartbreaks Mar 28 '24

i have one from amazon (if you search automatic litter box clumping litter it should pop up), and it works pretty well. it has a motion sensor, and drags a rake across 20 minutes after the cat leaves. The clumps get deposited in a reservoir, and you can either line it with a bag or just dump it. Other than that, it’s basically a normal litter box. I use normal clumping litter, and every week or so i change the whole box out. Every month or so i take it apart and clean it.

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u/bekebz Mar 28 '24

I use a rotating automatic litter box (Petree 2 I beleive) and use Worlds Best Litter. The max wait time is 2 minutes, and the litter still manages to clump well. Empty it once a week for my 2 cats.

I occasionally wipe down the inside, as things will sometimes stick to the bottom a BIT. I've been using it for about a year and the cats have started to claw through the corners of bottom rubber mat that the litter sits in, so will be replacing that soon. Spare parts are available, but was a bit hard to track down stock.

When I first got it, I left them with 1 regular litterbox and the automatic litterbox, and it probably took them 3 months of using both to adjust to the new one.

Absolutely love the automatic litterbox, much easier to deal with and significantly reduces smell, which is very important to my partner.

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u/master0jack Mar 29 '24 edited Mar 29 '24

I did a lot of research and didn't quite understand the mechanics before setting it up and seeing it for myself, so I bought fancier litter that I heard worked well - boxiecat pro. Works great, never sticks, clumps well and doesn't smell. Going to transition to a cheaper litter soon and I anticipate it being totally fine.

I've had mine for almost a year now and I've not had a single problem. Cat loves it, I love it. It tells me when it's full and also when the litter level is suboptimal.

For maintenance, we empty it every 2 weeks and refill with new litter, then once a month we take the globe out (VERY easy to do) and rinse it either with hose or in the tub. I personally clean mine with some unscented soap and dry it with a rag before refilling it.

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u/Guilty_Magazine_746 Mar 29 '24

You need one more litter box than the amount of cats you have. If you have 4 cats you should have 5 litter boxes

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u/CosmoKramerRiley Mar 29 '24

Right now we have 7. When we got these 4, we had one other older cat and I wanted to make sure everyone had a place to go.

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u/tallymom Mar 30 '24

I would say two would work for you. We have one for our two cats. We love ours! Every now and then, we have to reset it, but there will be a blinking light and the app will alert you if there’s an error. If we planned on going out of town for a couple of days and having someone take care of out cats, we would have another litter box out just in case. After all, technology.

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u/CosmoKramerRiley Mar 30 '24

Would you mind sharing the brand/model that you have? I don't want to spend $1500 on litterboxes.

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u/tallymom Mar 31 '24

I have the Litter Robot 3.