About five months ago the hubby and I made a big switch for our fur-babies we had been contemplating for a while: from clay to cedar litter.
We have discovered many things in this switch-up, and we would love to share some pros and cons with ya! Hope this helps any of you contemplating a switch to a more natural litter option.
Pros:
• Less smell. The cedar really does smell like fresh wood chips. As with all things that hold excrement, it does get stinky after a few days of not scooping.
• Easy to transport. We live in Brooklyn and do not have a car so when we purchase litter we carry it four and a half blocks home. Together we can schlep four bags easily as it is so light. It is at least half of the weight of the same amount of clay litter.
• Saves some cash. We get a larger amount of cedar litter for at least $0.50 less per bag than the clay litter we were using. Plus the cedar litter lasts longer than the clay litter does. We go through two cedar bags in about three or four weeks. With the clay litter we were going through about the same mass in two weeks.
• Better for the environment. The cedar is much less harmful to our Mother Earth than the clay, and is compostable.
• Fresh air. The cedar litter we use does not contain any dust, unlike clay litter. This means that the fur-beasts aren’t breathing in any dust that is harmful to their lungs, plus us humans aren’t breathing it either.
Cons:
• More noticeable tracking. The cedar is so light that it does track more than we noticed of the clay. As I mentioned, we live in Brooklyn so space is small. We sweep up every other day anyway so the tracking isn’t that big of a deal for us.
• Urine does not form clumps. Kitty pee is absorbed by the cedar but does not clump up for scooping. To adjust for this we just scoop the poop and then fully dump and change the litter every 4-7 days. We are using less litter all together to combat wastefulness.
• Felines need to adjust. This cannot be a switch that happens in one fell swoop. It took our little ones about a month to slowly transition. We spent that time slowly integrating the cedar into the clay litter a bit at a time until there was no more clay mixed in and only cedar remained. This type of transition was successful and they love the cedar now.
We are very happy with our switch for many reasons but mostly because of the health, environmental, and smell factors.
We used wood pellets for awhile, and it works in much the same way. However one of our kitties didn’t like it, and after 2 years of her doing her business just outside of the box, we made the switch back to clay. She now uses the box all the time. If your cats will go for it, its a good option. Wood pellets are great because they don’t track…. The only issue is that it is only availible in the wintertime in our area.
I used a litter called Swheat Scoop, made out of wheat. It clumps like clay but is biodegradable, and flushable, which was handy when I lived in an apartment.
If you live in a place where you can compost, it is also compostable.
I find it doesn’t smells like most other litter can become smelly over time. Clay litter can cause internal problems because cats clean their paws afterward and if they lick up too much clay it can really cause gut issues, not so much with wheat.
I tried other “natural” litter alternative like corn but I found they lack the clumping properties of wheat.
Luckily now we have a house, a yard and a cat door, so one cat uses the great outdoors all the time the other one part time so I hardly ever have to clean the litter box anymore.
I would not recommend purchasing the wood pellets used for pellet stoves as they may contain chemicals to help them burn better. I would recommend the horse bedding wood pellets instead. I worked at a farm store for over 8 years and learned this tidbit. Try shopping at a Tractor Supply Co if you have one, they have lots of pet supplies, and usually pellets too.
Plus they’re available year round. Any farm supply store will probably have them.
You can get a litter mat that at least some of the litter will stay on, for less tracking. Another reason for the pellets is that they can be bought online. Personally I prefer-and so do the cats a litter made by Arm & Hammer called Feline Pine with cedar clumping litter. It is light weight and does absorb urine, but has to be cleaned frequently. Any way you can get pellets also made especially for cal litter. As noted in another reply the wood stove pellets have other chemicals to help them burn and that s probably not good for the cat(s)
Replying about the cedar letter-if you scoop more often it will last longer. What they do to make it clump is add corn starch, they a tiny amount of mineral oil so that when it gets really wet it starts to fall apart-that is how it becomes flushable. So if you scoop daily and add a little more it will clump better for longer. and you shouldn’t have to re-do the whole box so often. Also not that all of the stuff used in this litter is digestable-sawdust is merely cellulose, corn starch is easily digestible (it is used in all sorts of food products) and mineral oil is used in all sorts of things and can be used in humans to clear up constipation.
I’ve tried to change the kitties over to different types of litter, but it never works. The last time I took 4 months to slowly change from clumping clay litter to one made for cats who get UTI’s (Which my little girl does). She continued to pee outside the litter, despite her UTI being cleared up. We did a cold turkey switch back to the clay litter and she started using the litter again. My boy is not so picky. As long as there is something to poop in, he’ll poop in it.
My little girl is also a picky eater and refuses to eat the special food to stop UTI’s. Ugh.
It’s a good thing she’s cute.
When I switched to an alternative litter (I honestly forget what kind it was), one of my cats decided to use a pile of laundry on the floor as her litter box. It was a few days before I noticed, when I picked up the clothes to wash them and the overwhelming stench came wafting out as a couple turds rolled across the floor. CATS, man. They really are lucky they’re so cute.
UHHHG. One of my cats only goes outdoors except in the winter when it’s stormy he’ll seek out damp towels. What is up with that??? There is an available litter box in the house, but my cats are super territorial and hate each other.
Having multiple cat boxes, even located right beside each other, can help with that. Maybe you could try adding another cat box at least in winter?
Need more than one hatbox. Should have one for every cat, but you might get by with two or three. Depends on how many cats you have.
Recommended is 1 per cat plus 1. In my case I have 4 cats, but all from same litter so for right now I only have one, big would like three-just need to open some space up in attached garage. I don’t think you mentioned type-sawdust litter seems best for many reasons and I have used Feline pine, then got sort of involuntarily switched to pine and cedar. All four cats plus me liked it better. Right now the only place I know of that carries it is PetCo. Maybe some of the larger stores like setsmart and target will go to it again, but where I liveth stores are smaller and they don’t carry it, even on-line. But I think Arm & Hammer is reintroducing it as Feline Pine plus cedar. But try an additional cat box-going in the laundry sort of stinks-pun intended.
A lot of people are not aware of the fact that it takes awhile to switch litters-and that includes people at the big-box pet stores who suddenly quit carrying a letter, leaving consumers empty handed. Bu back to the litter. You will need a month to weeks to make the switch. You will need to add just a little litter for about a a week, then a little more and keep it going until it works-about week 5 or six you will be using just the new litter. I honestly recommend Feline Pine clumping for all people and cats. I used it with my 4. nine-year olds until a Big-Box store (name withheld for my protection) suddenly dropped it. Luckily I found it online until a similar product showed up at another store until they, of course, dropped it. The second store was a big box pet supply store named Petsmart, and they dropped it with no warning at all. Luckily I am able to buy the clumping FelinePine with Cedar (best ever and my cats love it even more than original Feline Pine Clumping). but cats before that had to be switched over slowly. So if you think about trying a new brand for whatever reason, switch slowly. You can teach a new dog (or cat) new tricks, but it takes time. Don’t try a “now-or-never” approach with litter, food (you and your nose would regret that). The only thing that does not need a slow introduction is a new toy. Did you know that if kitty seems to get bored with a toy you just need to hide it for a month or two, maybe more, and bring it out again? It will seem new to them.
have you tried BLUE cat food? I am not sure if they have anything specifically for UTIs but one of our cats has terrible food allergies. He was even allergic to that Science Diet Prescription that the vet recommended. (it does have by-products and corn/wheat)
Our boy has not had any problems on Blue and it is cheaper than other high quality foods.
There’s a Purina brand that is available at PetSmart, but it’s difficult to get it here because it’s sold out almost as soon as it gets here. She will eat that. I’ll take a look at Blue. Right now they are on Nutro Max Cat. It smells like garbage but they LOVE it! Go figure.
I switched my cat from Nutro to Blue and I feel like her poop stinks less. My vet recommended adding wet food to my cat’s daily diet to prevent UTI’s, since increased water intake will make them pee more often and will flush out the system. We do wet food in the morning and dry in the afternoon, and so far so good!
She is on wet and dry food and she drinks so much water, it’s crazy. She’s always drank a lot of water, ever since she was a kitten. I’ve had her checked for Diabetes and whatever else the vet thought she might have, but she’s healthy. She just LOVES water. So I don’t know why she gets so many UTI’s.
But thanks I will try Blue and see how she likes it.
Yes! This! After years (YEARS!) of trying out different special medication-diet foods, just switching to Blue Wilderness made everything better. Wellness is also suppose dto be a good brand, but she didn’t like the flavor of the dry food (none of our cats did). Anyway, so nice to read that someone else had the same problem, and same solution! 🙂
We use Wellness Core for our prone to UTI kitty, we previously used several of the other brands recommended but Wellness balanced out best for her highness the kitty liking it, cost, and ingredients we were comfortable feeding her (researching pet food ingredients caused us to change what brands we used).
We had to switch back to clay after a trial period of cedar. It just didn’t work out for us. One of our cats didn’t like it and started using the carpet instead of the litterbox, plus I’m allergic bordering on asthmatic and the wood-chip-aroma gave me horrible sneezes.
Does the cedar litter have any of the same concerns that bedding for small animals does? I seem to remember it being a bad choice for rodent terrariums because of toxicity issues or some such – http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/guineapigs/a/woodshavings.htm
I have heard this as well.
After doing some research,it seemed it was only toxic if ingested or used for bedding (so they were living in it). Since the cats only go in the box to eliminate it seemed to me that there was little risk.
The cedar litter does NOTHING for odor elimination if your cat’s poo smells like anything less than a bouquet of roses. You either have to just deal with the stink or scoop it daily, if not more.
If you need odor elimination and don’t want as much tracking, the crystal cat litter is worth its weight in gold.
We use Feline Pine and mix it with a baking soda scent powder that totally eliminates smelliness. After we scoop his box he sometimes likes to go in immediately afterward and take a poo. All we have to do is sprinkle a little of the baking soda stuff on top and presto! No smell. Although, we also normally bag the poo if it’s really bad, so I imagine that helps too.
The best kitty litter ever and also has some clumping is make it homemade! It’s so cheap and last almost forever and is extremely healthy for you, the environment and your pet!!… What I do is buy a 40 pound bag of chicken scratch for $8.00 and a bag of cedar mulch for $3.00 and baking powder! Fill the litter box with 2/3 (corn) chicken scratch add 1/3 cedar and add arm and hammer baking powder and mix, and now you got your perfect organic kitty litter! It’s wonderful and just one purchase of these items makes about of kitty litter. I have 3 adult furbabies and it last them a month or more and I only had to spend about $12-$15 for it. Its a miracle litter and its equivalent to Arm and Hammers natural essentials kitty litter. You can Google the directions on how to make. Its so easy and saves so much money and so much better for your furbaby!!
We use Feline Pine, no issues with tracking at all. It starts out as little pellets, and turns into sawdust as they pee. We were worried our kitten would play with the litter pellets but she doesn’t seem to notice them, though everything else in the house is fair game. Odors aren’t bad, we are in a small apartment and scoop poops and some of the pee sawdust every day (except when we forget, silly humans), fully change maybe every 4-7 days.
The cedarific that we used was pellets that turned to sawdust when peed in. Too bad our meezer did not like it.
We have been using feline pine and most of the cats in the house are fine with it (we’ve got 4 total) but I had to switch back to clay in one of the boxes because my old boy just will not pee in it. He’d rather pee right by our toilet than use the pine. I have noticed that the other cats prefer to use the clay box downstairs, but they’ll still use the feline pine. Maybe it’s new and they’re just being curious.
I use Cedarific as a base with Feline Pine on top… great combo as feces can easily be removed and the Cedarific stops urine odors. Feline pine crumbles when wet… I have been doing this for years with from 2 to 6 cats over time.
Was anyone else heartbroken when Feline Pine changed their formula from the soft, light, saw-dusty litter to a heavier, more-like-clay litter? It’s so sad!
We’re currently using something called “World’s Best Cat Litter,” which I believe is made from corn, and I can’t stand the smell. Also I hate how heavy it is. I would LOVE to go back to pine sawdust. Does anyone know where I can get anything like the lovely sawdust that Feline Pine used to make?
Ugh, This about “World’s Best.” Zero odor control. Zero. We got some from my aunt when she bought a ton of it on sale, and we hate it, but are too cheap/poor to just toss it.
If you like the flushable/wheat litter, try Swheat Scoop. It doesn’t clump as well as the WB but the odor control is tons better. (This is what we were using before, and what we are going back to once we use up the WB.)
i second the swheat scoop! it works great!
Is the Swheat safe for septic tanks? It sounds like a great idea but I don’t want any problems with my septic.
Weird. I have zero odor problems with World’s Best. It’s my favorite, love it so much. It never smells “good” just kinda neutral but never has that old cat box smell either. We scoop daily though.
I’m with you. World’s Best Cat Litter for multiple cats, scooped once or twice a day, is the best thing ever. No smell, excellent clumping, low or comparable tracking to clay litter.
I’m allergic to perfumes and clay dust, so the heavy scents in most cat litters (natural or clay) are a no-go for me.
I am also a huge fan of World’s Best. I use it for my rabbit and it really helps with the smell, which is particularly great since he lives in my bedroom. My cats, sadly, refused to use it. (I think they see it as food. At least, I caught one of the cats digging in the rabbit’s litter–the clean bag, thankfully, not his litter box–and eating it.)
Cedarific… However, it is hard to find in NJ… I have to buy it in New York state… where it is
available even in supermarkets where it is cheap and in some pet supply stores in Rockland County also. I use it as a base and put Feline Pine on top which works out well.
We use Feline Fresh, and they have a clumping version that works pretty well. I scoop daily and change the entire box every 3-4 weeks when it gets a little funky.
Our cat is a big litter tracker, but it doesn’t seem much worse than when he had clay. And stepping on the little pieces hurts less than clay bits, and probably scratches our (soft wood) floors less. It takes a lot of cleaning, but I like that it’s fresh-smelling, eco-friendy, and flushable.
We’ve been using Swheat Scoop for a couple years. It’s made from wheat and smells like wheat when it’s kept clean. The tracking is about as bad as clay litter, and I have noticed some dust, especially when it’s been sitting for a while (the less favored litterbox doesn’t get changed as much). I’m hoping that the dust is at least less toxic than clay dust.
We use wheat litter as well. We’ve been using it for quite a few years at this point. It clumps decently. I like that it is made of a non-edible wheat by-product. It is working ok for us, we have an older cat with kidney disease who goes outside the box A LOT, but I don’t know if the litter change would really help him and clay litter freaks me out two fold: 1)because of the toxicity to the cats 2)because it is mined and is somewhat of an environmental disaster.
we use the Swheat Scoop too, for our two cats. With daily scooping, odor isn’t a problem for us. It tracks just as much as clay did (we have a mat) and, like the above poster said, doesn’t have the toxicity and environmental impact factors of standard clay litter. So we like it. Works for us. 🙂
My husband always preferred the scoop litter which is very dusty. Our whole house always seemed to be covered in litter dust and cleaning a couple of times a week just didn’t cut it.
We switched to Cedarific which I loved for all the reasons stated here. It does stick to their feet more but vacuuming everyday was already something that we did, so it really wasn’t a problem. Our only problem was that our siamese refused to use it.
After trying Good News (the paper litter) which I did not like because it smelled like urinated on newspaper, go figure. We changed to the clay and everyone is happy.
We do have 5 cats and 3 litter boxes which get scooped 2x a day because no one likes a stinky box. =^..^=
It seems like our little ones are pretty chill to go along with the litter changes when I see so many have had difficulty, like you say here. Glad you found something that works for you guys!
What about corn litter! It looks and feels like clay (perfect for picky kitties), but its drier so it doesn’t track as much. It keeps in the smell, it clumps really well, and (best part!) you can flush it down the toilet!
We use corn litter too (World Best Cat Litter brand) and I agree that it controls smell well and clumps well. It doesn’t track any worse than clay and it might be be a bit better. We use a mix of multi-cat and regular varieties. It is flushable, but in some areas you should never flush cat litter or any kind of cat waste as Toxoplasma parasites are dangerous to otters. (Sewage treatment may not kill the eggs of this parasite.) As we live in Southern California, we don’t flush litter.
I used corn for a while. My cat’s box was on the balcony of our apt building. And some rodant would come an eat the corn. I ended up with rodant scat all over my balcony, and had to switch back to clay. The cat didn’t mind either way.
We use Worlds Best as well and really like it. We live in a small Brooklyn apt, and we keep the little box in our bathroom. Because it clumps so well and is flush-able we scoop the poops/clumps right into the toilet. We stopped having to change the box because it clumps so well.
With my partner’s previous cat he used Feline Pine (which smelled pretty okay) he liked it, but he says Worlds Best is better.
This corn sounds like a great option! I never encountered anyone I knew first hand that had experiences with it. Glad to hear it is a popular alternative!
double-check with your municipal water treatment plant before flushing Worldks Best or other flushable litters. Most will say no, and every single plumber I ever asked has begged me not to. So I still scoop my Worlds Best, but at least feel I am a little more environmentally friendly.
You can flush it, but any plumber will tell you not to as it’s a great way to gunk up your pipes. It may not cause a problem if your pipes are completely clear but if it hits anything that it can grab onto you can have a big problem on your hands. I had a girl living in my house once who was constantly clogging up the toilet doing this. After about the 10th time in 2 months that I had to unclog the toilet for her I called in a professional to see what the issue was and he discovered the mess in the pipes.
Sidenote – You’re also introducing cat germs into the environment which can cause issues.
We use either World’s best cat litter or Schweat scoop (usually depends on price and availability) and have been really happy with them. They are both flushable, so we don’t have to make lots of garbage runs with cat poop from our 7th floor apartment, they aren’t made from clay, so they’re better for the environment, and they aren’t stinky. They are heavier than some of the other options, but we use amazon prime for all our cat stuff, because pet stores in Manhattan are crazy expensive.
We use wheat litter for our 2 cats, and it works very well. It weighs more than cedar shavings I imagine, but it clumps very well. We scoop twice a day, though, as we have a smallish box. A bonus is that you can flush it down the toilet rather than having to throw it in the trash. It doesn’t smell badly and it has very little dust. Another nice thing is that it doesn’t hurt our small dog, who is a voracious litter eater; extra fiber!
We’ve been using pine pellet horse bedding as litter for our 2 cats for about 5 years. It works fine (they are indoor/outdoor kitties so less litter box usage than indoor only) and we save a lot of money vs. pine pellets branded for cat litter. We buy a couple of sacks once a year at Tractor Supply.
What a great idea!
My husband and I are currently living in an in-law apartment in someone’s horse barn. Our kitty is indoor only, but we let him roam the barn when it’s closed up for the night. Of course, now he’s in the habit of using the shavings in the horse stalls as his own gigantic litter box. I’m thinking of switching to cedar shavings now for this purpose; he clearly prefers the shavings, but I’d rather he use the litter box instead of treading on the hospitality of our equine-loving landlords.
I switched my two kitties over to a Tidy Cats Breeze system about 3 years ago, and it has — no joke — changed my life. The litter is ceramic pellets, set in a bin above a pee pad. The cat pee drains through the pellets and the holes in the bin, and is absorbed into the pad, which is easy to change every 2-3 days (or less often, depending on whether you have multiple cats and/or they pee oceans like mine). Poop sits on top of the pellets. Right on top. The litter doesn’t clump around it, and they rarely bury it, so it’s just right there. Which is good because you can EASILY see whether it needs to be scooped. (And so can everyone else, unless your litterbox is kept in a secluded area. Pro/con.) But it’s less messy to scoop than traditional clay litter. And the pellets are too big to get stuck between cat toes, and they don’t get all icky-squishy when soaked, and they’re easy to sweep up, and I no longer find cat litter IN THE BED OMG GROSS.
OMG litter in the BED is completely icky! I get crazy obsessive about it when I see even the slightest bit! I think it’s so great that you’ve found a system that works for you and your kitties. There certainly are a plethora of options and finding the right fit is oh so important.
I second the Breeze. I used it for several months and it was the best litter solution I’ve ever used! The only reason I stopped was because I’ve got two cats, one of whom pees a lot, and the pads would overfill and overflow, and I didn’t like having to replace them every couple days.
I just got a Litter Breeze box last week, but haven’t introduced it to kitty yet. I’ve heard so many great things about it. I just wanted to finish up the rest of the clay litter I have before switching. She’s had no trouble switching litters in the past (though she wasn’t fond of the recycled paper and the Litter Kwitter did not work for her!), so I’m hopeful it will be an easy transition. I HATE finding her litter in my bed and on my couch. Ick ick ick!
The pellets are quite a bit larger than traditional litter granules. I sprinkled some of the pellets on their regular litter and gradually added more and more until it was about half and half, then I put out the Breeze next to the old box and stopped cleaning the old box. They took to it surprisingly well.
I was cursing clay litter today, it was litter box deep clean day and all the clay in all the nooks and crannies was nearly impossible to clean out properly. UGH. I was already thinking about switching, but the cleaning and this article are the exact impetus I need to actually do it. And maybe I’ll build that fancy cat box cover thing I’ve been meaning to get around to as well…
And now there are so many options endorsed here you can pick what will work best for you and yours! I hated the clay so much, just despised it! I especially hated when a tiny bit of moisture would somehow combine with the bottom of a foot, the floor, and a pebble or two of clay litter…GROSS! Luckily those days are long gone for us! Good luck with your potential switch!
I was using pine sawdust (Feline Fresh, I believe the brand is called) but they are no longer in my pet stores. I’m actually trying a little that is walnut based (!). Just made the switch yesterday, so a full verdict is still not out, but so far there is far less tracking and dust. The smell is subtle too which is nice. I’m very lucky that my cat is willing to do a full switch over so no messes, thank goodness. I’ll be more than happy to share my findings later.
Please do share your findings! I’m curious to hear about how things work out!
One of our cats developed asthma that seemed to be related to dust from clay litter. We didn’t want to use litter that was made from food products, and we wanted something that would clump. After trying a few different kinds of natural litter we found Nature’s Miracle which is awesome. It’s made from corn cobs (not food!) and it clumps (not as strong as clay, but pretty good)! It does track around more than clay, but the pitiful/scary wheezing stopped. We do have to scoop every day but it last soooo much longer than clay litter. I would recommend trying it out.
I love that everyone is sharing what works for them and their situations! There are so many options out there, it’s great to get some first-hand accounts! Thanks all! This first-time post has been a positive experience :o)
This is a great thread! I just got on here to see if anybody knew if there is a toxicity issue with cedar horse bedding used as kitty litter. The guy at Tractor Supply recommended it. It’s about $5 for a 40 pound bag. I hope hope hope Bonnie Agnes and Boots Louise will be cool with the switch!
I would second a lot of what the author of this post said. We’ve been using pine litter for years now. I started using it in part because it was a lot less heavy than some other types of litter, which made it a lot easier to carry home (also a public transit user) and up four flights of stairs (in my old apartment). I also did it for the reason listed above of not wanting Coco (or me) to breathe in a lot of dust.
Coco’s never had a problem using the pine litter and personally…we don’t really scoop (I have a sensitive stomach and would rather change the litter once a week than dealing with constant nausea) and I don’t find that our box smells despite that. I actually think the litter itself smells really nice. Every cat has different preferences but we’ve had a really positive experience using it.
My cats use the Yesterday’s News (or similar brand) of newspaper litter. It’s great, keeps the smell down, fairly light and doesn’t ever track more than 3 feet from the boxes. It’s awesome…and it’s made from recycled newspapers and baking soda so it’s totally biodegradable too. I love it and the kitties do too. The cedar stuff is better than clay…but remember, it takes a very very very long time for a cedar tree to grow (buying the wood whole is very expensive) so it’s not necessarily better for the earth to turn it into cat litter instead of awesome trunks for blankets. ALSO, my brother and his gf bought it once and it had moth larvae in it (unbeknownst to them) and now they have a gazillion little silvery moths ALL over their house and they can’t get rid of them. Watch out for that too. 🙁
Okay, I have to comment that it is really weird that they found moth larvae in the cedar chips, because the whole point of using cedar to store blankets/clothes/yarn is that it repels moths. Maybe they’re a different kind of moth than the kind that eats wool? Or maybe cedar only repels a certain moth life cycle (I think I read that somewhere)? If someone knows more about this, I would love to hear about it, because I find that very strange!
I’ve been using cedar kitty litter for several years now. Yes, the tracking is immense. And I think there are indeed bug eggs/larvae in there (June bugs, for instance). Still, I would say it’s my preferred litter if I didn’t have an older cat who has a constant upper resp. infection, and I’m now beginning to wonder if he’s allergic to the cedar. Hummh!
We found the cedar and other natural kinds to track too much and our kitty’s pee in combination with most of them smelled pretty brutal, but have found success with Yesterday’s News. Our kitty is showing signs of asthma, so I try to avoid anything dusty. He has some pee issues – first, he has a really long body so we had to get him an extra large litter box because his little hiney kept hanging over the edge. He didn’t like peeing on the floor, but he couldn’t figure out how to have all his paws in and his butt at the same time! And he went through some behavioral phases for our first year with him but I think he was just getting stressed (we used to live with a lot of people who had visiting dogs then we moved twice) where he would pee on damp towels/laundry, in strange corners and on any filmy plastic (so weird). Now he often pees in the bathroom sink or he goes outside and pees by the garbage cans or in the neighbor’s garden, but even when he was peeing a lot on the Yesterday’s News, so as long as poops are scooped every day or two, we don’t notice a whole lot of odor.
We tried the pine litter at our house…. until I remembered I’m allergic! Haha. Once I put two and two together we switched to some newspaper litter stuff.So if you have seasonal allergies/hay fever, you might be allergic to the wood chip variety of cat litter. 🙁
I recently made the switch to a litter than is made of ground up corn cobs and found much the same as the OP as well as those in the comments. I find the smell is more controllable (which is nice, since I’m a student living at home and have to keep the litter box in my bedroom), and really the only downside is that urine doesn’t clump as well as with the clay litter. It does clump, but it is really easily broken apart so I have to be really careful when cleaning the box. Other than that, I’ve had no issues, but my cat is really adaptable and isn’t very picky with anything at all.
i’ve found there is less tracking w/ cedar pellet litter.
Mr. Ivriniel’s cat uses a wheat based kitty litter. We tried one made from wood shavings, but it set off my allergies.