How many boxes?

[tatiana2]

So I have heard the general rule is minimum one box per cat. But could one go with less than that if you have litter mates who are used to sharing everything since they were little? Especially if we were willing to scoop twice a day instead of the usual once a day.

We could end up with all four kittens we rescued but the layout of our home only allows for spaces for three boxes. We have a newer home and they don't put in those wonderful nooks and crannies older homes do for boxes.

Right now they are only five mos old and still in one room most of the time sharing one box that gets scooped 2 - 3 times a day. No one has ever gone out of their box.

 

[Kat0121]

When I got Lilith and Sophie, they shared a box for over a year with no issues whatsoever. They are related. I call them siblings and they do have the same birthday (in my mind- not necessarily in reality) but I don't know what their true relationship is. According to the vet, Lily is a little older but she doesn't think that she's much older. It's entirely possible that Lily is Sophie's mother and was still a kitten herself when she had her. You gotta love those backyard breeders.

   

I got Henry a little over a year after I got them and got him his own box since he was in a safe room to help him get adjusted. About 2 months later, I needed to go out of town for a little less than 2 days so I figured that I'd get extra boxes just in case. I got 2 more for the girls and 1 more for Henry. Well, they loved having those extra boxes so much that I never took them away. Henry's fully integrated with the girls now so all the boxes are together in what was his old safe room.

So now I have 5 boxes for the 3 cats but the 2 girls did great with the 1 box. They would occasionally stalk each other while one was in the facilities and jump her when she came out but that's just cats being cats. There were never any accidents or anything but I did make sure that the box was scooped daily and kept clean. 

 

[jclark]

A Vet once told me that in a multi-level house it is recommended that you have one box for each cat on each level (Nuts I know).   That being said we have had two cats in the house for years and only two boxes with never a problem.

 

[2bcat]

My experience:  we adopted 4 year old siblings a couple years ago, had been together since they were little (shared their larger cage at the shelter as well), and up until a few weeks ago they shared one box.  What happened a few weeks ago is we finally changed things so that they had access to both levels of the house.  Before that they only were on one level.  It's a small house.  The one box worked fine with often enough scooping.  Now that they know there's a box on both levels they use both, but we never had any problems with just one.

It seems to be a case by case basis how well it will work.  You also have to decide just how much you want to risk it.  I think with siblings/littermates you are fairly safe with fewer boxes at least at first.  But a change in environment can prompt changes in the cats, so you never really know.  A lot of people would rather play it safe and have the suggested number of boxes (1 per cat + 1 extra), vs potentially having inappropriate elimination issues. 

Technically I should have 3 boxes to be safe in our house, but I'm sticking with 2 and I'm pretty confident it will be fine for the foreseeable future.  But I do that already knowing the habits of the two cats.

 

[margd]

Paul and Chula are siblings and share a box with no problems. It's a very large one, though and I keep it scooped. Their previous owner raised them with one box which might be why they are okay with this.

 

[Columbine]

Asha and Shadow are most definitely NOT related and they share a single box with no problems!

This wasn't the original plan, but after a few months of only one box being used I decided there was no point in having the second one down - we'd never got onto having 3, as Shad had only ever had a single box and there was only space for one in Asha's room. By the time they were fully integrated Asha had moved over to only ever using Shadow's box.

Prior to that, Shadow and his late brother Cali shared a single box for 12 years without any problems.

It all depends on the individuals concerned.