We have two cats (one kitten and a one year old), should we have two litter boxes? If so, should they be in two different locations? Or can they be beside each other in one location?
Hi Sarah. The general rule is one box per cat plus an extra. Some cats do not like to pee and poo in the same box. Having said that, when Mika lived at our house we had 2 boxes for 2 cats because we just didn't have room for another and all was well. We kept one in our bedroom and one in our daughter's bedroom. The nice thing about having them there was that they always got scooped.
I have 4 cats and 2 boxes. How many you "need" is going to depend on the cats. For me, I want as few as they will let me get away with. Even with the 2 boxes they sometimes all only use 1 of them so I figure I'm OK with just 2.
I have two litterboxes, one upstairs and one downstairs, for 3 cats. While I'm at work, they are limited to one box, as they are in the confined to the bathroom. They do just fine and all three use it with no issues.
2 cats, one litter box, no problems here. It really depends on your cats. Mine are sisters who have never been seperated, so they are apparently pretty comfortable with each other's "business".
I currently have 12 boxes for 12 cats with a wall in a small extra room lined end to end in boxes. The other four are scattered throughout the house. At one point it was 16 cats and only 9 boxes, and while there were no out of box problems I had to scoop three times a day. Now it's once a day, twice when they've been drinking extra water on a warm day.
The rule is 1 box per cat plus 1 extra. But this can depend on the size of the boxes, where they are located, and whether they are open or closed. I have more cats than boxes, but use bins that are twice the size of normal boxes and scoop at least daily if not more and sterilize each one every other week. Mine are scattered across the house so they don't need to walk more than about 25 feet to find one.