My Litter Box Stinks To High Heaven Please Help!

lisahe

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Some cats will not cover their poop due to dominance issues. We are certain that is why Simon does not cover his, as he is the sort of leader of the glaring.
Yes, one of our two cats -- the one who fancies herself the alpha -- doesn't cover much, either!
 

cataholic07

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my boys poo used to really smell bad until I switched to raw now most times you smell nothing
 
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Johnv713

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Thanks. I will add more activated charcoals to the litter. Now can anyone help me litter train my ferret :)
 
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Johnv713

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Will be swicthing to raw after i run out of Fancy Feast. Stuff is expensive. I guess they called it Fancy for a reason Lol.
 

cheesycats

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Please make sure you go to the raw forum on this site. Making raw probably won’t be much cheaper than fancy feast unless you buy your meats and organs in bulk from a butcher. And it’s certainly will be more time consuming and complicated at first.
Fancy feast is a cheaper canned food as well compared to some other higher quality brands.
Not all cats like raw either. So that’s something to take into consideration as well.
A good base to follow with raw is an 80%, 20% model. 80% muscle meat, 10% bone (wings, necks, soft easy to chew and digest bones) and 10% organs which must be broke down into a 5% liver and 5% other excretory organs. Such as kidneys, lungs, gizzards, etc. Heart is considered a muscle meat, not an organ when raw feeding. Just keep some of these things in mind and I hope you can find somewhere to source your meats safely and cheaper than fancy feast. I’m sure it can be done. But I didn’t find it much cheaper than a cheaper canned food or kibble when I researched in my area.
 

Willowy

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Thanks. I will add more activated charcoals to the litter. Now can anyone help me litter train my ferret :)
Just stick a small litter box in every corner, that's about as "trained" as most of them get ;). Naughty weezels.

I didn't find raw or homecooked to be cheaper or easier than canned food. It's a real commitment.
 

MargoLane

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Raw has been great for my cat, and we have no litterbox odour at all. I would strongly suggest trying a pre-made raw before making your own with all that chicken! You don't know yet if your cat will like it, or if it will agree with them. And the ratios, nutrients and supplements can be hard to get right. Difficult enough, in fact, that I do not make my own raw at all. I found a great local raw food company, with an 80/10/10 mix and I add fish oil, taurine and probiotics. Making raw requires a meat grinder, a scale and whole lot of work and calculations. You can't just give them raw chicken breasts. It just doesn't have the nutrients needed. It's a huge investment in time, effort and money if your cat doesn't like it. Go to a pet store with a freezer section and try out some of the commercial raw brands first!
 

maggie101

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I’ve tried just about every products to keep the odor down a notch without any success. Bought horse pine pellets, baking soda, activated charcoal, horse stall refresher( zeolite granules) , extra strengh carpet odor eliminator for the litter box. Nothing worked except for the carpet odor eliminator but that only masked the smell.

I feed my cat dry food and Friskies cans. Do you think the food is the culprit? If so, please recommend food to keep the foul odor away thanks
What brands of clumping litter have you used? Some of them stink bad. I use Arm&Hammer slide unscented. Does exactly what it says! Boxes are not covered. You cannot tell that I have 3 cats
 

lisahe

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I didn't find raw or homecooked to be cheaper or easier than canned food. It's a real commitment.
It really is a commitment, even if you use a premixed supplement powder. The big reason I make food is because our cats like it so much and it also agrees with their odd guts. And, as cheesycats cheesycats mentioned, it's not necessarily cheaper than canned foods.

J Johnv713 , if you are serious about starting to make food, I'd strongly suggest starting by, say, first taking your cats off the dry food, then gradually introducing some homemade, first in small amounts. cheesycats is also right about cats and taste, plus you might find a good combination of foods that gives you flexibility for when/if you travel, etc. Lots of combinations of food can make a litter box smell less!
 
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Johnv713

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Ive used Purina Tidy cats, Fresh step crystals, FS clumping, A&H Seal, A&H muti cats,and a few others.

I think i tried raw once a long tine ago. IIRC some liked and some didnt. Will guve it anither shot. I understandnits a big commitment but ill do anything to get rid if the smell.

As for the ferret. Yeah hes a very naughty
Weezel but i love him to death. Hes apooping machine gun though LOL
 

Erin80

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Our cat Kaia has a sensitive stomach and it has taken me months and months of trying foods to find what works for her.
I feed her a commercially prepared raw meal once a day (turkey). The other three times she’s fed Authority wet food.....it’s not the best or the worst. They eat the flaked bits in gravy. It doesn’t have any fruit or veggies, but it does have wheat gluten and potato starch .
I was finding she was having diarrhea almost every morning, and it occurred to me that I was giving them Temptation cat treats every night before bed. I cut those completely out and started giving her freeze dried natural treats before bed. No more diarrhea and the box doesn’t smell nearly as bad now.
I’m thinking about doing raw twice a day and canned twice (she eats so much because she still a kitten and growing). Both cats LOVE the raw food. I really feel the raw has helped with box odour.
Raw is super easy to feed when you buy the commercially prepared food. You just need to be aware of ratios.
 

weebeasties

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When we first brought Buddy home from the shelter at 8 weeks we continued to feed him what he was fed at the shelter, Purina kitten chow. His poops smelled horrendous! And he farted. A lot.
After numerous fecal tests showed no issues, I simply changed the brand of food. No more stinky poop. No more farts. Now he is almost a year old and to this day refuses any food (dry or wet) made by Purina. There must be something in that brand that he is sensitive to.
Just thought I would mention this if you try raw and it doesn't work out. Keep trying different brands and give each brand a week or so to know if it makes a difference. I think we noticed a change in the smell within a couple of days though.
 
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Johnv713

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A friend gave me her high end left iver dry food for indoor cats and ive been feeding my cats Fancy Feast. Woke up this morning to a fresh pile of vomit inducing stools :)
I’m defrosting the raw chicken to feed them in a bit. Hope that will do the trick.
 

LTS3

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According to this cat poop chart, foul smelling poop may indicate incomplete digestion. Poor quality foods are often full of indigestible junk. Try feeding a high quality food for a few weeks to see if that helps. A raw or home cooked diet are options if you want to give either a try.

Some cats may just have stinky poop no matter what. My cats eat the same raw food. One has nearly odorless poop. The other might as well be eating junky dry food and he doesn't cover :barfgreen:
 

GalaxyGirl

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I feed mine Fancy Feast, Friskies, and Iams. My litter boxes don't stink because I use Fresh Step litter. I'm using the lightweight now because I get twice as much as a single regular box. NOTHING stinks, and one of the litter pans is in the kitchen. Fresh Step is dusty and it tracks, but that's easier to put up with than the odor.
Fresh step doesn’t work like that. If you are feeding something that’s doesn’t agree with your cats. Their poop stinks really bad. My cats have severe food allergies. Good litter doesn’t fix a diet that doesn’t agree with a cats stomach.
 

smosmosmo

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I highly recommend you give Nulo dry food a try - my cat's poop barely smells since we switched over to this. She's eating the salmon & lentils flavor right now, the diet variety since that's all Chewy had. Mine has a habit of not covering her poop when she's miffed at me and you'd never know it because the poop doesn't smell like much.

Switching to all wet food would probably have a similar effect, but since that's tough to do I'd really recommend you try the Nulo. It's one of the few grain-free kibbles I've seen with so much meat, and it's cheap to boot. We have a bag of Dr Elsey's Cleanprotein kibble too which is very pricey, but even that one has less meat on the ingredients list than the Nulo.

Imo it's a food issue, not an issue with your litter. I keep my cat's litterbox in my bedroom and use unscented clumping clay litter, and it never smells like poop in here.
 

Willowy

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I agree that Fresh Step non-clumping litter (with carbon) is amazing for odor control. It's what I use if there's a tomcat in the house; nothing else takes care of that odor. If someone has to make SURE there's no kitty odor, that's what I'd recommend. It does need to be fully changed once a week though.

I never notice a poop smell no matter what kind of litter is being used, unless the cat just pooped of course, and that's unavoidable. So that makes me think something is disagreeing with their stomachs. It doesn't always come down to "high-quality" or not, even the highest-quality food can still disagree with them. Sometimes it takes a bit of experimentation to see what works for that individual cat.
 

kittyluv387

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Dry and wet food will cause stinky poos. That’s the best benefit of raw in my opinion. No stink! If your cats don’t like dry and you can afford it, ditch the dry. All that carb and fiber in the dry makes them stinky.
 
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