Switching Litter Material

[Black_Kat]

Hey all! I have 3 cats; 2 spayed females ages 6 and 7 years (approx) and a neutered male approx 7 months old. All of my cats have been used to traditional clumping litter. I'm currently using Dr. Elseys Clean Tracks. But let me tell ya'll, I HATE clay litter. The low-dust is dusty, the low-tracking still tracks and it's just messy and gross. And my cats really like to suck it up between their toe beans and spinkle it everywhere, especially after vacuuming I would love to transition them to a pine pellet litter. All of my parents cats that we had while I was growing up were using the pine litter so I quite familiar with what to expect, brands, cost, etc. I tried to make the switch several years ago and one of my girls did not take to it. Granted, I did not make a slow transition, I just switched all at once and she ended up peeing in a cardboard box I had laying around. This time I want to try to take it slow but I'm scared haha I don't want anyone getting stressed and finding the need to pee/poop elsewhere.

So for those of you who've made the switch, how did you do it? How long did it take, how much new litter did you start to mix with the old, did you switch all litterboxes or just one at a time? Etc

Halp

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi!
This thread can give you ideas about how to do the transition

A Documentation on the Transition from Clay Litter to Tofu Cat Litter for my boy

 

[vansX2]

A few months ago I switched from Dr. Elsey's to Tidy Cat clumping without discussing the change with my DW. Within about 1 week I was told that she could smell pee from the Tidy Cat. So not to further rock the boat we went back to using Dr. Elsey's.

 

[verna davies]

I switched from clumping to pine several years ago. I left one litter tray with the usual litter and added a couple of handfuls of pine mixed into the other. As I cleaned the used litter out I topped up with pine until it was all pine. By then my cats were using it so I repeated the process with the other litter tray. Took about a week in total.

 

[ladytimedramon]

I did pine for a while. I transitioned it like they said. Delilah wasn't too fond of it. She'd use it and I'd still have pellets all over the apartment. Also it seemed to bother her paws just as much as the clay. We wound up with a crystal litter and better litter mats.

 

[FrazzledMumbly]

This might not work for you since I have a particularly laidback cat and one large box, but I did the half technique. Filled the front half with the old litter Max already knew, filled the back half with the new litter and buried one of his poos on that side. He stirred the two together with his own kicking around and I just added more of the new whenever it needed a top up. Then refilled with just the new when the time came.

It helped that the okocat I chose is small enough pieces that the texture change didn't confuse him. I deliberately decided against pellet shapes to avoid that.

 

[wrenka]

My cat has always been very particular about her litter box, being that she would even hold it if the box was not available (Like if someone trapped her in a bedroom by accident over night, or the time me and her had to evacuate the home during a fire together) and she's never missed the box, so with her, I just cold turkey switched litters and she went along with it.. For management, I have this scooper which is amazing for sifting the dust from the pellets! And this DIY style of litterbox (not my pic) due to how large she is (Not obese, but small-dog stature)

 

[Alldara]

When I switch litter I put 100% new litter in one box, take the first poo and move it over to the box and just wait. It can take 1-2 weeks. All other boxes are still the old litter.

Once they use the new box regularly, I slowly switch all out to the new litter as I run out of old one.

For pine pellets, I had to put something softer on top. I did World's Best Cat Litter. It was the only way Nobel would use it.

I had 0 issues switching to corn, wheat, nut shell, or paper litters. Even the wood chip that wasn't all pine was fine.

please ensure that you use cat litter and not rabbit or other litter which may be treated differently and cause harm to a cat. (Personal experience from my roommate using rabbit litter - she had cats and rabbits and we shared supplies)

 

[catloverfromwayback]

I tried it and they both hated it. I think it hurt their feet. They’d always had clumping litter. I had tried paper litter (the stench after a couple of days was atrocious - and I scoop litter several times a day) and tofu (not bad, but the pine litter was supposedly better). I gave up on it and went with an enzymatic litter that’s softer, doesn’t track as much as clay litter, and has better odour control - I get about three weeks for two cats out of a 4.5kg bag.