Who has given up on pine litter?

Mailmans_Mom

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I have four cats. I would like to use a sustainable and affordable cat litter. I hate that mountains are strip mined so my cats can poop inside.

I bought my first bag of Equine Pine pellets from Rural King. Five days ago, I switched one of my 8 boxes to 100% pine pellets and added a small handful of pellets to another. In both locations, there is a 100% clay box to use. The cats haven't touched either box with pine in it. I'm going to put some clumps of urine from the clay boxes in there and see what happens.

I know I could try to strong arm them into this, putting 1% more pine into every box every week for the rest of their lives, but it seems to me they just don't like it. I want them to be happy.

There's plenty of threads about people who successfully transitioned to pine (lucky!). Does anyone want to speak up about giving up on pine?
 

GoldyCat

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I tried the line pellets several years ago when I had 6 cats. I left the litter box with pine pellets out for almost three months and never saw any evidence that a single cat stepped paw in it.

I did try physically putting cats in the box and every tine they jumped out as fast as they could get away.

I haven't tried the pine since then so I guess you could say I gave up on it.
 

Bobsk8

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The shelter where I adopted my cat that was around 10 months old at the time, told me that all their cats were on pine pellets. Therefore, I started her on pine pellets. Everything was OK for around 2 months and then she started not covering her poop, and eventually pooping right next to the litter box. I was considering returning her to the shelter, but before I did that, my daughter suggested I try switching her litter. I switched to Arm and Hammer Clump and seal, and immediately she started covering her poop again and has not pooped outside the litter box in well over 2 months. She just didn't like the pine pellets. My guess is that any cat who suddenly develops litter box problems while on pine pellets, should be switched to another type of litter, before giving up.
 

klunick

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The only time I used pine pellets was when I had to get a urine sample for a vet visit. At least I think it was pine pellets. Vet just gave me a small bag and told me to lock my cat in the bathroom with a litter box filled with it. I don't remember if he went in it or if I just told the vet at our next visit to just extract it directly from his bladder.
 

ladytimedramon

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I did briefly. Delilah seemed "ok" with it. But I noticed the poo wasn't really being covered. When I started working outside of home again, I came home and I noticed the urine smell. She didn't go anywhere but her litter box. But the pine pellets just weren't handling the urine. I also noticed that in the box, the pellets seemed to "melt" and at the bottom we were getting clumpy sawdust. I had some leftover clay litter from before the transition that I was keeping as an emergency backup. I put it in a box next to her litter box. Next 2 days all she used was the clay. So bye bye pine.
 

catloverfromwayback

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I know this thread is almost two years old but I’m having the same problem. My cats have always used clumping clay. Woolworths sell a good, very cheap one, or at least they did. A few months ago it became gravel instead of litter, absolutely unusable. Change of supplier, presumably. I tried paper litter, but it stank within a day or two. Went to tofu litter, which lasts up to two weeks. They had no trouble adjusting to either. I was talking to someone who raved about pine litter for her cats and rabbits, read up on it, was very pleased with how economical it’s supposed to be, bought a bag and a sifting bin ... and nope. Two weeks on, Daisy used it while it had a thick layer of tofu on top and Phoebe won’t touch it. I’ve currently got their old bin with tofu and the new one with pine. They’ve both used the tofu. I suspect this is money down the drain.
 

GranolaLouise

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Whenever I went to a shelter or pet store looking for a cat to adopt, they always smelled because of the pine pellets they all used...and they were cleaned daily. I was left with the impression that they would leave my home with that strong litter box smell if I used it.
 
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