Litter Trays

Probably the least glamorous aspect of keeping cats is the litter trays.  Everyone has their own routines for this, but this is our take on it.

It’s worth remembering that litter trays are one of the prime sites for the spread of disease, especially in indoor cats.  Spending a little time and effort here is important and worthwhile for your cats’ welfare and health. 

Cats are by nature very clean creatures.  If a litter tray is not clean, they will often not use it, and find somewhere else less convenient for you!  Nearly every single accident our cats have had, I can attribute to me not having got the trays clean quickly enough.

We use covered litter trays with swing doors on the front.  For our four cat household, we have three trays which are all changed at least twice daily.  It’s well worth lining the tray with a thick layer of newspaper for a couple of reasons.  This prevents urine or faeces coming into direct contact with the base of the tray, which helps to prevent any pathogens being transferred to the plastic.  It also makes cleaning out an easier process – it is usually possible to roll up the newspaper with everything else inside it, and transfer straight to a bin liner for disposal.

Having tried a few different types of litter, we have found the wood pellet type to be the best.  It doesn’t turn to ‘mud’ when wet like the clay based types, so we don’t have little muddy footprints leading away from the trays.  It retains any odour well, and it’s very rare that you can actually smell the litter trays in our house.  Also, the pellets aren’t sharp for cat or people feet!  With the newspaper in the tray, not much litter is needed – we use about half a plastic measuring jug for each tray.

One of our trays is on a carpeted floor.  To avoid damaging the carpet, we have a square of the transparent plastic designed for covering carpet in doorways etc, with grippers on the under side.  This gives a wipe clean, easily disinfected surface to stand the tray on.

Each time the trays are emptied, they are disinfected.  Taking an extra thirty seconds to do this is so worthwhile.  The heartache and cost of a sick cat is not worth taking short cuts on hygiene.