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Pine Pellet Litter Transition

alandsim

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Mar 14, 2019
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I know this is an off topic update, but funny and gross and tangentially related to litter:

Sim and Jo were roaming the house with Jo in a muzzle. When we're doing this I keep her door to her quarantine room cracked so she can still get in but I *thought* Jo would at least be deterred or make enough noise for us to notice and stop him from going in.

Guess what? He got into her clay litter box, got some poop all enmeshed in his basket muzzle, then beelined to the living room and put his face in my lap :sick:

So I learned my lesson to watch him like a hawk in the future!


At least Sim was nowhere near him and they're keeping their distance from each other! Clothing, muzzle and sofa cover were all washed and disinfected and Jo got his face washed and teeth brushed :sick::sick::sick: No kisses for a while!
 

jackjacksmommy

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Joined
Nov 27, 2019
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So I have begun gradually transitioning Sim from clay clumping litter to pine pellet litter and I thought I'd share the process here!

My dream future litter situation is: 1 box upstairs and 1 box downstairs of pine pellet litter, scooped in the morning and at night. I have the catit litter boxes and someday I'll work on teaching Sim to use the door on each. Not a priority right meow but it will be nice to have both be covered. The REAL dream would be being able to compost or burn the used pine litter, but my city isn't really down with that :p

When she came to my house, I started her on the same clay litter (tidy cats) her previous owner used, and didn't mess too much with it. She had a litter robot so I thought transitioning to a normal covered litter box would be enough of a change and we had ZERO problems. She was peeing and pooping in there as soon as she came home.

The things I don't like about clay litter are:
  • Price
  • Smell
  • Dust (allergies and yuck)
  • Environmental impact
  • Scattered litter tracked all over the bathroom, not all caught by the litter mats because Sim likes to SPRINT out of there after she goes!
Pine pellets, the way I am using them are nice because:
  • They cost less than 8 dollars for a 40 lb bag at Tractor Supply!
  • Smells great when totally fresh, even after use doesn't have a strong cat waste smell- pine neutralizes it or covers it up somehow
  • It doesn't get tracked out. When it rarely does they're big pieces and easy to pick up
  • You use less litter
  • Trees are a renewable resource and it's a more natural product even if it ends up in a landfill just like clay litter
  • It's more fun in my opinion to scoop (I am a weird person who thinks scooping litter is satisfying, like a poopy zen garden). You scoop out the solids first and then sift through the pellets and remove the sawdust that is left at the bottom (When urine hits the pine pellets they turn to sawdust for anyone who doesn't know how it works!). It's like panning for gold.
The Transition
Disclaimer: I'm lucky that Sim is not very picky about her litter situation. I am still choosing to gradually transition, but I have it easier than some people who try to switch.

From what I have read on the subject, you are supposed to make two litter boxes available: Box A with 100% Old Litter, Box B with 100% New Litter and observe for a few days whether your cat shows a clear preference.

If they refuse to use Box B, you keep Box A available, and you empty Box B and fill it with 75% Old Litter, 25% New Litter with the hopes that they will use both. Then gradually up the ratio of New Litter in Box B. Once they reliably use Box B as much as Box A, you can start filling Box A with 25% New Litter and transition until both boxes are 100% New Litter.

Sim is a champ, and when I did this she was the ideal case where she was using both boxes within 24 hours. At first she was peeing and pooping in Box A but only peed a few times in Box B, but on day 3 she was peeing and pooping in both, but definitely doing it in Box A more often.

View attachment 92745
The pine litter during the first week, day 3 when she has peed and pooped a few times. Bad quality but you can see that almost NOTHING is tracked out onto the floor!

View attachment 92746
View attachment 92747
Old Litter Box area. This photo was taken 3 days after I completely cleaned and vacuumed this bathroom, the litter mats and the litter box. I tend to vacuum up litter throughout the week, so what you can see tracked is only one day's damage. She tracks it behind the toilet on her way out and sometimes jumps up onto the toilet and I'll find litter on the toilet lid. I hate it! Also, ignore the paint job in this spare bathroom, it's under construction. :)

Because she was using Box B I could just start with transitioning Box A out. After a week I started putting some pine pellets in Box A. I'm not really measuring exactly, but maybe right now it's 10% New, 90% Old because I figure the more gradual of a transition, the better.

I'm super excited for when we're all pine!!
So hoping to get my Jack Jack to switch over to pine eventually. He absolutely makes a crazy mess with the clay when he jets out of his box, even with the litter mat. I feel like I am at the beach with it all over my bathroom floor. Thank you for detailing the steps you used so far. Really hoping to find a cheaper option, and so I will be dreaming of pine until I am out of my current litter.
 

alandsim

Lairian
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Mar 14, 2019
Messages
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We're still on pine and I LOVE how cheap & tidy it is. My aunt actually switched to it too because of me, she usually has 3 or 4 cats at a time so it really cut downs costs from clay.

Only downside is Sim has really stinky poops she does not cover so I'm actually on here to look through threads and research diet changes that might help with that! All I can do now is scoop often!
 

Condo commando

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We're still on pine and I LOVE how cheap & tidy it is. My aunt actually switched to it too because of me, she usually has 3 or 4 cats at a time so it really cut downs costs from clay.

Only downside is Sim has really stinky poops she does not cover so I'm actually on here to look through threads and research diet changes that might help with that! All I can do now is scoop often!
Hi - raw food is your answer. I can hardly tell when the box needs to be scooped and I have 3 cats. The size of the poo is a lot smaller also (maybe half the size). The downside is the cost if you're used to feeding kibble, but if you're used to buying canned foods then it won't shock you.

I've been researching the pellets and would appreciate some intel.....
  1. Do you use a sifting litter box and do you recommend the one you're using? The ones I've seen have low-ish sides which kind of worries me with my boy.
  2. Does the sawdust smell (or how often do you have to dump the sawdust in the trash so your house doesn't smell like cat pee)?
 

PiperRose

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Mar 7, 2020
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I'm looking to switch litter and I love pine pellets. The only problem I had last time we tried was that our male cat pees like Austin Powers. The pine turned to mush super fast.
Any tips?
 

Ten

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Feb 13, 2020
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I originally had my girl using the same clay, clumping litter that the breeder was using, but I had it in an open box while the breeder used a litter robot. I found the dust overwhelming to my asthma and allergies, and then thought the cat may have also had a reaction when I changed her to an enclosed litter box with the door removed. I ended up switching her to a walnut clumping litter, and had no idea about transitioning and changing it in. She has not has an issue... no accidents, still using the litter box and covering up her poos, no smell, less tracking, and I only need to change it once a month or so, just topping it up when needed.
 

Condo commando

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@Ten The appeal of the pine pellets is the cost. Pine pellets are not technically cat litter; they're made as bedding material for the floor of horse stalls. They sell this in farm supply stores, not pet stores. The funny thing is there is a company that makes pine kitty litter (Feline Pine) but it costs a lot more than horse bedding and from what I've been told, it's the same thing.

The downside of buying horse bedding is it comes in 40 lb bags, which I guess makes sense if you need to fill a stall instead of a litter box.

BTW I was happy to read those fires are fully extinguished now. It was gutwrenching just watching. I couldn't look at the TV.
 
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alandsim

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@Condo commando
I am def considering raw- I have until dry food runs out to decide whether I want to try that now or try all canned wet food no dry first. Raw is just daunting for so many reasons but I continue to research, lol.

I do not use a sifting litterbox only because I love my Catit covered litterboxes boxes and I haven't figured out how I could incorporate a sifting tray with them.

So after I get all the solids out whenever I'm doing a clean I just sort of "mine for gold" with a regular scoop and sift sawdust into a bag, putting the unused pine pellets back in the box. I oddly haven't really heard of anyone else who does it like this, but it works for me!

I also subscribe to the idea that you should always keep a little bit of their smell in there, so I don't mind that this method doesn't ever get all the sawdust out. I haven't completely cleaned each out in several months, I just add new pine pellets each time I do a normal clean. I probably won't completely empty and scrub out the litterboxes until it's warm and I can do it outside tbh.

To me, the sawdust does not smell from urine at all, unless Sim decides to get in there and pee while I'm trying to clean it, (always!). In that close proximity while it's wet I can smell it, but after it dries I personally can't. I am just a 1 cat household though with two boxes, so there's not too much pee in there at a time!
 

Condo commando

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@alandsim I think I've seen mining for gold on youtube videos. With 1 cat I guess it's not that big a deal but I have 3 so I'm looking for something faster.

Anyway I wouldn't get rid of your litter boxes if you like them. You can just buy 1 sifting litter box for the sifting feature. Use it to sift and then pour the pellets that are left back into your own litter box. However, I still don't like that you pour the sawdust twice - first into the sifting tray and then into a trash can. It just seems like an accident waiting to happen. Wouldn't it make more sense to sell a TRASH CAN with a sifter tray, and when you pour the used litter on the sifter tray the sawdust falls through to the trash can and it can just stay there?

As far as raw food....I agree, it's daunting. I had other cats that I couldn't switch to raw so I knew back then that after they passed, my next cats would eat raw from the beginning. And here we are, and I haven't killed them, so I guess we did it :)
 
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alandsim

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Wouldn't it make more sense to sell a TRASH CAN with a sifter tray, and when you pour the used litter on the sifter tray the sawdust falls through to the trash can and it can just stay there?

OMG... when I read this I knew I had seen that exact thing before!


I remember looking at this product way back before I had even gotten a cat but I was already obsessively researching litter systems lol (I had already come to the conclusion I was going to try pine before Sim and I even heard of each other lol). There are some critical reviews about its functionality and how it's also kind of an accident waiting to happen with the narrow opening. I don't think I would trust myself pouring the Catit box into this.

Just now I saw this was a "frequently bought together" product, and it's bendy material litter box that is easier to aim and pour. That's kind of a cool solution.

Still I'm sure every system has its own unique challenges!

Edit: and $42?! sheesh. they should sell just the sifter thing separately and make them attach to the standard size wastebaskets you can find at home depot.

If they came out with a nice metal sifter to attach to trash cans that has more of a wide, funnel opening I would probably pony up some cash for that. I cringe at how much plastic goes into the pet industry sometimes!
 

Condo commando

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they should sell just the sifter thing separately and make them attach to the standard size wastebaskets you can find at home depot.
But they come out ahead if they sell you an entire litter box!

Seriously though I decided I'm going to buy a couple of Sterilite bins. One is going to be deep and one shallow. The shallow one will nest into the tall one. I will drill holes in the bottom of the shallow one. I just need one to sift all 3 of my litter boxes.

Both Sterilite bins together only $10 at Big Lots.
www.biglots.com/product/clearview-27-quart-clear-latching-storage-tote/p810299828?N=535560481&pos=1:7
www.biglots.com/product/sterlite-clear-15-quart-storage-box-with-latch/p170018016?N=535560481&pos=1:4
 

Kamon

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Thanks! I am overly enthusiastic about it and it's nice to have a place where it's appropriate to talk about it this much. :0 I'm a litter geek I guess!

Step one, scoop out solids. Step two, I scoop up a big pile of pellets and sawdust, hold it inside my baggie and shake/sift the sawdust through my scooper into the bag so I can dump the good pellets back in the box. I have a huge metal scooper so I only have to do this like 5 times to get through all the litter. It doesn't get ALL the sawdust out of the box but it gets almost all of it and I empty and scrub out the box every two weeks as normal anyway. Some people have a different system with a sifting litter pan, but I just really love my catit boxes and this is the simplest solution I can figure out without having to buy a bunch of gadgets or do extra steps every day.

if I can
Thanks! I am overly enthusiastic about it and it's nice to have a place where it's appropriate to talk about it this much. :0 I'm a litter geek I guess!

Step one, scoop out solids. Step two, I scoop up a big pile of pellets and sawdust, hold it inside my baggie and shake/sift the sawdust through my scooper into the bag so I can dump the good pellets back in the box. I have a huge metal scooper so I only have to do this like 5 times to get through all the litter. It doesn't get ALL the sawdust out of the box but it gets almost all of it and I empty and scrub out the box every two weeks as normal anyway. Some people have a different system with a sifting litter pan, but I just really love my catit boxes and this is the simplest solution I can figure out without having to buy a bunch of gadgets or do extra steps every day.
Thanks! I am overly enthusiastic about it and it's nice to have a place where it's appropriate to talk about it this much. :0 I'm a litter geek I guess!

Step one, scoop out solids. Step two, I scoop up a big pile of pellets and sawdust, hold it inside my baggie and shake/sift the sawdust through my scooper into the bag so I can dump the good pellets back in the box. I have a huge metal scooper so I only have to do this like 5 times to get through all the litter. It doesn't get ALL the sawdust out of the box but it gets almost all of it and I empty and scrub out the box every two weeks as normal anyway. Some people have a different system with a sifting litter pan, but I just really love my catit boxes and this is the simplest solution I can figure out without having to buy a bunch of gadgets or do extra steps every day.

hi..I would like to share my experience with the pellet litter. I LOVE IT. All the reasons you state above..no dust, no tracking, no ammonia smell, MUCH lower cost, lasts longer, environmentally friendly. I also would like to share the way I “sift” my box. After scooping the solids, I have a colander that I scoop the pellets into, that I hold over a larger bowl, then I shake the colander over the bowl. The sawdust falls through the colander into the bowl, then I pour the pellets back into the box. VERY EASY. Doesn’t make a mess. I bought the colander and the bowl at The Dollar Tree. I will never go back to clay litter if I don’t need to! My cats love it! I believe it is better for them. Just be sure to get the pellets that say they are kiln dried, I hear the oil in pine MAY be toxic. BUT, if they are kiln dried, it removes the oil.
 
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