Cat Litter
I am having a debate at work about cat litter. My stance is that many cat owners have no clue exactly what type of cat litter they are using. My coworker insists that "cat people" are very purposeful with selecting their litter.
I know there are many cat lovers on here (myself included). If you are being honest with yourself (and with us), do you know the brand/type of litter you use without looking at the container? My assumption is that you can describe the package, but the specifics are elusive.
I am a yellow bin with blue lid house.
CR37 
Calico696 
hoping the best 
botheredbyuu2 Scoop Away and nothing else. It's much finer than others and clumps much better. When Shoprite stopped stocking it for a while and I had to break the news to the cats, you can be 10000% sure I never forget exactly what I buy if I want to live....
GC We are another Scoop Away, clumping, scented user. My one cat refuses to use any other brand. And I agree GC, ShopRite does not stock this all the time, but now we just buy the 40 lb size from PetSmart.
guba618 
riverat I wonder if there is a black market for kitty litter in stead of a speak easy you go to a step easy mixed with calsum chloride and rock salt work well on side walks but then every ones out side cat are hanging around
Caged Animal Shoprite generic brand, unscented. Scoop Away unscented if I find it. I don't want the cat litter company picking the scent of my house. Their choices of scent are not so appealing :)
maja 
Jazzykatt "I am a yellow bin with blue lid house."
I assume you mean Tidy Cat. I used to use TC but at some point the clumping quality became terrible and I had to stop using it. Unless you miraculously plucked the clump free without touching it at all with the scooper, it would disintegrate and all the urine-soaked litter would just mix with the clean litter. The cats were none too pleased.
So, now, I'm with Calico... Fresh Step Scoopable Multi-Cat... nice firm clumps that are easily removed and no odors to speak of. I DO miss the yellow buckets though... they were very useful for holding recyclables, storing ice-melt, etc., but S&S only has Fresh Step in bags and cardboard boxes, no plastic tubs unfortunately.
ianimal 
Are cats are not picky when it comes to litter. I do add the pop-rocks every Saturday night to liven up their day ;)
John C ianimal - Fresh Step eliminated the plastic containers at least 3 years ago, maybe longer. My husband loves the containers as well. He has a ton of them stacked in the garage with different stuff in them. One time a friend stopped by and saw all the containers, not noticing that they were labeled ice-melt, holly tone etc., and with eyes wide asked, "How many cats do you have?" LMAO, he thought we needed that much litter.
Swheat Scoop .... all wheat chaff litter.
Absorbs wet fantastically ......
I clean the box twice daily...sometimes more.
Works great on ice in the driveway, and no cleaning it up. The birds pick it all up as clean as a whistle.
Embryodad Dr. ELSEY'S Senior cat litter. Very fine crystal litter.
It's AMAZING odor control and it aids in the prevention of kidney and urinary issues. Fragrance free and all my cats will use it. I am so happy I discovered it!
Weebiekins Scoop Away, especially in winter when I can't wash the litterboxes regularly (usually hose them down outside.) It's a bit dusty, but clumps pretty good and really saves on litter changes as a result. They claim that "it clumps so tight, you'll never have to dump out the litter again." Pretty true, so far.
Tidy cat has neat containers, but does not clump very well, resulting in more frequent litter dump-outs... certainly no bargain even when on sale.
jjmonth4 
jm62 I like the Arm and Hammer Scoop and Seal. It's fairly low dust and clumps well.
Stay away from Tidy Cats Lightweight - it's lightweight because it is just a container filled with dust. Tried to save my back since I'm getting to old to haul 40 lb. boxes of litter, but it was a total waste and I ended up covered in fine grey grit.
jm62 - if you are using the pellet type of Feline Pine you can save some $$ buying Equine Pine Pellet at Tractor Supply or Equine Fresh. It's exactly the same as the Feline Pine, but costs about 1/2 the price.
espo From reading the answers to his post I think the original poster needs to buy his coworker lunch as he lost this bet in overwhelming fashion. Not only do cat owners (once had 7 cats at one time in an earlier life) know what litter they are using, they know the ingredients, the characteristics, the cost, and the effect on cats using it. CR37 may be clueless to his litter use but he seems to be the only cat owner on this forum who is LOL.
MK we switched from the clumping cat litter to the newspaper based one as the fine clumping litter was being tracked everywhere and we got tired of vacuuming it up multiple times a day and stepping on it. i see most of you use the fine clumping ones... any secrets to avoid having it tracked all over?? we tried rugs and mats but didn't help much.
Poppy Girl
jrsemom 
Nellejoy I am humbled by the fact that I am clueless about the brand. And it's not even like I don't know because I don't clean the litter box; I am the SOLE litter box cleaner in the house currently.
I may have to rethink the brand I use. If there are others out there that clump better, I may need to investigate. I was focused on odor, and did not consider the clumping factor.
CR37 - Give yourself to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your friends.
Better clumping means finer, and that's Scoop Away. The only downside is you may want to make sure you pour slowly because of the dust. But for me that's just a few seconds every so often.
I'd only consider a non-clay if it weren't for that. Pine is very absorbent but non-clumping. Wheat seems to be the opposite and when you have cats with a magic fountain so they drink by the gallon... Not the right thing. Arm & Hammer's corn husk is somewhere in between and the only non-clay I found was actually OK. It clumps as good as Tidy Cat or Fresh Step, but not Scoop Away. It's absorbs and no real odor.
Jules I had been noticing an increased amount of dust in my house and, for the life of me, couldn't figure out WHY. After investigating, I discovered it was my cat litter, Fresh Step. I bought a closed litter box, hoping that would help, but it didn't so I switched to Tidy Cat. There is still some dust with that but not as much. Might try the new Arm & Hammer Light Weight, which they claim is virtually dust free. We shall see!
Iris I have been using the Clump and Seal since it came out several months ago. It does a great job with clumping and the odors are non existant too. I am constantly cleaning out the boxes since one of my cats will not use a litter box with anything in there except litter. Least expensive at Target.
Hockeymom115 Iris - I was tempted to try the Fresh Step lightweight, but have read horrible reviews about it. Let us know if you try the Arm & Hammer.
I found Advance for a while at pet smart - was great - no dust - good clumping- and all 5 cats liked it- but it has disappeared --- tried Arm and Hammer - because it is dust free - they don't like it --- Used to use Fresh Step but the dust was horrendous - don't know what to try next ( oh did try world's best - only one cat will use it ) Now I'm thinking maybe I should try walking them...anyone ever walk 5 cats??? or 1 or 2 -
Uh oh - Peanut is watching me type this and she is just shakin' her head.....
5catmom 
jrn Too funny, 5catmom!!! I can just picture you walking down the road with 5 leashed cats, 1 chasing a leaf, 1 smelling the grass, 1 chasing a bee, 1 chasing a butterfly and 1 just won't go at all !!!
I used Dr. Elsey's Respiratory Relief clumping litter because Romeo had asthma. There is still some minimal dust when you pour it into the box, but it's not too bad. Hackettstown Pet carries it.
The only issue I've had with it is if the cat pees against the side or in the corner of the box, the clumps sometimes get stuck and are almost impossible to pry loose.
Mom swears by Fresh Step non-clumping litter, she prefers to change and wash the box regularly and finds the fine clumping litter gets tracked too easily.
I'm not sure what litter I'm going to use now that I only have to maintain a box for Lucy and possibly Cody and Punkin if they happen to wander into our section of the house.
Lynnada I just switched to the Tidy Cat Breeze system. No more dust and scraping the side of the litter boxes. The urine goes down through holes onto a pad and you only scoop the poop. I love it! PetSmart and Walmart have this system as well as refill litter and pads. When You buy a system, there is a $10.00 off coupon for another system and coupons for the refills. I was lucky when I bought them at PetSmart, it was on sale for $25.99 and then I had coupons. A good size litter box with a hood is $25.00 - $35.00 alone.
Savethemall ok, I know this is going to sound crazy, but we have boxes on all three levels of our house and use different litter in each! - each of our cats prefer specific litters and the needs differ - tidy cat light upstairs, clump and seal - arm and hammer on the main level - which I find works very well, with minimal dust and excellent odor control, and tidy cat in the yellow bucket downstairs, where there are two boxes with a large mat in front of each - the mat is really necessary due to the propensity of the litter to "migrate" - picky cats - they seem to have their own individual bathrooms!
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