[cinderflower]

hi:

i just noticed an intro area so i'll go there next but the main reason i joined was to ask members how many of you use wood pellet litter or "feline pine" as it is marketed in the grocery?

i just found out about using wood stove pellets as litter so i got a 40 lb. bag. it usually sells for 4.97 but the owner of newgreenearth hooked me up for nothing so i could try it. i guess it doesn't always work out.

#1, i can tell my 15 year-old and 2 year-old cats will have no problem crossing over. i used it years ago with the older one and she had no problem with it, it just seemed too expensive at the time--plus you need a few different types of accessories, it seems. the only one i might have problems with is the 5 year-old who has always been picky about his litterbox, but we'll see. if push comes to shove, i'll keep one regular in the bedroom for baci, even though i'd really like to get away from the tracking clay clumping litter.

i want to see how many of you use this type of litter and how it's working out for you. it really seems ideal in a lot of ways--natural, no added perfumes, NO TRACKING (haha), you can flush the poop if you so desire, less changing of the litter box, COST, better for the environment in several ways (no strip-mining, can be mulched instead of taking up room in a landfill, etc.) and there's no dust, which can be harmful to both humans and cats, to say nothing of the extra dust you have to clean off everything in the house, so i really want it to work. i just started using it two days ago and have been monitoring who is going plus i want to make sure to get the poops right away since that's the only drawback of these pellets. they dissolve and turn into sawdust with the urine, but they do little for poop so you really have to get it scooped as soon as you can. i didn't just throw it in the box, i mixed a little in with their old litter to start them out slow. i've heard this is really the only reliable way to do it, since a lot of cats don't care for it at first. it totally doesn't feel the same at all.

so, looking forward to hearing your experiences.

[kskat]

I just didn't like it and the cats didn't like the texture. I use World's Best, it is all natural (corn) and clumps. Much less dust and tracking!

[cinderflower]

thanks. that one is even more expensive i remember that world's best is made from corn, which is just as good environmentally but some people say it doesn't cover the urine odor. the wood pellets are scrap pine so that helps with pee smell but not poo. i only have one cat that is really smelly haha--the 2 year-old. i've never had such a stinky cat! i can't really figure out why either. he eats the same as the other cats, but even his pee is really strong-smelling. so i just gave up and call him stink bomber sometimes.

so far so good, they are using the mix. it doesn't track unless houdini manages (and he is managing haha) to track a partially swollen pellet out of the box, then i step on it and it turns to sawdust immediately. so i have to watch that. otherwise, you need a special scooper with bigger slots, i read where a woman just cut every other slot out with a box cutter from one she already has. i have an extra one but i want to be sure this doesn't turn out like the clever cat fiasco where a $39 litter box is sitting unused in the living room. houdini was the only one who would use it and soon he abandoned it i guess because no one else was using it. at first he was just using it to p

i have two booda boxes and the cats love them but they're HUGE. each one takes about 15 lbs. of litter when i change it. with three cats i've been going through 5-6 27 lb. buckets of tidy cat clumping and i can think of lots of other things to spend about $70 a month on.

of course the pellets require a special litter box but i'm not buying one until i'm sure they're going to use it, and even then i don't like the one on the felinepinelitterbox site because it isn't covered.

[cinderflower]

my reply went to moderation but none of my other ones have (?) strange