Automatic Litterbox Central

I am picking up a retired grand champion cat this weekend. I am so excited. Anyway, for litter, the cat is used to using hardwood pellets (like for those woodburning heaters). This breeder says that it is the healthiest, cheapest, and best working litter she can get for her many litterboxes. She is going to bring me some to get started and to see if I like it.

Have any of you tried this? She says that it clumps, is dustless, and controls odor and everything -- so is safe for her very valuable kittens.

Now, for a breeder who is probably scooping twice a day and totally changing the litter constantly, odor control may not mean the same thing to her as me. (Okay, okay, I am lucky if I remember to scoop once every two days!)

I was about to purchase an Omega box, but thought I better wait and see what these pellets look like. They may not work through the sifting grid.

Linda

Linda,
This is probably way too late to reply, but I have used hard and soft wood pellets for several years now. My cats have always accepted it well and is not only inexpensive but performs fairly well. I did not find it to sift through any of the lift-and-sift boxes and it probably would not work in an automatic litter box. It beats everything but WBCL.

Linda,
This is probably way too late to reply, but I have used hard and soft wood pellets for several years now. My cats have always accepted it well and is not only inexpensive but performs fairly well. I did not find it to sift through any of the lift-and-sift boxes and it probably would not work in an automatic litter box. It beats everything but WBCL.

Well, I actually tried the hardwood pellets. The breeder gave me a sample of them for the cats.

I really prefer being able to scoop away all the waste. With the pellets, you only scoop away the poop. The urine dissoves the pellets. Granted, they did control the smell pretty good -- with two cats I would have needed to completely change out the large litterbox about every 5 days.

As it turned out, I could not buy any of the pellets here anyways. I tried. Pellets here in Nevada are only sold during the winter. So trying to buy them in August was out of the question. I am glad the breeder gave me some for the cats to use during their transition. I mixed some with the clumping litter, and they adjusted immediately.

Now I just use the clumping litter. The cats seem happy.

I purposely didn't go into length about the hardwood pellets since I figured you had already tried them and figured out your own conclusions. They aren't a perfect solution. I don't think there is one.

Yes, the urine causes the pellets to disentigrate and end up in the bottom of the box. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at shuffling the pellets to one side or another and scooping the "powder" out.

There are some places in the country stove pellets aren't available at all due to warmer climate or perhaps other reasons. Where they are available is seasonal, and a person has to buy enough bags to carry them over the summer. So storage can be a problem here as well.

They are so cheap tho, the softwood pellets (who cares if they are hardwood or softwood if the cat is going to use them for a toilet) are available seasonally (generally late Aug through March) at Walmart for under $3. They last as long, or longer than non-scooping clay litter and they keep the odor down a lot better.

Personally, I love the WBCL. However, I am presently wading through an undesirable bag of SweatScoop. I may be switching from pellets to WBCL even tho WBCL is certainly more expensive than the pellets. They make up for it in convenience.

Gootzie,

I have to agree with you about SweatScoop being undesirable. I just posted my opinions about that under the section for that type of litter. It's the worst litter I've ever tried in the litter robot, highly NOT recommended!


Jade

They sell feline pine, which is similar to the pellets you are using.

I had to return it for a refund b/c it didn't work as advertised.

Seemed like a good thing at first, but 1. it was SO much more expensive per/lb than clumping clay 2. the odors were not eliminated.

Arm & Hammer for me.

Get the crystal blend, it works great.