Automatic Litterbox Central

I have 8 cats of varies sizes and am wondering whether 1 LR will be enough. It will be placed in the basement, so odor is not so much of a concern and I am used to having to clean litterboxes everyday.

My two cents on Littermaid boxes. I have three of them that are now stored away in boxes because I finally gave up using them and went back to regular litterboxes. THey required constant attention because yuckies keep getting stuck in the rakes. Overall cleaning was a pain to be avoided at all costs. WHen you remove the trays, litter flings everwhere. Not to mention that I dislike using clay littler and have switched to alternative litter. THey have stopped working several times and we had to diassemble to fix them and customer service with the company is horrible. Even if you call within the warranty period, you have to pay to ship it to them and then it takes 6-8 weeks until they return it. Not to mention that they are rude and unsympathetic.

I am seriously considering the LR and I ahve looked at all the postings and info ont he web. I still don't quite understand exactly how it works. Or rather how stuff doesn't get stuck to all the sides like it does with the Littermaid. The LM has made me a bit wary of automatic litter boxes.

So everybody, please keep posting your experiences with the product. It is invaluable to those of use still thinking about taking the plunge.

Janina

First things, first...8 cats unless they are all petite are probably too many for any one box, including the LR. We have four currently using it and have switched to corn litter mainly to cut down on waste. We are hoping to be able to ignore the thing for one solid week.

On second thought, I guess its really not a matter of the number of cats as the frequency of cleaning that will get you down. With 8 cats, you may still be cleaning every day. You may be cleaning it every day, but that may be ok.

**************

The way it works: you have a dome that the cats go in that has litter in the bottom. When the LR cycles, this dome rotates like a cement mixer. Inside the dome (or ball) there is a screen and a collection bag. The "clean/unclumped" litter filters throught the screen into the collection bag. The clumps stay on the other side of the screen as the dome continues to rotate and expose the litter ports - the clumps fall through into a drawer that sits under the dome.

If we do not clear the drawer of waste as we should, the waste in the drawer will pile up enough for the rotating dome to come in contact with said pile. This pile smears onto the dome as it rotates. Pretty gross, huh.

With proper cleaning this should not be a problem. And, you might be able to use one LR with all your cats - you'd just have to clean it every day or every other day. You could try it and see how often you have to clean it.

(Cleaning is a lot easier than the LM or the regular litterbox, because all you do is open the drawer, remove bag with collected waste, replace bag.)

Thanks for the explanation Cas. I get it now. ALmost... How does the clean litter that was put in the collection bag, get back into the dome?

Do the clumps, that get dumped into the drawer, have a tendency to pile up all in one place? I could see that with multiple cats, that might happen as it does with the LM and then I can imagine it makes quite a mess...

There are multiple litter ports, so that sort of disperses things. The drawer, while ample, isn't enormous or extremely deep. The box seems to use all the space pretty evenly.

The unused litter returns to its original location when the LR finishes stage 1 (described above). It reverses its rotation, dumping the contents of the "clean litter" bag back out. The Litter Robot then continues a little past the 6 o'clock mark (the original upright position) and then moves back to center to sort of shake the litter back into the bottom of the unit.

Does that help?

Yes it does. Thanks

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to retrofit the LR with a larger capacity drawer? I always wonder why automatic litterboxes have such small holding compartments. It seems like everybody complains about the size and yet I would think that the cost would not be increased by much to make a bigger compartment....

Janina

I don't know. You might be able to, you'd have to see. Let us know.

The drawer isn't that bad of a size, really. Its fine for most people, but may be a challenge with 8 cats.

cas

jcpaasche wrote:Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to retrofit the LR with a larger capacity drawer? I always wonder why automatic litterboxes have such small holding compartments. It seems like everybody complains about the size and yet I would think that the cost would not be increased by much to make a bigger compartment....

It would be difficult to modify the LR in that way, but I think the drawer is actually rather generous. Emptying it 2-3 times a week for 8 cats isn't so bad, is it? Besides, you need to add fresh litter to replace the waste litter.

We recommend one Litter Robot for every three cats, although many customers tell us they use one unit for 4 cats without a problem. For 8 cats I would definitely recommend at least two. The unit will cycle seven minutes after a cat leaves. If another cat enters before the seven minutes is up, the timer starts over. With a lot of cats trying to use one Robot, the unit might get used several times without cycling, which defeats the purpose of a self cleaning litter box. In addition, the waste ports are designed to dispose of waste for a single use. If the Robot has been used several times between cycles, it could get messy with too much waste trying to dump out at once.