Automatic Litterbox Central

My husband and I purchased the scoop free and let it run. The cats, Linus and Lucy, took to it within the hour!!!!
amazed and happy the box ran great. After 10 days we noticed the box was a bit "full."
Today on day 12 we changed the litter. My husband curious to see just how "full the box was (since a piece of poo or two came out with the rake once or twice) lifted the flap. To our dismay much of the poo was covered in white fluffy mold.
We are not quite happy at the mold....hhmmm
our cats did seem to make a lot of poo and its moist but does anyone else have this issue? Does it not normally do this? I am thinking a change in diet would be good to reduce all this waste. The currently eat Nutro all natural.
But even with a reduction in waste i am not happy with all that mold.

Thank you for any suggestions or replies.

We also have two cats using one SF, which I've had for about 3 years or so now. One thing I've learned is not to trust advertising (not just with the SF, but in general).

With our two cats/one SF, I do a complete box change once a week, on Sunday morning, and do a "rake and stir" raking out excess poops on Wednesday. I've found this ends up being the least amount of smell, and also the least amount of work of all. The rake and stir (basically stirring up the wettest section of the crystals, and mixing in the driest from the sides, as well as the clean ones that get caught behind the rake and under the poop compartment lid) works great -- gives the crystals a chance to release some moisture and work better.

This should work well for you, and reduce the mold (which btw is not normal). I think the occasional rake out will be beneficial for you.

My cats (4) would rebel if I didn't tend to their boxes every 3 days. I have 2 SF's and one plain one. I scoop out the poop about every 3rd day, maybe 4th and deposit it into a Litter Locker (worth getting). I should note that by the time I have to empty the litter locker (and the poop is sealed up in a strong plastic type bag) the poop does have mold on it. But it's sealed away from me and my cats so I don't worry about it. I change out my litter about every 8-9 days. In the middle of all that, I add a little here and there to compensate for what I might have raked or scooped out.

I am a huge fan of Jack n Stan's Dad who is behind The Forever Litter Tray and he also provides a very reasonably priced litter called Just the Litter. You can go to his web site and read all about his trays and litter and he has a wealth of other info that is helpful. I only tell you this because the cost of those disposable trays is ridiculous in my opinion. You can also read reviews about his trays here at LItterbox Central and Amazon.

I am not paid for my endorsement, lol. I just know my pocketbook is happier, my cats are happy and it doesn't require much maintenance.

Hope this has been a little helpful. Gentle Hugs, Betty

Thanks BettyB for the very kind words and endorsement (which is not paid, as you said). It took me awhile to figure out how to respond...........
I couldn't not respond because anyone who frequents this part of the forum knows that I check in pretty much every day to read and see if I can help.

I try my best to provide the most objective help I can (not promoting my own products) as that's exactly how I found LBC -- and was instantly impressed by the very helpful and nice people here. So I figure that now that I have a pretty large sample size of people I interact with on a daily basis (outside of LBC as part of my trays business) that it's a way for me to give something back to the forum and to help people as I was in the beginning.

So Tre -- BettyB's suggestion and mine are pretty much the same, in that more frequent rake-outs/stirs will really help, no matter which tray/cartridge system you decide on -- whether it be those from SF or anyone else for that matter.

Hope this helped!

tre wrote:My husband and I purchased the scoop free and let it run. The cats, Linus and Lucy, took to it within the hour!!!!
amazed and happy the box ran great. After 10 days we noticed the box was a bit "full."
Today on day 12 we changed the litter. . . . I am thinking a change in diet would be good to reduce all this waste. But even with a reduction in waste i am not happy with all that mold.

Thank you for any suggestions or replies.

A change in diet would not be my first thought! I would think more frequent emptying of the tray would eliminate that problem. 12 days is a long time to go without at least scooping the poop out. The claim from the manuf, that 'once a month' is all you need to do it, is BS. Even with one cat, I cannot imagine the litter lasting 30 days! You got fuzzy poops after 12 days, just think what it would be like after 30. The scoop free box is low maintenance, not no maintenance.

I've seen some moldy poo as well. I scoop once a week and I only noticed it once. It seemed his poos were a bit "moister", but that could only be because I generally don't see the poo until I scoop. In this particular instance, he had gone outside the box. When I investigated, I discovered the litter was no longer working and there was urine in the box. Perhaps the excess moisture and less efficient crystals are to blame for the mold? I've only been able to get 14 days out of a cartridge with one cat before it starts to get nasty.

I'm wondering -- are you using an Ultra? If you are, and you are selecting a timing less than the standard 20 minutes, it could very well explain the sticky poo as well as the mold. (20 mins is what SF designed with the original box).

The system is designed to let the crystals do their work -- which is to desiccate the poops. That can only happen if they sit in reasonably dry crystals for long enough. If the raking action happens before they're desiccated, then they'll still be moist and give you the issues you describe -- as there are generally less crystals and yet more moist poo in the poop compartment area, compounding the problem.

Also -- remember that moisture of any kind is the enemy of your crystals. If you have your box in a humid room environment (laundry room, bathroom with a shower) it will significantly decrease the life of your crystals. I recently spoke with a lady who was complaining of the short life of her crystals and the smells. Turns out that what she [i]thought[i] was helping was actually doing the opposite:
- she had her SF Ultra set to rake at 10 mins (with the result as mentioned above)
and
- she had put in an automatic air freshener that sprayed (moist spray!) twice a day right over the litter box.

You can see her logic -- but after she changed back to 20 mins and stopped the air freshener, she had NO smells and was very happy. And her crystals lasted significantly longer to boot.


Hope this helped!