Wood pellet as kitty litter?
Does anyone use wood stove pellets as kitty litter? I have read some positive stuff online. Several questions...
1. Does it work (keep odor down, stay verbs, last a long time)
2. Where can you buy it? (I can't seem to find it at any stores!)
3. How do you maintain it (Do you serving spoon it? How often do you have to change the total thing out? How do you clean out the urine?
I know it's lots of questions... but appreciation for taking the time!
i use wood pellets for my bunnies, and it works very well. I receive it at petsmart or petco. i get huge bags and then every week or two we whip it all out and refill the litter box
I own used it as ferret litter-
1. it does not work to control odor. At least with my ferret, it almost made it smell worse. It smelled close to old rotton wood and poo mixed together.
2. You can get it at hardware stores or places like hime depot or lowes, it is lone like $5 for a 50 lb bag.
3. It does not clump, i would change it every hours of daylight to control the odor. And I would recommend scrubbing it out to get rid of the urine.
overall.. it's not as good as it sounds.
make a note of.. it is not the same as the pellets you get from the pet store. the ones specially made for ferret are paper, not wood, and they do much better when it comes to odor control. Although, they are more expensive than kitty litter.
I have tried that as economically as feline pine. It won't work with my cats - while they will pee in it, they will not poo contained by it. They don't seem to like the texture, and will not dig surrounded by it. Some people swear by it, but my cats sure didn't like it.
Whenever switching to an "alternative" litter, be certain to provide a box of the regular stuff, just in armour your cat doesn't like it. If they don't like the litter, they will go someplace else.
Yep we use it and love it. Wood stove pellets can be found in feed/farm stores. We get ours for $5 for 40 lbs. It keep odor down and stays clean.
You have to scoop the solid poop out but the break down of the pellet is a little messy (its dry tho). I scoop out the pellets and later dump the used sawdust part in a paper pouch and put it in the trash. If you can figure out how to get a blind on the bottom of the pan and pull it up it will be easier.
Answers: Oh my goodness - best litter EVER!! I've been using them for a couple years now and I will never use anything else.
1. The pellet COMPLETELY neutralize urine odor and absorb the moisture. As they absorb moisture they break down into sawdust.
2. If you're in a cooler climate you can find them at domestic stores like Lowes, Home Depot and many grocery stores. If you're not in a cooler climate or it's not the cool time of year you can find them year round at fish farm and feed stores. People who have horses put them on the floors of the stalls to absorb moisture and odor.
3. I serving spoon the poop daily and dump the pans once the pellets are give or take a few 2/3 broken down. If you do this then the pan dumps out COMPLETELY dry and all you enjoy to do is add more pellets. There is no cleaning of the urine as it's absorbed.
They're also SO cheap. I pick up mine at the Safeway grocery store by me or Lowes. It's a 40 lb shoulder bag for $4.99. The price tends to fluctuate since it's a lumber product. The farm/feed stores sell them a bit cheaper. I've paid as little as $3.49 at those stores. And FYI to those of you using Feline Pine - STOP! It's the EXACT same product but near a cat on the bag - for EIGHT TIMES the cost!
Definitely use them - you'll never want to use anything else. And go to Target to pick up one of those large, towering food storage bins for dog food. I keep mine in there beside a scoop.
edit: Nannigan - HUH? I have six ferret and it works great. Not exactly sure you were using!
I don't know nearly stove pellets, but I use pine pellets, which I've found to be a very leaky kind of litter that is also a great odor absorber. You can find pine pellets at any key supermarket, or pet store.
I haven't had personal experience with using wood stove pellet as cat litter, but I don't think it sounds as if it's something I would recommend. I try to keep my cat's preferences contained by mind over mine when it comes to the litter box. I've found the site below to be very helpful contained by this regard. I recommend reading it before switching to any "alternative" litter. Personally, I use an unscented clumping litter. I have six cats and four litter boxes next to no odor in my home. I've found that regular scooping and cleaning the boxes as recommended in the intertwine below does the trick.
http://www.catinfo.org/litterbox.htm
Ok, I used Feline Pine - available at Walmart and Target, and many pet stores - for my cats for over a year, and really like the nice fresh woodsy smell. I've got two cats and two litter boxes. Fill it 2-3 inches deep, and it seems to end with that nice fresh scent for about a week and a half. The approach I looked at it, once that woodsy smell goes away, it's time to change it out - so no worries roughly speaking odor unless you get a bit slack. You scoop out the poop each daylight, and the pee causes the pellets to disintegrate into sawdust. But it's pretty absorbent, and it help to rake it up a bit as you scoop out the poop. You'll end up changing it out while roughly a fourth or a third of the pellets are still intact. One disadvantage is that you really do need to sweep around the litter box just roughly every day because the sawdust gets tracked out, and even those special mats that are supposed to take in for questioning cat litter don't really seem to do the trick.
One wacky good benefit of using this stuff - used to have trouble near rabbits and squirrels in my vegetable garden, but I took to sprinkling some of the peed-on sawdust stuff around the edge of the garden, and the scent of the cat (predator) urine discourages the critters from eating my tomatoes. I dumped some of it into a rabbit gap I found in the back yard, and that made the rabbits move, short any violence.
Now, I just started using the more economical stove pellets - it's alike stuff as Feline Pine, only it does not seem as aromatic and fresh and woodsy smelling. But it seem to work just as well, even though I have to money a little closer attention to when it is time to change the litter. Here is a web page that tell manufacturers of the stove pellets, so you can contact some in your nouns to find out the locations of retailers that sell it: http://www.pelletheat.org/3/residential/... If you cannot find it sold in bulk for wood stove fuel, try looking for Guardian, it's the same wood pellet, only packaged for horse bedding, and more economical than Feline Pine.
If you find your cats do not care for the texture of this stuff, try World's Best Cat Litter. It's a clumping litter that is to say made from corn. IME it is the most solid clumping stuff, so it leaves less crumbled off pee when you scoop it out, so it smells better longer. And it does not produce toxic chemical dust. SWheat Scoop, as a crude clumping cat litter, has better odor control than the World's Best, but it does not clump as neatly.
Hope this helps.
