Update: I think the following information about gravel litter may still be useful to some people so I’m leaving it but we had to switch back to recycled newspaper litter (Kitty-soft) because when I went away for 2 weeks, Marmalade decided he would rather pee in a corner than in the box. He kept it up after I came home and switching the litter back plus not medicating him too late at night helps but he’s still sometimes peeing in that corner. 3 litterboxes downstairs now and 1 upstairs (I’m not up there much and they only get access to the upstairs if I’m up there.) I moved the biggest box to that corner and MAYBE he’ll use it instead of the floor. I AM keeping them all clean! Ah!

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With CRF you may have noticed that your cat pees a lot and thus you use a lot more cat litter. I’ve been on the lookout for better, less waste producing options and I think I finally found one that will work really well for healthy cats as well as cats with CRF.

This is going to sounds a bit crazy but: aquarium gravel with a sifting litterbox. You may need to also add some finer mesh since you want to make sure the gravel doesn’t go through the sifter in this case. The goal is to pick up the sifter with the litter, pour the pee down the drain, pick out the poo and put it in the trash (either a sifting scoop for the poo or I’ve been using rubber gloves designated for the litter box only.) Then you wash the gravel and let it dry. It sounds more involved than dealing with regular litter but it’s not really. This is where I found more detailed info that works: http://www.panix.com/~mrw/page.cgi?2_4

Prior to this I also tried a litterbox with a quilted pad sort of like a washable doggie pad but he just pees so much I couldn’t figure out anything absorbent enough. This might be an option for someone whose cat doesn’t have CRF – think cloth diapers in a litterbox. Some cats may not adjust to this option since there’s nothing to dig around in. Cloth diapers in a short plastic litterbox might be an option for those going through doggie pads for dogs though.

I have had 2 litterboxes here for many years now and have swapped out one box with the aquarium gravel already and they’ve been using it as if nothing has changed – I plan on getting two more sifting boxes and gravel so I can alternate and have one drying at any given time and keep two out for the cats (3 boxes total.) My end total cost should be about $100 for the 3 boxes all new, the gravel, finer mesh and gloves. Ongoing costs will be the cost of washing the gravel (water etc.) which will be much less than the $24+ per month I was spending on litter that was filling up the landfill.

I did a little bit of research on flushing the cat poo down the toilet and pretty much everything I found said it was a no go for a variety of reasons. Mainly that cat feces can carry a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (toxo for short) and people typically aren’t effected (though this parasite is the reason pregnant women are warned not to change litterboxes.) It is thought to be effecting sea life like otters from people disposing flushable litter http://www.seaotterresearch.org/resources.shtml I don’t know if there are other animals this effects or if it effects fresh water aquatic life but to be on the safe side, I’ve just been trashing the poop. This is the same reason I’ve been debating the whole pet waste composter/septic for the cat poo as well (aka: Doggie Dooley.) I don’t know if the added enzmes in the Doggie Dooley can digest the Toxo or not. I’m pretty sure pouring the cat pee down the drain isn’t a problem though. I would love to know the details on using a doggy dooley for the cat poo as well as the vermicomposting option – whether it kills the toxo or not.

Anyway – I hope people find this cat “litter” solution useful! I will probably post more eco-friendly information on litter in the future.

PS– a friend of mine had switched from a clay litter to Swheat Scoop, a wheat based litter. One of her two cats started having random seizures but they didn’t make the connection to the litter until later. As soon as they switched back to the clay litter the cat stopped having seizures. They do not know if the cat had an allergy or if there were pesticides on the litter that caused the seizures. Just thought I should mention this as well.