Tried wood products in the litter box yet?

From: Woof B

[Possible cat pine oil problems]
May not be so anecdotal, Woof. Here's a good site about cats and phenols:

http://www.thelavendercat.bigstep.com/
A lot of that's slightly technical for me, and I can't find specific
references to pine. What I meant is that I've seen things on webpages or
newsgroup postings that say 'my cat had serious health problems after
using pine litter'. To me that's anecdotal -- may or may not mean it's a
general problem -- but it's worth the person using pine-shaving litter
making an effort to find out.
--

I know cats can have sensitities to chemicals. Here's some info on pine oils
and cats. Probably anecdotal here too. I agree, it's defnitely worth someone
checking out: http://tinyurl.com/m2ye

Lauren
________
See my cats: http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm

From: Woof B

[Possible cat pine oil problems]
May not be so anecdotal, Woof. Here's a good site about cats and phenols:

http://www.thelavendercat.bigstep.com/
A lot of that's slightly technical for me, and I can't find specific
references to pine. What I meant is that I've seen things on webpages or
newsgroup postings that say 'my cat had serious health problems after
using pine litter'. To me that's anecdotal -- may or may not mean it's a
general problem -- but it's worth the person using pine-shaving litter
making an effort to find out.
--

I know cats can have sensitities to chemicals. Here's some info on pine oils
and cats. Probably anecdotal here too. I agree, it's defnitely worth someone
checking out: http://tinyurl.com/m2ye

Lauren
________
See my cats: http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm

"Woof B" wrote in message
...
In message , Knack
writes
This summer I've experimented with some little-known materials in the
single
enclosed litterbox for my 4 cats.

First I tried a 50-50% mixture of pine shavings + wood pellets. The wood
pellets were not the expensive 'Feline Pine' pine pellets available at
Petco, but instead were the relatively cheap pellets that are used as
fuel
for wood pellet stoves. The 12" x 19" box was charged only once to depth
of

Bear in mind that there may be some health issues with pine oil and
cats. This is anecdotal (people report their otherwise healthy cats
dying/becoming ill when using pine stuff). The people who produced
Feline Pine have apparently stated that they process the pellets to make
sure no pine oil is going to get on the cat's paws.

I have no definite knowledge of this, but it might be worth checking
what you can find on the Internet just in case.

I can undertand your concern. The thought about pine oil hazard never
occurred to me because frankly the shavings and the pellets are both not at
all oily in appearance. The 2.2 cubic foot bag of pine shavings that I
purchased seemed to be just as dry as if the particles were made of tiny
pieces of dry paper.

There's quite a difference between an extract and a raw material. Phenol is
poisonous to humans too, but nobody except people who are allergic to pine
wood avoid contact with that wood. There's no hazardous labeling for pine
wood products.

Perhaps there may be some rare cases of cats who are allergic to contact
with pine wood against their toes just as their may be for people too.

My 2 adult cats and 2 kittens have not shown *any* reactions whatsoever to
the 100% pine shavings as litterbox material. And at no time have they ever
been hesitant to use the box after the litterbox material was initially (and
permanently) changed from clay to wood.

"Woof B" wrote in message
...
In message , Knack
writes
This summer I've experimented with some little-known materials in the
single
enclosed litterbox for my 4 cats.

First I tried a 50-50% mixture of pine shavings + wood pellets. The wood
pellets were not the expensive 'Feline Pine' pine pellets available at
Petco, but instead were the relatively cheap pellets that are used as
fuel
for wood pellet stoves. The 12" x 19" box was charged only once to depth
of

Bear in mind that there may be some health issues with pine oil and
cats. This is anecdotal (people report their otherwise healthy cats
dying/becoming ill when using pine stuff). The people who produced
Feline Pine have apparently stated that they process the pellets to make
sure no pine oil is going to get on the cat's paws.

I have no definite knowledge of this, but it might be worth checking
what you can find on the Internet just in case.

I can undertand your concern. The thought about pine oil hazard never
occurred to me because frankly the shavings and the pellets are both not at
all oily in appearance. The 2.2 cubic foot bag of pine shavings that I
purchased seemed to be just as dry as if the particles were made of tiny
pieces of dry paper.

There's quite a difference between an extract and a raw material. Phenol is
poisonous to humans too, but nobody except people who are allergic to pine
wood avoid contact with that wood. There's no hazardous labeling for pine
wood products.

Perhaps there may be some rare cases of cats who are allergic to contact
with pine wood against their toes just as their may be for people too.

My 2 adult cats and 2 kittens have not shown *any* reactions whatsoever to
the 100% pine shavings as litterbox material. And at no time have they ever
been hesitant to use the box after the litterbox material was initially (and
permanently) changed from clay to wood.

"Zydeco29" wrote in message
...

"Knack" wrote in message
...
This summer I've experimented with some little-known materials in the
single
enclosed litterbox for my 4 cats.

First I tried a 50-50% mixture of pine shavings + wood pellets. The wood
pellets were not the expensive 'Feline Pine' pine pellets available at
Petco, but instead were the relatively cheap pellets that are used as
fuel
for wood pellet stoves. The 12" x 19" box was charged only once to depth
of
about 4". I used a standard litter sifter only about every 2-3 days
because
the enclosed system contained and cancelled odor so excellently. I
noticed
that after about 5 weeks the entire contents was reduced to sawdust.
However, I tolerated the tracking of the sawdust because of the
continued
absorbancy and odor cancellation, which was amazing. The next-to-last
week
of use I noticed an odor, but there was still no unabsorbed urine
puddling
at the bottom of the box. So I spread the litterbox contents out on a
clear
plastic tarp and after a few hours the intense outdoor sunlight dried
the
sawdust for reuse. This turned out to be unsuccessful at abating the
odor,
so after one more week (the 9-week point) I dumped this first batch into
a
composter. This compost shall not be applied to a fruit or vegetable
garden.



i have one cat that purrfers the wood pellets over litter. the other one
likes to use the regular clumping litter. i'm just wondering why you went
9
weeks before changing the pellets! i just dump my whole litter box every
3rd day or so. i mean, really, why go so long? i only pay a couple of
dollars for a 50# bag. even dumping the whole box out, i still only spend
pennies a day. and i never have a tracking problem with it doing it this
way. the used pellets, or sawdust, goes to the bottom and the pellets
stay
on top. when i dump it's about half pellets and half sawdust and the
pellets seem to help clean the paws so there's no tracking. now the
clumping litter.......that's another story.......no matter what i do it
tracks....

Good question. I would never push it to 9 weeks again, because the longer
you use the litter the greater the economical effect of diminishing returns;
i.e. you save the most money over the first couple weeks, then later on the
additional savings of continued usage are not so great. I just wanted to see
when the ultimate endpoint really occurs. After all, the descriptions were
for the very first 2 tests of the wood products. It was an amazing bit of
self-education for me.

However, there are other reasons besides the obvious (albeit diminishing)
material economics for extending the use of litter. It's a nuisance to make
a shopping trip just for litter material, as litter material is normally
consumed at a far greater rate than catfood. It's also a nuisance to store
away large quantities of fresh litter in a dry place, especially if you live
in a small house or apartment. And if you live in a rural area (like me) and
must take your own garbage to a dump or waste-to-energy plant, then you
obviously want to minimize your waste, as it costs money to use those
facilities and you also burn up expensive gasoline while toting it there.
Think of how much more new litter and garbage that you would be handling as
a total at the end of the month if you were changing the litterbox every 3
days instead of every 2 weeks. Time is money, and the busier you are, the
more your time is worth.

If you've got plenty of use for wood mulch around your home then there would
be no reason to prolong the usage of a batch of shavings in the litterbox,
because you really have a current need for a *lot* of mulch around your
gardens.

And thanks for mentioning your experience of pellet use, because it just
occurred to me that pellets would never make great landscape mulch material,
because they disintegrate to sawdust when they get thoroughly wet. So
although the pellets would be just as economical as shavings as litterbox
material, the spent pellet litter is not useful as mulch. OTOH, if you have
a pellet wood burning furnace, it could consume pellets at a faster rate
than you could ever provide them as spent litter material. So you could
change your litterbox daily, weekly, etc., charging the furnace with the
spent pellets, thereby using your litter for "free" because the pellets must
be purchased for the furnace anyway.

"Zydeco29" wrote in message
...

"Knack" wrote in message
...
This summer I've experimented with some little-known materials in the
single
enclosed litterbox for my 4 cats.

First I tried a 50-50% mixture of pine shavings + wood pellets. The wood
pellets were not the expensive 'Feline Pine' pine pellets available at
Petco, but instead were the relatively cheap pellets that are used as
fuel
for wood pellet stoves. The 12" x 19" box was charged only once to depth
of
about 4". I used a standard litter sifter only about every 2-3 days
because
the enclosed system contained and cancelled odor so excellently. I
noticed
that after about 5 weeks the entire contents was reduced to sawdust.
However, I tolerated the tracking of the sawdust because of the
continued
absorbancy and odor cancellation, which was amazing. The next-to-last
week
of use I noticed an odor, but there was still no unabsorbed urine
puddling
at the bottom of the box. So I spread the litterbox contents out on a
clear
plastic tarp and after a few hours the intense outdoor sunlight dried
the
sawdust for reuse. This turned out to be unsuccessful at abating the
odor,
so after one more week (the 9-week point) I dumped this first batch into
a
composter. This compost shall not be applied to a fruit or vegetable
garden.



i have one cat that purrfers the wood pellets over litter. the other one
likes to use the regular clumping litter. i'm just wondering why you went
9
weeks before changing the pellets! i just dump my whole litter box every
3rd day or so. i mean, really, why go so long? i only pay a couple of
dollars for a 50# bag. even dumping the whole box out, i still only spend
pennies a day. and i never have a tracking problem with it doing it this
way. the used pellets, or sawdust, goes to the bottom and the pellets
stay
on top. when i dump it's about half pellets and half sawdust and the
pellets seem to help clean the paws so there's no tracking. now the
clumping litter.......that's another story.......no matter what i do it
tracks....

Good question. I would never push it to 9 weeks again, because the longer
you use the litter the greater the economical effect of diminishing returns;
i.e. you save the most money over the first couple weeks, then later on the
additional savings of continued usage are not so great. I just wanted to see
when the ultimate endpoint really occurs. After all, the descriptions were
for the very first 2 tests of the wood products. It was an amazing bit of
self-education for me.

However, there are other reasons besides the obvious (albeit diminishing)
material economics for extending the use of litter. It's a nuisance to make
a shopping trip just for litter material, as litter material is normally
consumed at a far greater rate than catfood. It's also a nuisance to store
away large quantities of fresh litter in a dry place, especially if you live
in a small house or apartment. And if you live in a rural area (like me) and
must take your own garbage to a dump or waste-to-energy plant, then you
obviously want to minimize your waste, as it costs money to use those
facilities and you also burn up expensive gasoline while toting it there.
Think of how much more new litter and garbage that you would be handling as
a total at the end of the month if you were changing the litterbox every 3
days instead of every 2 weeks. Time is money, and the busier you are, the
more your time is worth.

If you've got plenty of use for wood mulch around your home then there would
be no reason to prolong the usage of a batch of shavings in the litterbox,
because you really have a current need for a *lot* of mulch around your
gardens.

And thanks for mentioning your experience of pellet use, because it just
occurred to me that pellets would never make great landscape mulch material,
because they disintegrate to sawdust when they get thoroughly wet. So
although the pellets would be just as economical as shavings as litterbox
material, the spent pellet litter is not useful as mulch. OTOH, if you have
a pellet wood burning furnace, it could consume pellets at a faster rate
than you could ever provide them as spent litter material. So you could
change your litterbox daily, weekly, etc., charging the furnace with the
spent pellets, thereby using your litter for "free" because the pellets must
be purchased for the furnace anyway.

"Cheryl" wrote in message
...
In ,
Knack composed with style:
This summer I've experimented with some little-known materials in
the single enclosed litterbox for my 4 cats.

Interesting experiment and review; thank you. I hear you about the
weight of clay litter and possible disposal problems, but for my
house, I don't think it would work to have all of the tracking. I
have 4 litter boxes dispersed in various places and the clean-up would
be just too much. I use Arm and Hammer and don't have a problem with
odor - though with a cat with chronic diarrhea, I do go through a lot
of it.


I'm glad that you understand the bottom line; that the one and only
disadvantage of wood products as litter material is the tracking problem.
They seem to be superior to clay in every other point of comparison.

"Cheryl" wrote in message
...
In ,
Knack composed with style:
This summer I've experimented with some little-known materials in
the single enclosed litterbox for my 4 cats.

Interesting experiment and review; thank you. I hear you about the
weight of clay litter and possible disposal problems, but for my
house, I don't think it would work to have all of the tracking. I
have 4 litter boxes dispersed in various places and the clean-up would
be just too much. I use Arm and Hammer and don't have a problem with
odor - though with a cat with chronic diarrhea, I do go through a lot
of it.


I'm glad that you understand the bottom line; that the one and only
disadvantage of wood products as litter material is the tracking problem.
They seem to be superior to clay in every other point of comparison.

From: "Knack"

My 2 adult cats and 2 kittens have not shown *any* reactions whatsoever to
the 100% pine shavings as litterbox material.

That is good to hear. But keep in mind, it can take quite a while for the
effects of toxins to show up, as they slowly build up in the cat's liver.

Lauren
________
See my cats: http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm

From: "Knack"

My 2 adult cats and 2 kittens have not shown *any* reactions whatsoever to
the 100% pine shavings as litterbox material.

That is good to hear. But keep in mind, it can take quite a while for the
effects of toxins to show up, as they slowly build up in the cat's liver.

Lauren
________
See my cats: http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm