In life, there are many important choices that you must go through from day to day and choosing the right type of litter for your cat is one of those essential choices. Why is this so important you may ask? It is because choosing the right cat litter is important in keeping your cat healthy, happy, and your house smelling clean. Back when some of the first litter boxes came out, sand was one of the main fillers that people used, but since then, many different materials have been used and experimented with that have found to be much more absorbent and effective at containing the smell from your cat's waste.
There are several popular types of litter that are used by cat owners today. First is the traditional clay based litter. This is great because it is very absorbent and helps with reducing urine odor, but this needs to be replaced very frequently. This means that you will have to spend more to buy more litter more often and that you will need to replace the litter at least twice a week.
Next we have the very popular scooping/clumping cat litter. The main benefit that this litter has over the traditional clay litter is that you will not need to replace this litter as often as the traditional clay litter. Why is this you ask? This is because when the litter gets soiled, it clumps together and makes it easy to only take out the soiled pieces of litter instead of having to replace the whole litter box. This will make taking care of your litter box much more convenient, but it is still important to remember that you need to change your whole litter box every two or three weeks to keep your cat healthy.
One of the newer cat litters that people are using is called the Crystal based/Silica gel litter. This cat litter is very effective because it has high moisture absorbency, so this type of litter only really needs to be changed once a month. However, this litter makes it very hard to see when you should change it and cat owners fear that this cat litter could be unhealthy for their cats when they lick it off their paws. In addition to this, some cats will just refuse to use this cat litter because of the lumpy texture because cats prefer to use cat litter that has a finer consistency, similar to sand.
Finally, there is bio-degradable cat litter. This litter is great because it is easy to flush and is very low dust so it is great with cats that have asthma. Unfortunately, the cost of this type of litter is quite expensive and deters a lot of owners from purchasing it. After looking at all of the options, clumping cat litter is becoming more and more popular in the United States because of the need to change the litter box less frequently and that is less of a mess. However, if cost is not an issue for you, biodegradable cat litter could be the choice for you. Whatever litter you decide to choose, make sure to clean your cat's litter box frequently to help keep them healthy.
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Resources:
http://www.cat-urine.net/cat_litter.html
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/cats/tips/preventing_litter_box_problems.html
