Is there such a thing as the perfect cat litter?

[Pepper44]

So I have four cats. They all insist on using one box, don't ask why. You know how cats will do whatever they please and there is no convincing them otherwise, right?

We cannot find a cat litter that we love. I swear we have tried every single kind of kitty litter at the store! This includes all kinds of clay litters, feline pine, yesterday's news, and many many many more.

The criteria should be:
1) clumps!
2) somewhat covers poop odor (aka when the cat buries their poo your eyes don't burn as if the cat has pooped in front of your nose until you finally get up and scoop it.)
3)available in Kentucky--Walmart, Petsmart, Tractor Supply, Incredipet, Kroger, Meijer, Kmart, Target, Whole Foods, (maybe) Sam's Club.

I am beyond caring if it is environmentally friendly. We add baking soda, add Stall Dry, scoop the clumps/poops at least twice a day if not more, and aim to fully change out the entire box once a week. (It's a very large box that one whole package of most litters fits into.)

Suggestions?!? What litter do you use?

I'm tired of my entire house being coated with Feline Pine, and if a cat poops while we are out for a few hours I can't stand to come home and smell choking cat poop!!! Clay litter is best at hiding the poop smell, but it's dusty and it scatters across the floor...

[outlier]

I use clay litter , and to keep the litter more contained I bought some of that cheap, flat carpet at a hardware store, the kind that is meant to go in garages. I have the litterbox corner arranged so that the cat is forced to walk on several feet of carpet before exiting the area, and this has helped quite a bit. It's pretty easy to pick up the carpet and dump the loose litter right back into the box when I'm scooping it, or just vacuum it once in a while.

[Oubliette8]

I know some folks who swear by Swheat Scoop, but I've never tried it myself. Another idea to help with the odor- what type of food are you feeding? A higher quality food might cut down on the smell. My mother was already feeding a high quality cat food and made the switch to a grain free (she chose EVO) and she SWEARS it cut down on litter box odors. In my area, a bag of EVO costs the same as a bag of Science Diet, and the cats should eat less EVO than other foods, as well as it being more biologically appropriate for a cat.

[miss_sonja]

We use wood stove pellets and have since we've had our cats. What helped most with odor was changing their diet to EVO (the duck is best for my boys, but man is it pricey!).

The wood stove pellets are super cheap, have a nice piney smell and break down into sawdust. When the whole box is disintegrated, I change it out. I scoop every other day, usually, and flush the solids.

I have two, ten year old Siamese boys.

Why do you need clumping? (and what does clumping do, anyway, since I've never used it I wonder)

[LeahBoo]

Have you tried "world's best cat litter"? It's insanely expensive, and basically, it's chicken feed! I find chicken feed works great. It clumps, and does ok to cover odors. It's also lighter weight, so cats have at least a little better chance of covering their poo. Unless they are like my cat and scratch the wall, way outside the box, a couple times and call it good .

[KMK_Mama]

so far the only one I've liked enough to stick to is the crystals. It doesn't clump, but it does keep down the smell. I also found switching food to be a huge help.

I might try the wood stove pellets though.

[Aries1985]

I've been really happy with paper pellet litter. It doesn't smell and it's dust free. It doesn't clump, but it's very easy to change out the whole box.

[Pepper44]

The clumping is only important because we have four cats. I've tried non-clumping, but it's really hard to scoop it out. Since we have four kitties I scoop several times a day, and the clumps make it very easy to get rid of pee and poop!

We've tried the crystals for two weeks. They worked GREAT for the urine odor, and I loved how they weren't tracked all over the house. They didn't do good for the poop though. Part of the problem was that 3 out of 4 cats refused to cover their poop with the crystals. Uncovered poop is baaad news.

Someone suggested I try the wheat litter. That's one of the only kinds I have yet to try. I'm going to get some when the clay litter we're using runs out.

We found this Arm & Hammer multiple cats litter that had little white/blue crystals in it and it worked perfectly aside from a slight fake fresh scent I didn't like. Then all the stores stopped carrying it! Figures! The different Arm & Hammer clay kind we're using now works ok, but I really don't like the fake scent it has, it's stronger than the first Arm & Hammer kind we liked.

My cats eat Iam's food. I've tried all different kinds of food that the pet store sells. I've tried as many foods as cat litters! Including several organic foods, a cold pressed type of cat food, and a grain free one.

One of my cats has some kind of unknown issue...he seriously cannot eat any grain free or cold pressed organic food! He gets horrifying diarrhea, to the point of being lethargic and cold. It's so sad. Yet he can eat $2 crappy Walmart food and look great. No clue why. One of my other cats breaks out in hives if she eats food with dyes in it, and she loses clumps of fur. And yet another cat has bloody poop if he eats certain foods. It's like a puzzle finding something they will all eat.

I finally settled on the Iam's hairball remedy food. No one pukes after eating it, no one loses fur or gets hives, no one has bloody poop. But...their poop does stink. I did notice with the organic food, aside from my one sick kitty, the others only pooped once a day and it barely smelled. I would love to use that food all the time, even if it is $40 a bag!

By the way, I also tried feeding them raw in several forms...whole chicken, ground up chicken, and organs. I couldn't get them to eat it! They just made a huge mess in the bathroom floor and after two weeks I gave up. (I was successful with raw feeding my dogs though! They loved it.)

[willowsmom]

We recently switched to clumping Feline Pine. Love it.

[KMK_Mama]

My cats were stinky stinky stinky on Iams. I switched to Royal Canine and they are much less stinky and my one who is prone to throwing up does it much less often!

[Pepper44]

Originally Posted by KMK_Mama

My cats were stinky stinky stinky on Iams. I switched to Royal Canine and they are much less stinky and my one who is prone to throwing up does it much less often!

I wouldn't mind switching foods if I could find one that they all agreed with. I've never seen the Royal Canine brand, I'm not sure we have that one in Kentucky. What store do you buy it at?

My DH just bought the Iams hairball control because the store was out of the regular Iams that we usually get. Holy crap. (Literally, lol.) Their poo smells 10 million times worse than usual and to top it off, they are all having hairballs and they didn't before. What in the world?

Last night one of my long haired cats had a huge, huge hairball and she hacked so violently that she pooped in the floor at the same time. I can't say, in my lifetime of owning and knowing cats, I've ever seen that happen before. My DH tried to flush the hairball and it clogged up the toilet!!

So, um, word to the wise...don't buy Iams Hairball Control.

[oiseau]

I'd like to make a major NO vote for the "World's Best" litter. We hated it. It didn't do anything for the poop smell and it tracked dust all over our house. We finally settled on one of the paper pellet litters (the one we like best is the petco brand of "yesterday's news." We don't do Yesterday's News since it's owned by Nestle).
If it's only one of the cats that has an issue with the organic food, is there any way to feed him/her separately? It would be impossible in my house to feed the cats different food, but I have a good friend who shuts her cats in different rooms with their own bowls of food at meal times.

[Virginia884]

We use wheat and really like it. They have a multi-cat formula; we buy it at Petsmart or Target. HTH!!

[onelilguysmommy]

Swheat Scoop! WE had two kitties and used it for a long time. It was the best that we could find.

[mama2004]

I have three cats, two of which are about 17 years old (with no signs of giving up any time soon) and one who is about 9. I, too, have gone through nearly every available litter know to human and feline kind, and have just recently started with Dr. Elsey's scoopable. It's not cheap, but it's really good stuff. It clumps well (I used to be a fan of Scoop Away, a.k.a. dustastic, but one of my older kitties was developing some digestive issues from all the clay--he's a fluffy guy), doesn't have any odor that humans can pick up, and is a really nice texture for not tracking all over/not dusty, really, not the 99% dust free, wink, wink, sort of thing; it truly is not dusty.

I have also just switched all kitties to an all wet food/low/no grain diet. The youngest has been having some symptoms of allergies, I'm thinking to grain (if you have sensitive kitties, the Swheat Scoop may not be for you, since it is comprised of a major allergen, although it sounds like at least one of them would love it) and I think that is helping some as far as litter box etiquette, but honestly, as much as I've tried to avoid clay litter, this is the best stuff I've come across ever. I found it as a local Petsmart, so I assume that it wouldn't be too hard to come by, if you wanted to find some.

Good luck!