Green Review: Swheat Scoop

fly

fly

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Oct 1, 2004
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So April and I are slowly (very slowly) working on toilet training the cats. Part of that is putting a litter box by our toilet, so that we can slowly wean them off of their normal litter box. In hopes of enticing them further, I clean this litter box at least once a day (our other litter box that holds about 75 lbs of clay litter gets cleaned once a week). Im lazy and wanted a litter that I could just throw into the toilet, since its right there.

I started with Yesterday's News. Its made of recycled newspaper compacted up into little pellets. It worked, but not well. It failed at hiding any smell and after I did some investigating, I found that it isn't flushable (although I think thats only if you have a septic system). Time for something else!!!

I went to the store to pickup a bag of Feline Pine (sawdust compacted into pellets, flushable) and I saw this Swheat Scoop. Its an all natural wheat product. It's renewable. It's flushable. And most amazingly, it clumps! Oh, and a 40 lb bag was like $25, which works out to be about the same as I pay for the Fresh Step clay litter I was using. Sold!

I took it home, mixed it with what was left of the Yesterday's News (to acclimate them to the new litter), and waited. One of our cats, Steve, is very finicky and I had yet to see him use this newfangled litter box. He was the first one that I showed it to and he INSTANTLY pissed in it! Great Success!

So the end result? The cats LOVE it (I've even put some in their normally clay litter box). Its flushable. It clumps pretty well. Its the same price or cheaper than the clay. And finally its good for the environment!

:clap:

Slightly Educational: For those that don't know, clay cat litter is harvested via strip mining the earth and is quite nasty for our Green Mother. Additionally, its clay and doesn't break down into anything else and therefore just sits in landfills. Finally, there some debate about what can happen to cats when they ingest clay litter. So, why not try some of this stuff?
 
you're toilet training your cats? that sounds like an impressive feat if you can pull it off. i didn't think it actually happened. i thought it was just a joke in meet the parents.

as for the litter... sounds like win all around. usually you only get more green but more expensive, or more green but doesn't work as well, or works better but costs more. nice to find something that is flat or better in all three categories.
 
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I have 2 cats with severe wheat allergies so wheat is out of the question. I can and do use corn husk litter, which is all natural (the dogs eat it), clumpable, flushable and smells less offensive than the silica and pine based stuff which seems too heavily perfumed for me. I sprinkle good old fashioned Arm & Hammer baking soda on the bottom of the pan before I put the litter in and it's good to go. 7 cats, one self scooping litter box, we empty the recepticle every day and clean it down to plastic twice a week, which sounds more labor intensive than it is.

We use World's Best Cat Litter: http://www.worldsbestcatlitter.com/Products/WBCL/default.aspx
 
Oh and as an educational sidenote to fly's post.... silica litters are also carcinogens and cause respiratory issues in people and animals. They've been banned from our house for years now.
 
Jonny_B said:
you're toilet training your cats? that sounds like an impressive feat if you can pull it off. i didn't think it actually happened. i thought it was just a joke in meet the parents.

as for the litter... sounds like win all around. usually you only get more green but more expensive, or more green but doesn't work as well, or works better but costs more. nice to find something that is flat or better in all three categories.
Click to expand...

Kevlar's cats are/were toilet trained.
 
zengoat said:
I have 2 cats with severe wheat allergies so wheat is out of the question. I can and do use corn husk litter, which is all natural (the dogs eat it), clumpable, flushable and smells less offensive than the silica and pine based stuff which seems too heavily perfumed for me. I sprinkle good old fashioned Arm & Hammer baking soda on the bottom of the pan before I put the litter in and it's good to go. 7 cats, one self scooping litter box, we empty the recepticle every day and clean it down to plastic twice a week, which sounds more labor intensive than it is.

We use World's Best Cat Litter: http://www.worldsbestcatlitter.com/Products/WBCL/default.aspx
Click to expand...

How would I know if my cats had a wheat allergy? And that stuff seems pretty good, just a little more expensive.
 
We use the feline pine stuff
Mostly because its the only thing we tried that the cats cant track out of the litter pan
Everything else they managed to track it out of the pan and all over the house
We have two of the messiest cats Ive ever seen. They dont even cover their own poo. We have to pour more in on top to cover the poo every couple of days. Never seen a cat that doesnt cover its own poo.
 
JPatrick said:
We use the feline pine stuff
Mostly because its the only thing we tried that the cats cant track out of the litter pan
Everything else they managed to track it out of the pan and all over the house
We have two of the messiest cats Ive ever seen. They dont even cover their own poo. We have to pour more in on top to cover the poo every couple of days. Never seen a cat that doesnt cover its own poo.
Click to expand...

If they covered it up, it wouldn't be sitting there like a trophy for you to admire. They do say pets start to take on the same traits as their owners after awhile.
 
fly said:
So April and I are slowly (very slowly) working on toilet training the cats. Part of that is putting a litter box by our toilet, so that we can slowly wean them off of their normal litter box. In hopes of enticing them further, I clean this litter box at least once a day (our other litter box that holds about 75 lbs of clay litter gets cleaned once a week). Im lazy and wanted a litter that I could just throw into the toilet, since its right there.

I started with Yesterday's News. Its made of recycled newspaper compacted up into little pellets. It worked, but not well. It failed at hiding any smell and after I did some investigating, I found that it isn't flushable (although I think thats only if you have a septic system). Time for something else!!!

I went to the store to pickup a bag of Feline Pine (sawdust compacted into pellets, flushable) and I saw this Swheat Scoop. Its an all natural wheat product. It's renewable. It's flushable. And most amazingly, it clumps! Oh, and a 40 lb bag was like $25, which works out to be about the same as I pay for the Fresh Step clay litter I was using. Sold!

I took it home, mixed it with what was left of the Yesterday's News (to acclimate them to the new litter), and waited. One of our cats, Steve, is very finicky and I had yet to see him use this newfangled litter box. He was the first one that I showed it to and he INSTANTLY pissed in it! Great Success!

So the end result? The cats LOVE it (I've even put some in their normally clay litter box). Its flushable. It clumps pretty well. Its the same price or cheaper than the clay. And finally its good for the environment!

:clap:

Slightly Educational: For those that don't know, clay cat litter is harvested via strip mining the earth and is quite nasty for our Green Mother. Additionally, its clay and doesn't break down into anything else and therefore just sits in landfills. Finally, there some debate about what can happen to cats when they ingest clay litter. So, why not try some of this stuff?
Click to expand...

we loved this stuff back when we had our cats.
 
fly said:
How would I know if my cats had a wheat allergy? And that stuff seems pretty good, just a little more expensive.
Click to expand...

:lol: you would know.

Starbuck (Flynavy's cat) poos liquid unless she's on special food... which might not seem so bad but she poos on her feet and then tracks liquid poo everywhere.

June (My brother's cat) is a bit worse, not only will she poo liquid from wheat in food, but she's also got a chronic sinus infection. The vet says it must have set in when she was a kitten (my brother's mom "rescued" her from a shelter, by rescue I mean thought the kitty was cute and brought it home but didn't take care of it and then dumped it on us when she moved away) and after years of sinus infection, the infection has rooted itself into the bones of the sinus cavity (where medication can't really get to) so she's just chronically sinusitis... her eyes water, her nose completely crusts over, she blows out these 6" long snots everywhere, it's a real mess.

When she and my brother first moved in with us, he kept her in his room so she wouldn't contaminate my cats, and he used Tidy Scoop. Well, he went away for a weekend and I went in his room to check on her and she was a MESS. she couldn't breathe out of her nose so she was panting out of her mouth, she had diarrhea so bad that the smallest movement of her belly (walking too fast) would cause pressure and squeeze out diarrhea all over everything... well it was awful so I took all the silica litter out, got rid of her food, put her on a wet wheat free food and used the corn husk litter, and within 24 hours there was a marked improvement.

Now she is in the house with the rest of the cats, they all eat the same sensitive tummy dry food, all use the same litter box, and while June will always have allergies and some nasal congestion, it's nowhere near as bad as it was. I've since learned that silica litters can cause really bad respiratory issues in some cats and some of the chemicals are carcinogens, for both animals and people.

The litter is a little more expensive, sure, but we have one of those Littermaid cat boxes and we can't use a really heavy litter, and this was the only stuff besides the littermaid litter (which is HELLA expensive) that worked halfway decent. We buy it from petsmart, and we pay like... $25-29 for the big bag (not sure if it's 30 or 40 pounds) Which isn't bad for us. We go through one every 3-4 weeks.
 
zengoat said:
I have 2 cats with severe wheat allergies so wheat is out of the question. I can and do use corn husk litter, which is all natural (the dogs eat it), clumpable, flushable and smells less offensive than the silica and pine based stuff which seems too heavily perfumed for me. I sprinkle good old fashioned Arm & Hammer baking soda on the bottom of the pan before I put the litter in and it's good to go. 7 cats, one self scooping litter box, we empty the recepticle every day and clean it down to plastic twice a week, which sounds more labor intensive than it is.

We use World's Best Cat Litter: http://www.worldsbestcatlitter.com/Products/WBCL/default.aspx
Click to expand...
Ooooh YES!! Worlds best cat litter FTW!!!!!! That's what we use.
 
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