Our family recently became cat owners when a very sweet, pregnant, half starving stray cat showed up on our doorstep. We live in a semi-rural neighborhood and so pets abandoned by their owners are unfortunately a regular occurrence.
Since getting Rita fixed wasn’t an option until her kittens were born and weaned, we tentatively prepared for a litter of kittens to invade our household.
While the kittens have been a boatload of fun over the past few months, they have also presented a challenge in the cleanliness department.
My husband has never been a fan of cat litter boxes, and so, any cat we have ever owned during our marriage had to be an outdoor pet. Â This worked well for our neighborhood which has little traffic and lots of space between homes and the road.
The kittens presented a different challenge, however, as we needed to train them to use a cat litter box properly if we were going to successfully get them adopted out to good homes.
As a result, enduring the inconvenience and smell of a cat litter box was something we were just going to have to deal with for a period of time.
Or, so we thought ….
When we first started the kittens on solid food, we used an organic kitten food that we had been feeding Mama Kitty.  I realize that assembling a raw pet food diet would be the best way to go. But, the truth is, these kittens were surprise visitors in our household, and I quite frankly did not have the bandwidth to make raw kitten food in addition to all my other cooking duties (on a positive note, Mama Kitty and weaning babies do have all the raw grassfed milk they can lap up!).
So, I did what I thought was the next best thing and bought organic pet food.
Unfortunately, this choice resulted in a cat litter box just as stinky as if we had purchased the conventional, GMO pet food!
I was shocked and disappointed and started searching for a better and healthier option for our little feline family.
I was very delighted to come across a grain free kitten food (this is the one I tried) at the pet store, and decided to give it a try. Â Both Mama Kitty and kittens loved it and within 24 hours, voila, no more stinky cat litter box!
The difference was amazing and my husband was relieved! Â The grain free cat food is more expensive than the conventional cheap stuff, but the significantly reduced smell was definitely worth it. Â Not to mention the cats eat less because the food is healthier for them and more filling which results in smaller stools too.
Why would a grain free cat food make a difference to the smell of a cat litter box, you may ask?
The reason is that the #1 ingredient of most major pet foods is typically corn, wheat, or rice. This is problematic because cats are carnivores, not omnivores and feeding them grains, some of the most difficult plant matter to break down, is not optimal for their digestion. When animals eat food that is not easily digested and/or not designed for their biology, the result is stinky, overly large stools.
So if you struggle with the smell of a cat litter box despite efforts to keep it cleaned and changed on a regular basis, try switching over to a grain free cat food if making your own raw food for your pet isn’t an option.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources and More Information
Choose Another Pet Food if Yours Has These Ingredients
Dirty Secrets of the Pet Food Industry
I really admire your efforts to find good homes for the kittens. People that are kind to animals are also kid to people. They go hand in hand. Thank you.
For years we fed our cats dry food (recommended by our vet) and suffered with the stinky litter. Somewhere along the way we began to look at our food and as a result the cat food as well. Seems our vet had an epiphany at the same time and the dry food was off the table (floor) and good quality tinned food went down. It was a minor miracle. The amount of stool decreased to about 1/3 previous levels and the stool itself was quite dry. Water consumption diminished to next to nothing but the volume of pee (relatively unscented) doubled. Species appropriate food must be the order of the day for us and the animals we’ve brought into our lives. We did try the homemade raw food but while they went from dry to canned without complaint they were not so keen on the raw food. As any cat owner can attest you don’t win an argument with your cat over her food.
Even feeding cats organic wet food can cause problems because cooking the meat destroys much needed nutrients. Cats are carnivores and their natural diet is raw meat. Since most of us are not hunting two squirrels a day for our feline companions, making raw food for them is a close second. It’s an easy thing to do – just make sure to grind the bones in addition to the meat (or buy bone meal), organ meats, and add in nutrients that are lost from the meat not being a fresh kill. Cut up some chicken necks into small rounds for them too! It’s important they get some hard bones to break up with their teeth. Also, there is no ‘stage of life’ diet for cats. In the wild they will all eat whatever they can catch – kittens and older cats alike. Are are some great resources for anyone interested in making their own food :http://www.catnutrition.org/foodmaking.html, http://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition
Cats can do just great with canned food and get all the nutrients they need. Not everybody can do or wants to deal with an all raw food diet. I personally feed quality canned and some raw. I don’t think it’s helpful to insist everyone has to feed a raw diet or their cats will be missing nutrients or be in trouble. A raw diet also takes knowledge and effort to get right and if it isn’t balanced can cause problems. I like the happy medium of mostly quality canned and some raw, and even a bit of grain-free dry occasionally.
Non-perfumed liter, scooped often, works very well keeping the odor down.
If you check with your vet, you will find that too much oil or too much of the canned foods will cause a whole lot of grief for your furbabies.
Our vet told us that canned food should only be given for gastric upsets. The canned stuff also does a number on the teeth…and if you want to help your kitty prevent serious issues, get one with tartar control…and if long haired…hairball control… Our vet recommends Hills Science for both cats and dogs…and we have seen a vast improvement.
As to the litter box….a box of baking soda and getting one of those scoopers that kinds sifts and clunking it daily is the best bet.
Alyianna, sorry but your information is quite outdated. It’s a big myth that “dry food cleans the teeth” Also there isn’t added “oil” in quality canned food, and cats, like people, need high quality fat! Canned food is closer to a carnivorous diet. Hills Science Diet is one of the worst, overpriced junky foods, full of grains and cheap fillers. Sadly vets have been sucked into promoting this food through heavy marketing and financial ties at vet schools. Do a little reading and googling about feline nutrition, It’s becoming more and more known that it’s actually the processed dry food, often full of crappy ‘species inappropriate’ ingredients that cause a lot of grief and disease for our furbabies. Read the label for Hill’s Science Diet.
And here’s a good article from a holistic vet about that pervasive myth that “dry food cleans cats’ teeth” http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/does-dry-food-clean-the-teeth/
Jen,
After looking through the internet on canned cat food verses dry cat food.
There is a problem with cats eating cat food that comes out of a can.
As the inside is not safe..Its causing problems in older cats as well as dogs who have only eaten canned foods..
My cat is 20 1/2 yrs old.Had her since she was 6 weeks old.
She has only eaten dry cat food..She is still going strong, Her teeth are still white, a little yellow, but No tarter..
As a child my daughters cat lived for 22 yrs. on dry cat food. Maybe at times caught a mice, as mine has also..
At this point, I don’t think we can point fingers to what food is healthier for a cat!
My cats are indoor, outdoor cats..we have a cat door, although they have always sleeped in the house at night.
Feeding cats a diet as close to what they would eat in the wild will improve their health & longevity and reduce the smell of their urine & feces. Thru research you can find much better brands than Blue. Cats are true carnivores and do not need grains, rice or fruit and just a very very small amount of veggies. We adopted a stray a few years ago that was being fed a cheap kibble & her waste smelled really bad. She was totally carb addicted. We slowly transitioned her to a raw diet including ground raw pet food (Bravo), raw chicken necks & eggs. Within in a few weeks of the transition we could no longer smell her waste. We also use pellets for litter which absorb odor & liquid well.
Making raw food seems daunting at first, but it is actually so easy to make a month’s supply in under an hour (including clean up) — some great tutorials over at http://feline-nutrition.org and both sites have nutritionally sound and vet-approved recipes (and it is very important to follow a verified recipe to prevent missing key nutrients) that use ingredients you can easily pick up while doing your family grocery shopping. I have a couple of foodie friends that come over and we make a little party of mixing up the raw food for our cats once a month. The decrease in smelly poop, the decrease in shedding, and the incredibly luxurious fur my cats now have makes it totally worth it.
I never smell the litter boxes despite having many indoor cats through the years. Perhaps I just love cats and maybe you should tell your husband to get over it.
Any suggestions for a cat with stage one renal kidney failure that is supposed to just eat the “special” food from the vet?
Thanks, Sarah. I’m getting a kitten in a week or two. What timely advice!
I always appreciate your work.