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An automatic litter box can make life a lot easier!
Imagine coming home from work and you no longer have to bend over the litter box scooping poop and disposing of it. Wouldn’t that be great? And having your litter box area smell good would be great too, wouldn’t it? Of course it would and an automated litter box like Litter Maid or Litter Robot can do just that!
I used Litter Maid for years and I loved it. Here’s how this automatic litter box works:
- A plastic receptacle is placed in the front (there’s a special spot for it)
- Litter is spread on the bottom of the box
- Box is plugged in to outlet
- Cat goes into box and does his business
- After cat leaves (an electronic eye senses that the cat has left) an automatic rake sweeps through the box picking up the cat waste and depositing it in the receptacle. The receptacle has a lid and the lid is closed so the waste is covered and most of the smell is eliminated.
While I do recommend use of an automatic litter box, here’s a couple of things you need to be aware of:
- An automatic litter box works best with 1 cat. I had 2 cats and sometimes there was too much waste for the rake to pick up. It did work OK most of the time, but I think 3 cats would be too much for it.
- Use the litter recommended by the manufacturer. I tried to cheap out and buy less costly litter but it didn’t clump as good and it broke up in the box instead of ending up in a big clump in the receptacle.
- Keep the box clean. Litter will get pushed up on the side rails and there will be some gunking up of the litter here and there. Keep the box as clean as possible and sweep off the litter every day. Otherwise it will build up to much and the rake won’t work.
- Don’t put too much litter in – it will be too heavy for the rake and it won’t be able to push the clumps into the recepticle.
- Don’t put too little litter in – it will make a mess in the bottom of the box that you will have to scrape off.
- Clean your automatic litter box thoroughly every 3 months but don’t submerge it in water or take it apart. My first Litter Maid got really dirty and stopped working so I sprayed it down with the hose and took some of the parts off to clean. It never worked right afterwards and I ended up buying another one! I recommend that you give it a thorough cleaning often but don’t spray it down, just empty it all out and wipe off anything that is stuck on.