Please help, which cat food is the best for controlling litter tray smells?

[sweetkitty]

I have 3 indoor cats who all but refuse to go outside so this means they use a litter tray. To give you some idea of how desperate I am this is my day, the first thing I do when I come downstairs in the morning is clean out the litter tray, the smell hits you from the top of the stairs, bearing in mind you have to come downstairs, go through a lounge/dining room and the kitchen to a walk in cupboard at the back of the kitchen where the litter tray is. I change the litter completely every morning and wash the tray out (this is before getting the DC or myself breakfast as I literally cannot stand the smell of s* all over my house). So after the school run I have come back and one of the cats has used the tray and the downstairs stinks again so have removed that one. I know the minute I go back out later I will come in to a house stinking again.

The cats sleep all day then the minute the DCs go to bed they come down and use the tray so you come downstairs and the house is stinking again. Last night we removed all the poo, sprayed with Frebreeze and had a plug in air freshenere on in the cupboard and I could still smell it all night, we even had the door open and it was snowing.

I literally cannot stand it anymore I feel the house is constantly stinking of s, I don't want to have people round as you are constantly on s duty as the minute one of the cats comes downstairs you have to go check and clean the tray. Obviously cannot shut doors as they scratch up and ruin the carpets.

Oh and as an aside I am 27 weeks pregnant as well and I know I should be near the litter tray but have no alternative if DH isn't around. Oh and most mornings I have to clean up cat sick first things as well, I am getting to the stage I really cannot stand the cats now, I have had them 11 years and I don't remember it ever being this bad.

I have tried expensive litters like Catsan and those bead things but the thing is sometimes they do not even cover it and even if they do it still stinks to high heaven.

So am thinking of changing their food, they are currently on Go-Cat but am thinking would a switch to Hills or Iams be better?

Does anyone have any recommendations? I would prefer something you don't have to order specially and could buy at Pets At Home or ideally the supermarket (I know you cannot buy Hills there)

The biggest difference I have found has been using Okoplus cat litter - it's quite expensive but you need much less than other litters. Because it clumps really well you don't get any smells.
I feed James Wellbeloved dry food and that seems to result in not-too-smelly poos.

HTH

We have a covered litter tray, it doesn't smell if it is kept reasonable clean and you can't see anything either.

like this

Do you only have 1 litter tray? If so, that isn't enough for 3 cats and so they may be having trouble burying all the poos, which won't help.

I wouldn't use Iams. I had to use it for while as I couldn't get anything else (live in the back of beyond) and not only did the cats really smell, but the Ragdoll's coat was getting matted, despite daily brushing.

I use Royal Canin sensible and have found poos don't smell that much. I also just use the wood pellet cat litter.

Yes have covered litter tray, they won't use the cat flap door thing so have to take it off, it's turned around so they have privacy and to try and hide the smell IYSWIM, one of them regularly hangs her bum out the litter tray door and pees on the floor as well!

Have tried having one to three trays makes no difference they still do not cover it and even if they do you can still smell it. So we are back to one tray washed and the whole litter replaced every morning and solids cleaned as soon as they do them IYSWIM?

As far as litter type goes, I find that all clumping litter stinks to high heaven and I now will only use the sawdust/paper pellet stuff - Tesco sell an own brand version which is quite good. It's also much easier to tell when it needs changing as the pellets turn into sawdust once they've been weed on.

My cats will sometimes do that hanging over the edge thing, but usually only when the tray is a bit too dirty for their taste. It's really annoying though!

I'm not sure what you can do about changing the smell of the poo itself - my cats eat the same yet one of them just has a more sensitive digestion than the other and her poo really stinks! I presume you're feeding them solely on dry food, which is good, but I can't say I've noticed much of a difference between brands. Have you tried asking your vet? They might have some ideas about things that could help.

Have you tried the Catsan litter (not the mat things as they cost a bomb, just the litter)? I have found this to be even better than those expensive crystal things and I have tried just about all litters on the market! Never any smell at all (apart from when scooping it out!).

It is more expensive than the clumping litter but if you are having to completely change it every day, it would'nt work out that much more expensive. Tesco also do their own version which is almost as good and slightly cheaper.

Oh and I do only have one cat but he leaves about 3 or 4 turds a day and I am supersensitive to the smell (am pregnant also) and I can never smell it around the house at all. We also only need to change it once a week with scooping about twice a day of course.

If you change to a better quality dry food (Hills, Jsmes Wellbeloved, Royal Canin etc) then you should get fewer poos overall as the cheaper foods contain lots of cheap fillers and create more poos.

Thanks have tried every cat litter there is practically, I don't think it's the litter it's the poos themselves that stink. It's not just my pregnant nose, DH can't stand it either. It's so bad that you can pick a poo up, spray with air freshener (which I hate but needs must), open the door and you can still smell it, it lingers for ages. It's really getting me down I don't want to sit downstairs anymore at night as it makes me feel sick.

It's the female one that misses the tray, she's not too bright and even in a clean tray will manage to miss the tray itself, DH says it's like him pooing in the bath and missing

We are having an extension built this year and hopefully a utility room so am planning to have some sort of cupboard with cat flap designed for the trays but that won't be for a while.

Sweetkitty - have you had the female one checked out by the vet? Urinating outside the litter tray can be a sign of a urinary tract disease.

Bella - she has been doing it since a kitten, she was the reason we got a lidded tray in the first place, it's just she gets herself into the position where her bum hangs out the door!

Blooming cats they are more hassle than the DC.

Our two eat Hills, they crap for England and it stinks. Honestly, how much poo can come out of two such small cats I do not know. At least one of them (I have my suspicions who it is) repeatedly doesn't bury it - I can tell when he wasn't because the smell is SO much worse. We use Okoplus litter which I DO think helps. The clumping clay litter we were using has an unpleasant smell all of its own which gets worse when used. We went through loads because we were replacing the whole lot so often. Okoplus costs more, but we've only done one complete change since early December, and that only because I felt I really should, rather than it needing it.

We also use this stuff on the litter, which helps when someone's not buried his business.

Ours has Hills and a bit of something else and it seems ok. We also use the Tesco wood pellet litter. Tbh - I think the food only makes a marginal difference. What you have is three cats who are making your life very hard. Are you SURE you want to keep them. You could ask the Cats protection people to try rehoming them?

I also would go back to three trays - or even four. Apparently the rule of thumb is 1 per cat plus a spare!

Northernlurker - sometimes I just don't know, we have had 2 of them 12 years and they used to be our babies but now they are a complete PITA I spend my life cleaning up after, if it's not the smell that's making me sick, it's cleaning up piles of sick, spat out food, cat litter and of course the usual scratching and hair. The little b* also woke me up at 6am this morning so they are not in my good books just now.

Don't have space for any more than 2 trays but may go back to 2 and check out that litter.