Can we retrain kittens to go outside to poo before Christmas?

[NeededANameChangeAnyway]

Two litter mates who are between 6-8 months old. We have had them since they were around 2 months old. They were pretty good at using a litter tray, a few messes and mistakes but nothing too bad. We're hosting Christmas and the tray we have is huge and sits just behind the dinner table. This horrifies my mum. Compounding the problem is that one cat is a social shitter and prefers to do her business just when we are sitting down to eat

can we retrain them to go outside before Christmas? How should we go about this? They are inside outside cats but we don't have cat flaps so have to open and close the door for them. They are alsohating the weather at the moment and really have to be shoved out the door for fresh air. Our old cat never used his tray no matter what and would just wait to be let out - he was a rescue too so I've never really had to train cats to use or not use trays. Any ideas?

[Fluffycloudland77]

I don't know, I wouldn't want to go outside to use a loo right now.

[TheBunnyOfDoom]

You should really have three litter trays for two cats. Can you not get some smaller ones and put them in separate locations? Ours are in the bathroom and the corner of the hallway. We've moved them around when we've had visitors/cats have been sick and needed separating and they used them in new locations without a problem.

[MackerelOfFact]

Get one of those lidded/flap ones, leave it inside for a few days until they figure it out and then put it outside? Could you get a cat flap?

[Floralnomad]

could you change to 2 smaller trays in different areas , I thought in multi cat households it should be a tray each and one spare , although that may be a bit OTT .

[NeededANameChangeAnyway]

It's a massive tray - one of the self cleaning ones with a lid. There really isn't anywhere else for it to go otherwise that probably would be the best option.

[Floralnomad]

Probably easier to just move the tray to a new location and train them to use it there could it go in a bathroom / downstairs loo/ utility room .