No one mentioned the smell....

[Mumdiva99]

We welcomed our 10 wk old kittens on Friday. They are gorgeous. They are well behaved. They play. They sleep. They eat. And boy do they poop. And it stinks.....proper stink the whole ground floor out stink. Is this normal? How often do you completely change the whole litter....every day?

@Soubriquet they have probably changed over the years, might be something totally different now .

Never the less, I use granulated chicken starter, it really works for me.

What are you feeding them? Our vet recommended changing from wet to dry food and the difference in smell was obvious straight away. But ours was older at the time (5 months) so not sure what the advice is for kittens.

If anyone has any tips on how to teach Cheddar to bury hers I'd be glad to have them. She scrapes the side of the tray instead.

It could be the food. I avoid Felix as the smell our cats create when on that is awful

That's funny because we only buy Felix cat food and there's never a smell at all. We have changed cat foods before (or attempted to) but Her Majesty Kitty demands what she likes and us mere slaves must do as she wishes.

Ours like Felix and go cat or dry whiskas. (So shoot me). I scoop as soon as I hear the scrabble. Litter tray cleaned out and changed as needed. That might be daily or every other day. I use cheapest litter going.
My older cats will only use newspaper - their tray is cleaned every time they use it wee or poo.
Litter deodorant a god send in the hot summer.
Yes to hooded trays if you can. I also have an aerosol air freshener on a timer and keep at least two windows ajar for fresh air. More if one of us is home.
You get used to it.

My cat has perfect fit biscuits

She used to have whiskers or felix but she would eat the bits she likes, leave what she doesn’t and then meow at me because her bowl was “empty”

She eats all the biscuits with perfect fit

She has wet whiskers or felix.

@Soubriquet a decent human servant would have already picked out the undesirable biscuits. That poor feline master, having to inform her staff every single time she wished for her food bowl to be restocked with the good stuff! Tsk tsk!

I agree with chester, you simply need to up your serving skills, Soubriquet you haven't got anything better to do, have you .

@Toddlerteaplease
get a second cat, cheddar will start cover and the new one will not. If you go by how mine do it .

Btw, I'm ashamed of forgetting OP, your kittens look lovely, enjoy .

@giantangryrooster Cheddar is the second cat. She shares a tray happily with my other cat who does bury it. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have caught on.

Oh dear. I have suitably shamed...cat is very smug

You have a box of shit in your house. Why would you not think it would stink 😁?

Sorry cracks me up, cat people say ooohhhh it doesn't smell, just pick up the shit, from a non cat person your house smells of cat shit!

@Toddlerteaplease mine too, one covers one doesn't. The one that covers didn't until the young one arrived .

@Bloomburger from a non cat person your house smells of cat shit
Nonsense, you just need to learn it is the perfume of cat love .

Thanks everyone for great advice. Lots of things to try.
This board is so helpful. And the advice all comes with a healthy dose of humour. Which is required when discussing shit.

Sounds like a lot of work. As do dogs.

I love animals at a distance but could never have one in my house EVER.

Sorry to everyone but I know the minute I enter someone's house that they have either dogs or cats, there is no escape. The smell, YUK, and as for the hairs everywhere. BOAK.

But each to their own. Not for me as you can see. I donate to my local animal shelter and give them money along with old duvets and all that, but I would never have a dog or a cat in my house ever. Can't see the point if I have to see hairs and smells everywhere. Sorry now. That's just me.

But I reckon many are terrified to admit similar. Am I the only brave one here to admit it!

Male cat piss especially stinks. It’s horrible. When mine were kittens I changed the full box twice a day and used wood pellets. It still stank.

Am I the only brave one here to admit it!

yolio I think you’ll find you are in the minority here in The Litter Tray Where people tend to be on the cat loving side..

Soubriquet my two love Perfect Fit too.

@Chemenger diplomatic and nicely put .

We use Cats Best litter which helps reduce the smell. The wood pellet litter is good too but make sure it isn't pine fragranced which some supermarket ones are. Downside is it doesn't clump. I volunteer at Cats Protection (well did pre Covid) and have cleaned a lot of trays out, the worst litter for smells is Catsan type and the clay ones-wood pellets are standard but some cats refuse to go in them hence the other types! Kittens look cute but boy they can stink a bit like human babies especially when they start eating solids!

Where are you putting the scooped out poo? Not environmentally friendly but I bag it up in dog poo bags and put in a tight lidded box (a spare council food waste container). Haribo's tray is in the downstairs shower room which is behind a utility room next to the back door so his tray, which is hardly used now, is away from the kitchen and living room.

@Chemenger

Put a lot nicer than I very nearly typed!

Always use a covered litter tray, this makes a big difference.

I used to buy the puppy training pads from Home Bargains. Then line the tray with one and add just one mug full of the wood pellet litter.

Then when they have a poo, just bundle the whole liner & litter straight into the bin and replace. As you are using minimal litter, it actually uses less overall. And my kittens were fine with this arrangement.

This really does minimise the smell and I think is more hygienic overall.

You can also use newspaper to line the tray if you don't want to buy the puppy pads.

We had this and it was awful tbh. Nothing helped really. Tried different litters, same stink.

The thing that helped was getting them to poop outside when they were old enough - now I never have to deal with their poo at all, such a relief!