Natural Cat Litter, Part 2. The Scoop.

In out first installment, I talked about the environmental and health costs of clay and clumping litters.  Bad stuff.  Now let’s talk about some alternatives.  They’ll turn just about anything into cat litter these days and most of them are biodegradable.  When you shop for natural cat litter, you will find litters made of corn, wheat, walnuts, recycled newspaper, pine nuggets, cedar.  Here are some pros and cons of some that we've tried here at Green Earth Pet Food.  Prices are averaged out over several sources.

1.  Feline Pine.  $0.65/pound.

PROS:  Made of highly absorbent, non-clumping pine fibers in pellet or sawdust form.  
Light pine scent and good odor control.
Low dust.  
Biodegradable.
Compostable*.

CONS:  Packaged in plastic.
Cats can track the fine particles throughout the house.

My cats didn't "do" Feline Pine personally, but I think that's because I didn't give them enough transition time.  The pellets are unusual and not at all like other litters, so give your cat plenty of time to make the switch, mixing in a little at a time with their usual litter.

2.  Swheat Scoop.  $0.96/pound

PROS:  Made of renewable, naturally clumping wheat.
Fairly good odor control--the natural enzymes in the wheat work fairly well to control odors.
Minimal tracking.
Fairly low in dust.
Easy to transition.
Recyclable packaging.
Compostable*.
Mild, pleasant bready scent.

CONS:  Mild, pleasant bready scent may be attractive to dogs.  Kristi's dogs thought the litter was an extra treat in the box and had to go on a low carb diet.
Not appropriate for a gluten free household.

3.  World's Best Cat Litter.  $1.18/pound.

PROS:  Made of renewable, naturally clumping whole kernel corn.
Good odor control.
Low dust.
Low tracking.
Compostable*.
Mild "farmy" scent.
Long lasting.

CONS:  Plastic package.
Expensive!

In spite of the price, this litter lives up to its name.  AVOID the scented multi-cat formula, though.  In fact, AVOID all scented cat litters.  In general, scents are added chemicals (VOCs) that will just irritate your cat and possibly make her want to avoid her litter box.

4.  Yesterday's News.  $ 0.67/pound.

PROS:  Made from 100% recycled newspaper, including the packaging.
99.7% dust free (lowest of all the litters)
Excellent absorption of moisture.
Low tracking.
Biodegradable.

CONS:  Does not clump.
I think it smells a little funky (but that's just me).

5.  Cedarific Cat Litter.  $0.87/pound

PROS:  Made of hardwood and cedar chips.
Pleasant odor (doesn't smell like hamsters, I swear!)
Low in dust.
Biodegradable.
Compostable*. 
Recyclable package.

CONS:  Non clumping.
A little on the light side, so cats track it out of the box more easily.


These are just a few of the brands that we have first-hand experience with.  There doesn't seem to be a "perfect" natural cat litter, but hopefully this non-scientific review will help you choose what works for you according to your priorities.  

REGARDING FLUSHING AND COMPOSTING:  Almost all of the litters advertise that they are "flushable," but in my research I found that the most environmentally friendly thing to do is to NOT flush cat waste down the toilet, where it will enter the waterways and even the ocean.  Cats have a parasite--toxoplasma gondii, if you were wondering.  It has been found in dolphins, humpback whales, sea otters, monk seals.  It doesn't belong there, so bag your cat poop and throw it away.  As for composting, your compost pile will not heat up enough to kill this parasite, so don't put your litter in compost intended for food plants.

BONUS FOR THE FRUGAL:  I loves me some World's Best Cat Litter.  It's my top pick, but it's expensive.  What else is made of corn, absorbs moisture, controls odor and is otherwise identical in every way but costs a quarter the price?   Chicken Feed.  That's right.  You can get a 50 pound bag of chicken "crumbles" for about $15.  It doesn't clump as tightly as WBCL, but it really is super economical.  Buy a small bag first to see if this is a good option for you and keep extra in the freezer to minimize bugs.  Get only unmedicated feed and, again, make sure it is in crumble form.

Natural Cat Litter, Part 1

I read a heartbreaking story recently from Marina Michaels at Catmom.  She raises Japanese Bobtails and lost almost every kitten from three litters just when they reached litter box age.  She put two and two together and realized that the clumping cat litter that is so convenient and so popular was likely the cause of what must have been painful, yet preventable, deaths.  So I looked into it myself, and I’d like to share what I learned in my two part post--the bad, the good and, for Kristi, the frugal!

FIRST, THE BAD NEWS.

The most popular and readily available and cheapest litters are made of clay, which is naughty for two main reasons.

HEALTH REASONS

Clay litters contain silica, which is a known carcinogen and can cause silicosis, a respiratory disease characterized by lesions in the lungs and throat and caused by breathing the silica-laden dust found in clay litter.  No thank you!

Clumping litters contain sodium bentonite, which is basically expandable cement.  They tell you not to flush the clumps because they can clog your pipes.  Sodium bentonite expands 15-18 times its original size.  If it’s hard on your home’s plumbing, imagine what it did to those little Japanese Bobtails’ plumbing when they licked it off their paws after using the litter box, as cats do.  Clumping cat litter plus cats who groom themselves is a recipe for disaster.  Please get rid of this stuff immediately.

ENVIRONMENTAL REASONS

Getting rid of clay litter or clumping litter is easier said than done.  You can’t compost them.  They NEVER biodegrade, so they just sit in the landfills.  Forever.  And just as disposing of clay litter is hard on the environment, producing it is equally destructive. Clay litter is strip mined without regard to the land, the water or the miners.

THEN, THE GOOD NEWS

Fortunately, there are lots of alternatives to traditional clay litter.  Some of the environmentally friendly litters even offer clumping ability, if you must.  You can find natural litters made from a variety of renewable resources including wheat, pine, walnuts, corn cobs, and recycled newspapers.  Next week I am going to review some of the brands and materials, plus the pros and cons according to my relatively unscientific research.

See you then.

Rotation Feeding for Better Health

Rotation feeding is one of the newer buzz words in pet nutrition. Gone are the days of auto-pilot feeding where your pet gets the same old kibble night after night after night. And your pets will be all the better for it. Changing your pet's diet periodically is one of the best things you can do for his or her health and well-being for several reasons.

First, wouldn't you get bored eating a bowl of corn flakes every day for the rest of your life? Wouldn't you crave a scrambled egg or a fruit smoothie or a bowl of oatmeal just for fun once in a while? Keep them excited about mealtime by keeping them guessing. Even if your dog or cat has a sensitive stomach, different flavors of the same brand of food are generally similar enough in composition that pets usually can make the switch without a lot of planning and preparation.

Second, changing your pets food regularly can help prevent the development of food allergies by limiting their exposure to potential allergens.

Third, by exposing your pets to a variety of foods, you help strengthen their digestive systems and limit stomach upset.

Finally, by exposing your pet to a wide variety of protein sources and brands of foods, or feeding a brand like ours that rotates ingredients based on what is available seasonally, you provide them with a large and varied cornucopia of nutrients and minerals and vitamins that will keep them healthier over the long run. Just like in human nutrition, the bigger variety of foods we eat, the more building blocks our bodies have to keep us healthy and vibrant.

How to Switch

If you have a new puppy or kitten, you are in luck (in so many ways)! They are usually the easiest to transition because their digestive systems are more flexible. While they are young, give them a big variety of foods--different flavors, different textures, different kinds (canned, freeze dried raw, frozen raw), different brands.

For older dogs, you may need to transition more slowly by adding 10-20% of the new food to their old food and increasing the percentage gradually over a week to 10 days. Add digestive enzymes, probiotics and/or canned pumpkin to help with digestion. After a few months of switching gradually, your pet's digestive system will get tougher and you may be able to eliminate the slow transition time altogether.

Dogs transition easily from dry to canned or raw food, but cats who have been fed dry food for a long time may turn their noses up because, well, cats have attitudes and definite ideas about things. Here are a few tips on how to make it easier to switch cats to canned or raw food...

• Try a variety of flavors and textures--my cat loved anything seafood, but eating turkey was a chore; loved pate, but had her doubts about gravy.
• Remove dry food when wet is offered and feed them twice a day.
• Mix the canned food with the kibble to get them used to the smell and taste.
• Top the canned food with something irresistibly smelly like bonito flakes or salmon oil.
• Be patient. They will come around eventually.

See Transitioning Your Cat to Raw Food for more information and tips.

Introduce raw foods slowly to your cat or dog. Raw food is so dense in nutrients that it will be easy for your pet to overdo, especially if you have a lab or any other eating machine.

Remember, you are giving your pet the most nutritionally complete, well rounded diet you can by providing him or her with a wide variety of foods. That means your pet will be with you longer and will live a high quality, happy life.

CAT CHRONICLES: CAT PLAYGROUND!

Dora & Mittens "strutting" on the playground!

I have multiple cats and a nice large backyard that I have enclosed with a “cat fence” – netting attached to brackets which keeps my cats from getting over the fence.  Unfortunately, there are no large trees inside my backyard, so nothing for my cats to climb and scratch on (two very important activities for a cat’s emotional and physical well being).



Mittens demonstates the "horizontal" scratching technique.





Dora demonstrates the "diagonal" scratching technique.



Cricket demonstrates the "lazy" scratching technique.

And if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a rather frugal person.  Not to mention I have zero woodworking skills whatsoever.  So when I decided to build an outdoor “playground” for my cats to compensate for my lack of trees, I was stumped (no pun intended) as to how I could build it for hardly any money and hardly any skills.  I Googled “outdoor cat playground” and did not find anything that was either premade which I could buy or anything easy to build myself.

Then one day I was looking at my extra wire fencing and garden stakes lying around the yard.  Hmm … an idea was forming (and you know how I love to recycle!).  So I took six 5’ stakes and a 3x8” piece of wire fencing.  I put the stakes in the ground, three on a side, spaced 3’ apart, with three more stakes on the other side about 3’ across from other stakes.  I then attached the wire fencing along the top of the stakes using the little notches in the stakes plus some zip ties.  I put another shorter stake between the pairs of 5’ stakes to give the structure a little more stability.  I then took some old big branches I also had lying around and put the heavier branches leaning diagonally from the ground to the top of the fencing and the lighter branches horizontally along the top of the wire fencing (some of the branches I also zip tied to the fencing for extra stability).

You can see the wire fencing and the stake across for stability.

Full cat playground (with a couple of canines - Galaxy & Bamboo).

I then added a few cats (I have plenty to choose from) and my cat playground was born!  My cats now have a place where they can climb, scratch and get away from the sometimes annoying canine family members.  They can also take wonderful cat naps under the structure.

Cosmo climbing up the playground.



Cricket, just "hanging" (Galaxy, annoying canine in background).



Cosmo, king of the mountain!



So if you have only a small yard with no large trees for your cats to play on, you can build your own cat playground for less than $40.  Or if you’re handy, you can use untreated wood posts and boards instead of the stakes and wire fencing … the sky’s the limit!

(If you build your own cat playground, I’d love to see pictures!  You can go to our Facebook page and post your pictures:  https://www.facebook.com/greenearthpetfood

Cricket & Cosmo - one goes up, the other goes down.

Transitioning Your Cat to Raw Food

Quetzal

Bagged kibble may be convenient and easy to serve, and your kitty may love her crunchies, but more and more veterinarians are concluding that we are not doing our cats (or dogs) any favors by feeding them kibble.  Cats on kibble are more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, urinary tract blockages and kidney problems.  Cats need a diet high in both meat (min. 90%) and moisture (min. 70%), and raw food provides both.  If your cat is like my Quetzal, the transition won’t be easy, but in terms of her health and well being, it will be well worth the effort.

The kibble makers add strong-smelling flavor enhancers to their products.  When presented with a milder smelling food, like raw or canned food, your cat may not exactly respond with gusto.  Try these ideas to overcome kitty’s “finicky” ways:

1. Pick up food after each meal and introduce a new food the next meal. A cat who is free-fed and thus never hungry has little biological incentive to try something new, especially if it doesn’t smell like food or if it’s a different texture. So, after each meal, remove all remnants of food, wash the dish and leave the feeding area clean. For the next meal, introduce a small amount of canned or raw food. Use a flat dish, not a bowl, for easier access
2. Begin the transition with a strong-smelling moist food, like Green Earth Pet Food Savory Salmon which has salmon added for smell/flavor.  Fish-based or gamey flavors are best. You may need to try different brands, flavors and textures, as minor differences in ingredients can make a big difference to a cat’s palate. For example, Quetzal eats pate and flaked tuna, but turns her nose up to anything called "stew" or "cutlet."  Later on, try to mix in different meat sources to avoid a diet of exclusively fish-based food.

These two steps will work for most cats, but if you have a stubborn case (ahem...I’m looking at you, Quetzal), you may need to go a step further.  Here are some more ideas:

• Start by mixing canned or raw food with their dry food and decrease the amount of dry food in the mix over time and/or crush some of the kibble and sprinkle it on top of the raw food.
• Release the scent of raw food by adding some warm (not hot) water or raw goat’s milk that your kitty can lap up like gravy.  (I serve Answer’s brand raw goat’s milk and Quetzal LOVES it.  LOVES it!  And it's got additional probiotics for belly health.)
• Sprinkle some Bonito flakes or freeze-dried salmon or liver treats over the new food (Ask at your pet store for treats or even samples.)
• Add the juice from a can of your favorite tuna.
• Sprinkle some nutritional yeast over the new food – some cats love it.

The transition may work overnight, or it may take days, even weeks, depending on how long your cat has been eating dry food and whether or not she’s ever been exposed to wet food.  But you can do it, and your kitty will be all the healthier and happier for your efforts.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to contact us if you have more questions.

Awww....how am I going to brush my teeth?

Cat Chronicles: Buckwheat & Dora



Dora hiding in the buckwheat



Buckwheat is not the name of one of my cats, but Dora is.  Dora, named appropriately after Dora the Explorer, is 8 pounds of fluffy fur, pure fun and curiosity with zero amount of fear.  She is one of my kitten foster “failures” who managed to climb her way into my heart (using my pant leg) at less than 3 weeks old.

The reason I mention buckwheat is because I want to talk about what a wonderful, versatile plant it is.  Buckwheat makes a great warm weather cover crop (from seed to flowers in just 4-5 weeks!), bees absolutely love the flowers for forage, the dead plants add organic “green manure” to your garden, and the plants will self sow into more beautiful buckwheat.  But the best reason to grow a quick crop of buckwheat during the summer: the cats love to play hide and seek and “stalk” each other in the tall buckwheat jungle (pun intended)!