akbahsMum
Active Member
Hello there.
Some time back in this thread www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.p ... er#p669473
I reported the following:
The next couple of posts flagged the issue of bacteria from the trays getting into the soil and causing problems for me or the cats later (e.g. when repotting, or if the cats dig in the pots). I wasn't all that worried about that though probably the ladies were right. What I *did* find was that at first, my plants grew strong and green; soon later, they began to get what looked like burned leaves. Except my maidenhair and the zygocactuses, which thrived, and the camelia, which had been ailing and began finally to grow strongly. The rest of the plants developed leaf problems, so I stopped emptying the rinse water on the plants, and now I tip it down the toilet. And for good measure, as I'm rinsing the tray, I add a drop of eucalyptus oil to freshen it up and kill off any left over bacteria. Do you think now, this is a workable, clean, cheap, partly non smelly litter tray (the grail of the indoor cat owner)?
[Edited 24/4 approx 11:23 to fix link]
Some time back in this thread www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.p ... er#p669473
I reported the following:
Re: Update: Diarrhea, I cant win!
Postby akbahsMum » Tue Jan 24, 2012 2:57 pm
[...]I can suggest a cheap way to deal with litter, depending on how much time you have of course (everything has a price, this suggestion takes a bit of time).
My vet told me to get my cats off the clay, clumping variety cat litter because when I leave litter and pick out the poos and wees, bacteria stays in the tray and that may have been why both hannah and akbah got UTIs last year. He said, use old news papers and shred them.
As it happened I had just bought a $20AUS shredder from officeworks for fun. My father in law lives with us, he goes for a walk every morning, and began to collect the suburban newspapers which are left lying around the place. I assume he collects them after they have been abandonned... anyway so we have this constant supply of free newspaper.
He turns the newspapers into piles of pre-shredded paper, of the right size to be shredded (takes a bit of folding and tearing)
I shred up 15 newspaper pages twice a day (takes about 3 mins to feed through the shredder, and shredding is kind of satisfying actually).
AM and PM I chuck the whole litter tray mess into a rubbish bag, rinse the tray with water from the watering can, chuck the water on my plants, and throw fresh paper into the tray.
I always did think newspapers were mainly only about useful for you know what, and now my cats actually do sh*** in them.
pricetag: zero.
happy cats and a clean tray: priceless.
The next couple of posts flagged the issue of bacteria from the trays getting into the soil and causing problems for me or the cats later (e.g. when repotting, or if the cats dig in the pots). I wasn't all that worried about that though probably the ladies were right. What I *did* find was that at first, my plants grew strong and green; soon later, they began to get what looked like burned leaves. Except my maidenhair and the zygocactuses, which thrived, and the camelia, which had been ailing and began finally to grow strongly. The rest of the plants developed leaf problems, so I stopped emptying the rinse water on the plants, and now I tip it down the toilet. And for good measure, as I'm rinsing the tray, I add a drop of eucalyptus oil to freshen it up and kill off any left over bacteria. Do you think now, this is a workable, clean, cheap, partly non smelly litter tray (the grail of the indoor cat owner)?
[Edited 24/4 approx 11:23 to fix link]
