If you don’t know any cats, this could be the least interesting thing you watch all week. If you do have little paws in your world, here’s a video followup to my wood pellet discovery that can save you big bucks on your litter budget and how to make a quick DIY “reverse sifter” for a buck.
Of course if you don’t want to mess with shakin’ your cat box like a polaroid picture you can still save plenty of money compared to heavy, messy clumping clay by tossing out the whole lot when it’s about 50% spent (disintegrated into sawdust) but there’s a surprising amount of still-usable pellets in with the used litter. Sifting every third or fourth day can extend your litter budget by that same 50%. Three months in and I’ve still only barely touched my second $6 bag.
edit: Shopping links to a Spork-Approved ready-made sifter coming soon for those of you not into hacking up your own DIY version. I want to get a few and test them before I made a recommendation but in the mean time, get some cheap pellets to test drive with your cats FIRST before spending money on a sifter. Your old-school manual scoop will work just fine for a few test weeks.
And no, there’s not a secret trick with ANY cat litter that means you don’t have to scoop out the solids every day for their health. That’s the cat equivalent of not flushing. Yuck. Don’t be litter lazy and they’ll love you even more.
