Owning a cat is incredibly rewarding, but if your cat uses cat litter, dealing with the smell and never-ending litter tray changes can be annoying at the very least and for some people, it can even be quite stressful. Luckily, cat litter has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years and this combined with access to lots of at-home tips and tricks means you don’t have to live with the smell of cat pee in your house.
Top 5 tips to banish a smelly litter tray once and for all:
1. Use a natural clumping cat litter
Clumping cat litter absorbs cat urine to form clumps (balls or patties) on contact with it. These litter clumps can be scooped out of the tray and discarded leaving behind only fresh litter. The key here is to get a cat litter that is ultra-tight clumping so that all the urine is absorbed. This will allow you to go for a really long time without doing a full tray change. Natural litters are great at clumping and generally don't have their own scent (or a very mild wood smell) so there’s no smell at all coming from your tray.
2. Scoop regularly
Regularly scooping clumps at least once a day, ideally twice a day, will make a huge difference in reducing the smell of cat pee. Urine from a healthy cat actually only contains a small amount of ammonia - about 0.05%. This is the same as the amount of ammonia in human urine. However, cat urine contains about 2% of urea (again, the same as human urine) which is converted to ammonia by an enzyme produced by bacteria present in litter trays. This is why litter trays that are not cleaned out very regularly end up smelling strongly of ammonia and that “cat pee” smell we all know and hate!
3. Use an enclosed litter tray
This will make a huge difference to smells travelling in your house. You can get some great covered cat litter trays or hooded litter trays with cat flaps from your local pet shop or online.
4. Use a cat litter with antibacterial properties
Cat litter that has an antibacterial agent added to it will help fight bacteria that may cause smelly litter trays.
5. Clean your tray with soapy water
When you do a full litter tray change, ensure you scrub your litter tray with warm soapy water so remove any lingering smells or urine that has stuck to the tray. And don’t forget the litter scoop!
If you follow these steps, you’ll be able to go at least a month without a full tray change and no cat pee smell in your house at all. If you need more advice about keeping your litter tray fresh and clean, let us know and we’ll be happy to help: help@tippaws.com.
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