I poked my head out of a gaggle of cats this week to realize it is:

a) Back to school time for most of North America and…

b) Labor Day weekend according to the influx of online retail “labor day sale!” alerts bombarding my email inbox.

The cats in my world don’t go to school, nor do they get to celebrate a day of not working (since they never work AT ALL), so we are going to get into a sometimes smelly subject that follows cat ownership and of course, cat foster-ship.

Cat Litter

Fun fact…ready?

I did some math and from January 6, 2019 (the day our first group of foster cats moved in) through August 25 2019, we went through 3,578 pounds of cat litter.

You read that right, I’ve done the math four times.

For perspective, 3500 lb is about the same as:

1. A small White Rhinoceros 
2. A medium sized Giraffe
3. An empty cargo container
4. A Chevrolet Equinox 

“How on earth?” you might ask.

Well, if you’ve visited us you might have noticed the Cat Lounge and cat privacy room are pretty darn clean. This is not by accident, in fact it is very intentional.

Part of our mission of connection is helping to enroll “non-cat people” into the fantastical furry world of cats by breaking down common barriers such as fear of litter box or cat smell.

Our team works really hard at keeping our space as clean as possible because the alternative is no fun for anyone (including the cats). And if we can keep a room full of 20 cats and not smell litter, then 1 or 2 cats shouldn’t be an issue for those non-cat people! 😹👍

Part of the sanitation requirements we follow for our rescue partner is emptying and sanitizing each litter pan on a regular basis.

Even with hard clumping litter, this inevitably results in usable cat litter going straight into the trash.

If you have cats then you know that good cat litter isn’t cheap; hence it being one of many costs offset by the $12 purr hour Cat Lounge admission.

Litter & Boxes

People ask me all the time what we do about cat litter and litter pans so I’m happy to go into detail on that for you guys here.

To date we’ve been using Fresh Step Simply Unscented, mainly because it’s low dust and doesn’t have any added scent. We don’t have any relationship with the brand so this is just me sharing what we’ve been choosing to use so far.

BUT – last week World’s Best Cat Litter contacted us about joining their cat cafe program which is SUPER exciting. I’ve not tried their products before so if any of you guys have tested it out I’d love you to drop me a note with your thoughts.

When it comes to litter boxes… my oh my there are all kinds. And they can get pretty pricey. 

When Cat & Craft was in the planning stages I spent some time chatting to Haydn of Java Cats Atlanta, and she shared the genius idea of simply buying a bunch of 18 gallon storage tubs like these on Amazon.

We just cut a U-shaped hole in the front of each one for cat access, and the high sides keep litter inside the tub and the non-porous material is easy to sanitize. Plus when it’s time to replace the cost per item is much lower than many of the litter boxes available in various pet stores.

Of course when you are talking about cat litter you eventually get around to the subject of cat poops and pees… but I’ll leave that topic for another day!