How often should I change my cat’s litter?

Cats are very clean pets. Therefore, take care to provide your feline friend with a tidy litter box to ensure that it feels at ease. Not only is a daily cleaning routine important, but the used cat litter must also be changed completely at regular intervals. If your cat doesn’t like the litter box, this may result in inappropriate urination. But how often should you change the cat litter?

How often should clumping cat litter be changed?

The type of litter used determines how often you should change it. Clumping litter has the advantage that it forms stable clumps as soon as it comes into contact with urine. The resulting clumps can be removed as easily as faeces with a scoop. Thus, the remaining litter in the tray remains clean for a long time. Since you also remove litter when removing the urine clumps, you should top up the tray with clean litter from time to time. If you use our biodegradable cat litter COSYCAT, we recommend a litter layer of 7 cm.

Clumping litter is available as mineral litter and plant-based litter. For both types of litter the following applies: complete replacement of the litter in the tray is necessary after several weeks have passed. COSYCAT, for instance, must be changed completely only every 6-8 weeks. As the plant fibres are highly absorbent, just a few fibres are sufficient to bind the urine. The residual litter stays clean and can remain in the tray. Since COSYCAT must be changed completely only at considerable intervals, the litter is very economical. This is one of many aspects that contribute to the cat litter being sustainable.

How often should non-clumping cat litter be changed?

Non-clumping litter, also called absorbent litter, usually consists of silica gel or plant-based material. The plant material, for instance wood shavings, paper or sawdust, is pressed into compact pellets, which crumble when they come into contact with urine. Absorbent plant-based litter such as our COSYPET cat litter is extremely odour-binding. As the urine remains in the tray together with the litter, however, the cat litter must be changed more frequently than clumping litter.

We recommend to replace the litter completely after no more than 1 week. Use this opportunity to thoroughly clean the litter box. If the box is used by more than one feline, consider changing the litter more frequently. For more information on our absorbent COSYPET litter, see our blog article Non-clumping wood pellet cat litter.

If you think about switching from the litter you have used so far to a clumping litter, here are our tips for a smooth changeover.

Cleaning the litter box

No matter which cat litter you use, you should remove the excrement from the tray daily. Otherwise, the litter box can start to smell unpleasant very quickly. If only one cat lives in your household, we recommend that you remove the droppings from the litter tray once or twice a day with a scoop. If several felines use the litter box, you should increase the cleaning frequency. We also recommend doing this if your cat suffers from diarrhoea.

Cat faeces are always disposed of with the household waste. If you want to avoid emptying the household waste daily, you can use a special cat litter disposal bin. Such a bin contains the excrement safely so that no odours can escape.

Once it’s time for a complete cat litter change, you should clean out the tray thoroughly. See our tips on litter box cleaning.

Where to dispose of the used cat litter?

Depending on the type of cat litter, different disposal options are available: household bin, organic bin and compost heap. Our organic litters COSYCAT and COSYPET can be disposed of with your organic waste and placed on the compost heap because they are biodegradable and compostable. If you want to compost the litter, please follow our composting recommendations. Please also observe the regulations of your local authority.

COSYCAT is a flushable cat litter and can therefore be disposed of in the toilet. But take care to flush down single clumps only. Our recommendation: wait some time until the clumps dissolve in the water before activating the flush. This way the solid clumps won’t have any negative effect on the pipework.