Who has self-cleaning litter boxes and what do you think of them?

With just my two permanent kitties, it will make it a whole week between emptying the bag. When we had one foster kitten (total of three cats using it), I had to empty about every 5 days. It’s no big deal though, you just pull out the drawer, swap the full bag for an empty one, and top off the litter if needed. It has a special setting to be able to pour litter through openings from the top, but I just simply use a repurposed food scoop to add litter through the entry hole. I haven’t looked into the ways to extend the capacity, but I’ll have to see what people have come up with! I’m about to get a batch of four foster kittens, so we will be adding to the number of cat boxes again temporarily!

I have the Litter Maid Ultra Elite, supposed to be the top of the line when I bought it. I purchased bags to fit the container from ebay–a lot cheaper than throwing away the container every time. I couldn’t count on the Litter Maid to always work–many times I came home from work and the error light was flashing–the rake gets stuck if the litter isn’t kept flat–means if you have a digger that piles the litter close to the rake it won’t work. For my 3 I had one extra regular litter box because Sheba refused to use the Litter Maid. I don’t use it now since it’s too big for the laundry room in my apartment now.

KW, I’ve used LitterMaid. When I had only 2 cats, it worked well; but increasing numbers of cats meant the poor machine got overloaded and wore out/jammed frequently.

My next automatic litterbox purchase will be a Cat Genie. It appears to be the most sanitary, cat-friendly, and maintenance-free solution. I’ve got room for it in my upstairs bathroom; if that works well, I’ll be one VERY happy camper.

More info at: http://www.catgenie.com/

I have a Litter Maid and took it out of the house because the noise of it running was driving me nuts. Ms. B just loves fresh litter so it would scoop, rake and then she would be back in there to use it again, and again, ……but it worked well while I had it in the house.

JCAT, she would sit there and wait, heck she watches when I clean the litter boxes and runs in as soon as I am done…its funny she has to be first!

I have had the Littermaid for a while now, and it works for our two cats and frequent foster kittens. I love it! We don’t have the super high end one, just the Littermaid Elite, and I have never bought new containers for it. I use plastic grocery bags to line the plastic boxes, and I duct tape around the top inside and outside of the plastic box so that the plastic doesn’t tear. Lasts forever! Also, you can buy “activated carbon” from ebay in big quantities, and I tie that into little sachets to use in the litter container instead of their expensive carbon packets. It’s a huge savings, and we go through far less litter because of the littermaid. Our cats love it, too!

Clementine used to have an attitude problem where if the litterbox wasn’t totally pristine, she wouldn’t cover up her poop. Well, in a small apt., this is a problem! So she’d go in there and make the biggest, stinkiest pile of poo you can imagine and then leave it, as a protest! As soon as we’d scoop the litterbox, she’d stop doing it. It got our attention, all right! Now, she never does this. They love the Littermaid. I got mine at a resale store, new in the box, for $10, but if it broke now I’d buy a new one because of the money we save on litter.

We put a strip of duct tape, sticky side up, on top of the litter container cover flap so that Clementine doesn’t scratch at it. This keeps our grocery bags intact; might work for you, AM!

I tried the LitterMaid box but Sebastian didn’t care for it so I got rid of it. Maverick was ok with it, but not Mr. Cat Dammit. I might try one again, but I think I have too many kitties for it to deal with.