Need Advice: Self-Cleaning Litter Box

Hey all...
Well, to be honest, I am horrible about remembering to clean the cat box.

Anyways, I'm sure it'll be a wise investment to splurge on one of those automatic, self-cleaning litter boxes. I'm about to bid on/buy this model:



on EBay...

Does anyone else use these kinds of boxes? Are your cats hesitant to use them? I'm a little scared I will spend 100$+ on this and Ike will be afraid of it!!! Is that often an issue??? Please let me know...

Wow I was just thinking about posting a thread like this earlier this afternoon. We had a littermaid a while back and LOVED IT! It made life sooo easy and the cats loved it too. Ours have this odd obsession of racing each other to be the first to mark the box... But our motor went out in ours, but we think we just got a bad one. Either that or a certain Tortie kitty liked to knock the cover off of the back and litter might have gotten down in it and messed something up. Dunno, we are back to using a plain old litter box now, but would like to go back to an auto one once we move. One of my moms friends that has 3 cats has had her littermaid for 3+ years now and it still works perfectly. And it seems like a lot of review pages are mixed with both great and horrible reviews of them!

That sounds great! I'm the highest bidder and there are 5 mins left. I'm really happy about the price im getting too! $60 for a brand new one!!! (30 bid and 30 S&H) Prett good if I say so!!!

Hopefully, your luck with the Littermaid will be better than mine ... or my friend's. Demi (my friend) had a big Burmese boy name Bogart. Demi bought the Littermaid, set it up in the normal place and filled it with litter. He went to sleep and when he got up, the Littermaid was in a thousand pieces, with litter everywere. Bogart destroyed it.

I had to send mine back because it didn't work.

But the concept certainly is nice and I will remain hopeful that it works better for you.

Originally Posted by gayef

Hopefully, your luck with the Littermaid will be better than mine ... or my friend's. Demi (my friend) had a big Burmese boy name Bogart. Demi bought the Littermaid, set it up in the normal place and filled it with litter. He went to sleep and when he got up, the Littermaid was in a thousand pieces, with litter everywere. Bogart destroyed it.

I had to send mine back because it didn't work.

But the concept certainly is nice and I will remain hopeful that it works better for you.

Click to expand...

Uh oh....me too!!! I have high hopes. My kitty is little still...and pretty good at not ruining everything in her path...Also, The person/group who was selling it had 99.7% satisfaction from almost 300 sales of Littermaid boxes and similar items. Hopefully it'll be the same for me. And if it isn't, at least I didn't spend twice as much on it! Wish me luck...

We tried both the regular and the extra-large LitterMaids, and in both cases, we got so tired of trying to clean the rakes that we finally just gave up and went back to a regular box.

We also tried the PurrForma, and its motor was so underpowered it often got stuck and just couldn't do the job at all. We returned that one.

But the Litter Robot does the job beautifully, every time, without fail. We've had one for about three years, and we just bought a second one for the sunroom. I tell you, our love for this litterbox borders on PASSION!

Yes, with shipping, it's about $300 (reconditioned units are available somewhat cheaper). But I promise you, it is more than worth every single penny! It's simple, it's reliable, it doesn't require any special containers, it almost entirely eliminates odors, and it completely eliminates scooping. All you do is slide open a drawer, lift out the full bag, then slip an empty bag into place and close the drawer.

Like you, lots of people worry about whether their cats will be afraid of an automated box, and the company provides a lot of good suggestions for helping them get used to it. But none of our six kitties has ever had the slightest problem with it. And if you do have a problem, the company accepts returns.

I know it's a lot of money -- but I promise, once you use the Litter Robot, you will never go back!

Here's their website:

http://litter-robot.com/

If your cat is still little, the auto litter box will definitely work out. We bought the $200 model and really only Luna fit in there. Everyone else (B and me included...j/k) had problems were uhhh..it wasn't exactly in the litter...in short i had to clean the sides every so often.

I've heard good things about the litter robot too. However sounds like you won't need that for a while.

wow I hadnt heard of the litter robot... it looks great... but I really dont think Chablis would fit in it... *sigh*

How big is Chablis? Our Dylan weighs 18 pounds and has no trouble... but I must admit, if I were the Litter Robot people, I'd build a giant version for Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest Cats!

Here is a great place to research automatic litterboxes :

http://www.litterbox-central.com/forum/

Someone posted it for me when I was trying to decide which one to get, and it was really, really helpful for matching one to what I needed for my 4 cats. It is also a good place to go for troubleshooting with the one you do get .

I ended up getting the Litter Robot too (a reconditioned one ) and wow, I love this thing too! I would love to get a second one, too (for our sunroom-lol), but it will be a little while before I can talk my husband into it, I think (saving those coupon $ ). He was gung ho for this one, and likes it alot too (he hates having to do the litterbox).

My issues with my cats were that the oldest one has gotten really picky about the litterbox being clean, so the bathroom rug was the next best thing , and another is a "side pee-er", so no Littermaid for her, and they all liked the litterbox in our bathroom the best , so it would be very dirty while the others were clean...and I have respiratory issues, so cleaning a box 6 times a day was not something that I needed to be doing.

It also makes it a lot easier on the person/people who take care of them when we go out of town. I don't have to ask someone to clean that one "favorite" box everytime they come to give the cat her meds.

Good luck with your bidding!

Here's another vote for the Litter Robot. My 16 plus pound male has no problem with it.

Cally