A larger littter box for Breeze system?

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or under Behavior...

I have 3 indoor cats, and 3 litter boxes. At night, we keep our bedroom door closed so the cats only have access to 2 of the boxes. It works fine for us, and that's good because I have absolutely nowhere else to put another box.

My big cat, Theodore (23 pounds!), is rather picky about his litter boxes. We went through a big ordeal last year where he was peeing on rugs and the sofa and everywhere - extremely stressful, and there was no apparent medical cause (he had lots of tests done, believe me). After much experimenting, it turns out he just didn't like our litter boxes (they were top-entry covered boxes - so I can't say I blame him therel; he probably felt claustrophobic). I switched to high-sided Rubbermaid litter boxes and things have been perfect ever since - no peeing incidents at all. Until now...

I bought the Breeze system and replaced one of the litter boxes with it. LOVED it. All the cats seemed to like it and were using it (I have seen Theodore use it several times), and I love that there is no litter tracking and no odor. LOVE IT! So I switched another one of the old litter boxes for a Breeze system. I thought everything was fine and dandy. Until yesterday when I found that someone had peed on the guest bed. This was one of Theodore's old inappropriate peeing places, so I'm quite certain it's him again. My first theory is that the Breeze litter boxes are too small for him. It really is a pretty tight fit for him. I sooooo don't want to go back to using the old litter, with the tracking and the mess and the smell... did I mention how much I LOVE the Breeze system???

Sorry this has gotten so long, but my question is this - Does anyone have any ideas about how I could create my own Breeze-style litter box that is BIGGER? My big boy needs his space!

I don't have a Breeze system but I've seen pictures of it. I think it is basically a 2 part box with the "litter" in the top part and pads in the lower part to catch and hold pee. The top part has holes so pee can fall through to the bottom. If this is right the boxes I make for use with Feline Pine pellets might work.





This involves drilling a bunch of holes! If you are interested I can give you instructions on how to make one. It takes me about an hour to make one.

mschauer - that's AWESOME! I think something like that just might work. Since it would be so much bigger than the Breeze box, I'd probably need to use 2 pee pads to cover the bottom, but that shouldn't be a big deal. If you could PM me your instructions, that would be awesome!

Originally Posted by materialsgirl

mschauer - that's AWESOME! I think something like that just might work. Since it would be so much bigger than the Breeze box, I'd probably need to use 2 pee pads to cover the bottom, but that shouldn't be a big deal. If you could PM me your instructions, that would be awesome!

Click to expand...

Here you go:

Note: Someone else tried this but didn't use Sterlite containers. They had problems with cracking while drilling. I'd really stick with Sterlite containers if you can find them.

I find containers so that when they are put together there is a good gap (~2") between the bottoms to allow room for the sawdust. Be sure to check for this gap before you buy the containers. With some containers the gap is *very* small.

I use a 1/4" drill bit to drill holes in the bottom of one of the containers. The center of the holes should be about 1/2" apart. You want the holes to be as large as possible and to have as many as possible but you don't want the holes so big that whole pellets can fall thru and putting the holes too close together can lead to cracks between the holes.

A few tips:

This requires a lot of holes to be drilled. About 800 in my case. I found holding the drill trigger down while drilling that much caused my hand to start to cramp so I taped the trigger in the on position and plugged and unplugged the drill to turn it on and off. Some drills have trigger locks for this purpose.

I found it helpful to mark the location of every hole before I started drilling. This is very tedious but drilling 800 holes is tedious also and I found the drilling easier if all I had to do was start drilling at the next mark rather than having to consider every time where the next hole should be.

If you drill from the bottom of the container when the drill bit punches thru the container you have to pull the bit out before going to the next hole. This is easy for a couple of holes but when drilling 800 it adds significantly to the effort involved. So I drilled from the inside of the container and put a scrap piece of wood underneath. This way the bit stops as soon as it breaks through the plastic.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks for the instructions! I plan on using Feline Pine with the two kittens that I am bringing home in June, and I would LOVE to make a litterbox like that, inexpensively. And to have control over the size of the box like that. Very awesome!

Originally Posted by zorana_dragonky

Thanks for the instructions! I plan on using Feline Pine with the two kittens that I am bringing home in June, and I would LOVE to make a litterbox like that, inexpensively. And to have control over the size of the box like that. Very awesome!

Click to expand...

I hope it works out for you as well as it has for me!

Thank you so much for the instructions!!! I am definitely going to give this a try!

Hello I just saw your post about this. This is absolutely awesome, because I contacted the Tidy Cat Breeze company asking if they will make a larger box and they said they have never been asked to but if it comes to be in issue later on they will consider it. SO much for that. So where and or what containers did you buy and what sizes were they?? I have a fairly large cat and he requires a larger litter box.  If you can help me and provide me with further information, like the exact things I would need to buy to create the one you made it would help. I know nothing about drills, drill bits, what size your containers were or which ones would pile up appropriately on top of each other that would be such a HUGE help for me!! PLEASE!!!?

Thank you so much!

Jill

So I've tried this and gave up halfway because 1) drilling the holes was really hard and very, very time consuming, and 2) even for the holes I was able to drill, the plastic from the holes wasn't "punched out" but in fact remained connected, hanging off the edges of the hole, down into the collection tray on the bottom. How did you make one in just one hour? And how do you get the plastic you've drilled to disconnect?

Thanks!!