Just set up my new Breeze

I've had mine up for three weeks, and they still haven't pooped in it. They recently started using it for urine on a regular basis, though. I changed the pad for the first time this morning.

The small amount of litter is most problematic for switching, I think; you can't put much Breeze litter in with your old litter without having none in the Breeze. I'd suggest you buy more Breeze litter; they didn't start switching until I got the litter in the mail.

I am simply disinterested in leaving my old boxes dirty, and that might be a big part of the reason that my cats are transitioning so slowly.

Transitioning to the Breeze system takes more time then with other traditional litters. Mine took probably at least a month (maybe a little longer) to totally transition. First they started peeing in it and then it took a lot longer for them to poo in it. Weeks in fact. I put a little bit more litter in the Breeze at first but now I just go with the one bag and they are fine with it. I think at first, they are just used to litter being deeper.

Patience is the key with the Breeze System. From my experience, and from what I've seen of other's experiences here on the site, you can't expect progress in a day or even in a week. Maybe try to forget about it and just check it every couple days or so.

If you are working with pellet litters, you need to mix the pellets into regular litter and gradually add more pellets and less litter. May take 2-3 weeks to do this. Most cats will not use a straight pellet litter at first - they don't know its litter

I figured that a transition from one pellet litter to another would be easier. My "old" litter is Yesterday's News, which is a pellet litter. It took something this 2-3 weeks to transition my cats completely from clay clumping litter to Yesterday's News. Pellet litter -> the Breeze is, for me so far, a longer process.

And it's a process that NEEDS extra Breeze litter to mix with your old litter, and no extra Breeze litter comes in the set-up box.

I don't think they are going to transition (ever, much less quickly) if you don't buy more of the pellet litter and mix it in with your old litter.

I had feces in my Breeze yesterday, for the first time! I'm getting hopeful that it might actually work.

I would just get rid of the old box. But I tend to do things like that & I have been lucky. May be put a bit of scoop on the pad in the Breeze thing so the smell of scoop & potty is in the new box, maybe a chunk in the top of the new box. That should make it smell like home turf.
K.
GOOD LUCK

Thank you for reminding me; I just now stole a soldering iron from work (it's used for putting holes in plastic here, too, and I stole the one with a bit of a knife edge instead of a regular soldering point). I'm actually not planning to get rid of my old box; I have two cats, and I think two litter boxes is about right. I've had only one litter box out before, with no problems, but especially with the low level of litter, and because if/when my cats get a little annoyed at each other it's good to make it more difficult for one cat to monopolize the litter box, I really think that two Breeze-style litter boxes is the way to go.

I'm using my two old litter boxes (and they are different depths, so I think this is going to work perfectly) to make my own Breeze-style litter box, so I'll have one real Breeze and one fake Breeze. As soon as I actually put the holes in the old box, I'm going to increase the proportion of Breeze litter in my transformed "old" box. But I'm not going to make the Yesterday's News go away completely until they are using the real Breeze for feces as much as they are using the mixed box.

So, no, I'm not tempted. Not until I poke some holes.

They do really seem to like the Breeze for urination at this point, which I really appreciate. The Breeze is easier to clean than Yesterday's News, and the Breeze pellets seem less likely to wander than the Yesterday's News pellets.

I also love the fact that there's no tracking, especially since one of my cats is diabetic with flat feet due to neuropathy. Regular litter clings to her little flat feet and sticks in clumps. Fortunately I had no problem getting them adjusted to the pellets. My problem is that the replacement pads are outrageously expensive and I go through them much more often than usual because of the huge amount of urine my diabetic produces. Even adding another box won't solve the problem. Does anyone have a creative idea for using something else as the pad? I tried dog training pads but they're not absorbent enough. I'd appreciate any ideas!

webcarpenter, how about using a regular old litter in the bottom of a home-made box? This may seem that it doesn't have any advantages over just using whatever litter you used to use, but has some.
1. No tracking. With just the Breeze pellets in the top, whatever you use in the bottom won't track.
2. Feces easy to find (the thin Breeze pellet layer is easy to deal with).
3. No dust for your cats; for the same reason as #1.

Of course, you lose the advantage of the nice, easy urine pads. Also, you can't do this with the Breeze box, because the tray on the bottom is too shallow to put a regular litter in. You also can't do it with commerically available sifting litter boxes for granular litter, because those don't leave a gap between the sifting layer and the bottom box. But if you happen to have or can borrow a soldering iron, and have a shallow box (to poke holes into and use as the sifting layer - I used the kind with a shallow bottom with detachable sides) and a deeper bottom box, this might work for you.

meow meow, mixing more of the breeze pellets into your old litter is probably the only way to make the switch. You have to decide if you want to spend another $7 on what could be a very good litter system or just give up. Of course, just leaving the Breeze in the basement for a very long time also might work. If your regular litter is a pellet type, you could also just put that in the top of your Breeze with the breeze litter.

i started to buy 2 breezes when i moved and i am so glad i didnt. they dont seem too popular with the kitties.

i have to wonder if tidy cat even tried these things out with kitties before they put them on shelves

My cats are using The Breeze more than the mixed litter for urine, and they just left the same amount of feces in both boxes.

It makes sense not to transition boxes while you move, and if you're happy with your current litter, there is no reason to change.

On the other hand, if you need a dust free litter (there is a little dust in the litter bag, but the cats get no dust when they cover), or you hate to scoop urine, or if your cats are very picky about needing urine-free boxes, or if you simply don't want to carry a lot of litter, or really hate spending time scooping, I think The Breeze is worth it. My cats are taking a lot of time to transition, but part of that is just that I'm giving them plenty of time. I probably could move faster. Right now I'm more waiting to use up all of my Yesterday's News than I'm waiting for the cats.

I think there are at least three or four members here who have transitioned completely.

I'm suggesting mixing, with progressively more Breeze pellets in your regular litter. Honestly, I think it has taken me 2.5 bags of Breeze pellets to do a good transition.

You've already mixed a few pellets of Breeze litter in, so the next step would be to go to about 1/3 Breeze pellets and 2/3 your old litter. Then, in a week or two, go to 1/2 and 1/2, then in another week or two go to 2/3 Breeze pellets and 1/3 old litter. At this point, hopefully, he'll be using The Breeze as much as he uses the mixed box, and you should be able to just remove the mixed box. The Breeze box works with a small amount of litter, so I'd also reduce volume of litter in your mixed box as you go.

It's important, I think, to keep a whole Breeze litter bag worth of litter in The Breeze during this transition. Like you, I started out with just the one bag of pellets and put a cup or two in my old litter. My cats didn't start using The Breeze until I put more litter in the Breeze; the amount it comes with works, and the system wouldn't work well with more litter, but you do need that much litter to make the cats willing to use it.

This isn't a terribly cheap process; Breeze pellets are designed to stay on top, so when they are mixed with your scoopable litter, you are going to be throwing them out (in urine clumps) much faster than they are designed to be thrown out. Your urine clumps will also be less clumpy, as you have more and more non-clumping pellets in the middle.

You'll have to decide if the slow, awkward transition is worth it.

They did have test subjects before marketing it.

My cats love the breeze system. And so do I! I love not having urine smell in the apartment anymore! There are other threads here with other people that have had good response from it as well. MeowMeow is the first person I've seen that their cats haven't used it at all.

Enuja: I don't think she would have less clumping with more pellets mixed in with her litter. The pellets are designed to repell the urine so they don't absorb any of the urine. The urine kind of rolls off the pellets and down onto the urine pads.

I'm basing that assumption off what happened when I mixed yesterday's news with a clay clumping litter. As my box contained more pellets and less clay clumping litter, the clay clumps stopped being one solid piece, and instead fractured as I picked them up. Neither yesterdays news nor the breeze pellets clump, so I assume the same pattern will happen with both of them when you mix them with clumping litter; the clumping litter won't work as well. The pellets will simply get in the way and therefore keep the clumping clay litter from forming one solid, easy to scoop urine clump. It probably won't happen until the mix is about half pellets.

Sprinkle a thin layer of Feline Pine in the pad tray in place of the pad. The pine pellets will break down into sawdust when the urine wets them. You can reverse the tray in a few days, and discard the sawdust after about a week or so. A bag of Feline Pine will provide a lot of absorption for a lot less expense than the pads.

I love the Breeze litterbox! I like it much more than the Littermaid we had been using for a long time and way way more than any of the regular boxes/litters I've tried!
My cat Sneakers urinates a lot (no medical cause) so even with the Littermaid I had to clean the box constantly because it would clog the rake... Because the Breeze filters the urine out I don't have that problem anymore, although I do have to change the pad thing more than the box suggests. Sneakers is very picky and if her box is not up to her standards of clean she will use the wood floor near it instead and the floor is stained now despite my trying to keep it as clean as possible and my trying to protect the floor by covering it (the urine manages to get through somehow!) Since I got the Breeze box she's been much better about using the box more often. It also is a lot less smelly!

I also really like that there is no more tracking, I had a lot of problems with that with Sneakers as well and it is just icky to see white litter footprints leading away from the litterbox all the time! I have a table near the box with large "feet" and I was always having to wipe it down before because there would be litter prints all over it...

I didn't have any problem getting my cats to use the Breeze, but then again I often changed litter suddenly on them because I was trying to find something that worked for Sneakers so they are comfortable with having different things in their box. At first when I set it out the Maine Coon kitten was lying in the box but as soon as one of the cats used it they all got the idea.

I didn't even have to transition my newly adopted 5 month old kitten. As soon as she arrived at my house for the first time, I showed her the Breeze box before all else (she had regular litter at her foster home). That was a month ago and she has no problems using the Breeze since!

For those of you that are adopting a new cat and currently have no other cats, I would recommend starting your cat on the Breeze. No smell, easy disposal, no tracking--it truly takes away the things that made me think twice about getting a cat in the first place!