Baking Soda

I have always put a sprinkle of baking soda in the bottom of the litter pan when I change the litter. This site states that baking soda can be dangerous. Has anyone heard anything similar?

I had heard that a long time ago and I have never used it with my litter. But then you have companies to add it to their litter mixture, so once again you have to decide for yourself what is safe and what is not. I can get very perplexing at times.

I've been curious about the safety of using baking soda in litter. I've always been under the assumption that it's only safe to ingest after baking or cooking it. My mom used to tell me that when she was baking cookies. Maybe she just didn't want me to eat the cookie dough. As far as the litter, I used to add it to the regular clay. I had to add so much of it to reduce the urine odor that it started getting to be expensive. For nearly the same cost, I could buy an organic, clumping litter (World's Best Cat Litter) and get rid of the offensive urine odor by scooping it out daily!! It's only been 3 weeks since I started using the World's Best Cat Litter, but I really like it...and my cat hasn't complained either.

So baking soda can be harmful for humans to ingest too? I love cookie dough!

I have a very picky litter box cat so I try to keep the smell and moisture down by using baking soda, clumping cat litter mixed with crystals, and scooping them everyday at least once (usually twice). I am going to look up World's Best and see if I can find it in my area. I think I will forego the baking soda as well. I did a search and came up with mostly sites recommending it, but there were a few like the one above that scared me a bit.

I have used baking soda in my litter boxes and never had a problem. Baking soda itself is not harmful. The one thing that you do have to remember, it is sodium, the same thing that is in salt. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, so ingesting to much may be a problem if you are on a sodium restricted diet. This may be the reason some state that it is not good for your cats. They may get it on their paws and lick it off. I do not know how much sodium a cat should have or if too much sodium could be a problem.

we haven't had a problem with it either

Now that's interesting. I'd never read that before.. but now that I have, I'm going to stop sprinkling Baking soda at the bottom of my litterpan. I just bought a littermaid litter box, so I guess it is not all that necessary to do it now that the litter box does the scooping for me

I'm using Swheat Scoop, which I've read a lot of positive reviews about. It is all natural wheat.. has anyone heard otherwise?

No matter WHAT you freaking do, someone will always tell you its bad. I say just keep doing whatever you guys are doing if you havent had any problems.

I didn't stop using baking soda because I thought it was "bad" for my cat. I switched to another brand because I ended up using so much baking soda that it nearly cost as much as World's Best Cat Litter. Plus, I like the fact WBCL is scoopable, biodegradeable, and in theory shouldn't harm my cat like other scoopable clay litters (which I've heard can cause internal damage to cats).

I was curious to see what Arm and Hammer had to say on this topic. I found a brochure on their website about cats and litter care. http://www.armandhammer.com/FrontPorch/fs.asp
They do market their own brand of cat litter, but baking soda is a key factor.

I, myself, would lean on the side of baking soda being safe. Maybe the companies saying otherwise are pushing a product by being misleading.

Originally posted by Sicycat
No matter WHAT you freaking do, someone will always tell you its bad. I say just keep doing whatever you guys are doing if you havent had any problems.

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I have used A&H cat litter deodorizer for ages and as Amber mentioned in another thread it is basically baking soda. I have had no problem with it and so I don't intend to stop using it.