Help! My kitten likes to play with her poop!

I recently adopted a 7-month old feral kitten, Ceci. She is completely litterbox trained and adjusting well to being an indoor cat. Overall she's been well behaved. She hasn't been peeing or pooping outside of the box, but she recently picked up the habit of digging up her poop and playing with it like a ball. She has plenty of other toys that she loves playing with, but when I'm not home she prefers to play with her own poop! I don't know what to do. I looked all over for someone with a similar problem, but so far haven't found anyone. I'm getting tired of cleaning up smooshed poop off the carpet. I've tried verbally scolding her and spraying her with water when I catch her in the act. I also tried ignoring her after she watches me clean up. Does anyone know what else I can do?

Would it help to get one of the enclosed litter boxes, with the lid on? Perhaps she wouldn't be able to get it out of the box then.

She doesn't like to be enclosed in spaces, so I don't know if she'll still use her box if it's covered. Thanks. I might have to try it anyway if she keeps this up.

I didn't think my 5 month old kitten would fancy an enclosed box either, after always having a "tray" type. That was until the day before yesterday, when he actually climbed inside the bag of cat litter and pooped in it! It took me hours of trying to trace the smell to find it. Yuck.

Originally Posted by Jan

I didn't think my 5 month old kitten would fancy an enclosed box either, after always having a "tray" type. That was until the day before yesterday, when he actually climbed inside the bag of cat litter and pooped in it! It took me hours of trying to trace the smell to find it. Yuck.

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Haha! I havn't experienced that, but my older kitten kicked a bunch of litter out onto the floor(he's crazy about scratching)... and the younger kitten peed on it.

Mabby will kick litter and poop out of the litterbox...and its covered....
though i have a real funny story about Doofus:

When he first showed up at our door...he was about 3 months old....well anyhoo one day my roomate at the time was making oatmeal....she poured two packets of plain outmeal in a bwol and went into the kitchen to get the kettle.....When she returened Doofus was digging in it...She shooed him away and to her dismay she had a kitty poop in the middle of the bowl half covered with oatmeal.....

Just buy a larger plastic bin, cut a few holes in it, and fill it with litter- she can hop in over the top, or through the holes, and because of the tall sides, she can't play dirty hockey anymore-

Originally Posted by hissy

Just buy a larger plastic bin, cut a few holes in it, and fill it with litter- she can hop in over the top, or through the holes, and because of the tall sides, she can't play dirty hockey anymore-

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dirty hockey, euggggh thats gross!

try using a storage crate with high sides, like those big plastic toy boxes. she can jump in and out bt wont be able to take her poop with her.

this might sound disgusting but what are you feeding her? a friend of mine fed her cat and dog liver once and they liked it so much they rolled in it and ate it again the next day when it came ot the other end! bluegh!

When he first showed up at our door...he was about 3 months old....well anyhoo one day my roomate at the time was making oatmeal....she poured two packets of plain outmeal in a bwol and went into the kitchen to get the kettle.....When she returened Doofus was digging in it...She shooed him away and to her dismay she had a kitty poop in the middle of the bowl half covered with oatmeal.....

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This gave me a good laugh this morning! This is about the funniest cat story I've heard! Bahahahaha

hahahahaha...it was pretty fuuny...you should have been there i laughed so hard i cried....lol

i bought one of those litterboxes with a flip door. From my pet store
He has never peed or pooped out of the box except in the bunny cage. its really good because it has a filter so you cant smell his smelly business untill you open it to clean it of course.

Originally Posted by maverick_kitten

dirty hockey, euggggh thats gross!

try using a storage crate with high sides, like those big plastic toy boxes. she can jump in and out bt wont be able to take her poop with her.

this might sound disgusting but what are you feeding her? a friend of mine fed her cat and dog liver once and they liked it so much they rolled in it and ate it again the next day when it came ot the other end! bluegh!

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That's so gross! Ceci's just been eating plain kitten chow, which might be the problem. Her foster owner used to only feed her canned food, so now her poop is more solid and "toy-like"

My cat is almost 4 years old and she still gets her poop out to play with at night! During the day it isn't an issue, but we've taken to closing the door to the bathroom until she asks to go, which she is very good about, and leaving the door open at night.
I always clean the box before bed, but she tends to wait to go #2 until we are settled in for the evening. We are frequently awoken in the early hours of the morning to the sounds of her poop rattling around on the wood bathroom floor. We've tried different depths of litter, we've tried scolding and time out and flicking her with water (I don't have a spray bottle) but she always ends up taking it out of the box like a ball. She has balls in the living room and plays with them at night, and then goes to the litter box anyway!
Has anyone has luck resolving this kind of issue?

I was able to resolve the problem by placing the litter box (open tray) inside a box that's just a bit larger so there are a few inches of gap. So when Saipha would try to pull out a poop, it would fall into the gap and get trapped.

Our kitty will pull it out, and sometimes it gets stuck between the side of the litter box and the wall, under the edge of the box rim (one of those detachable ones to make the sides higher). She then runs around the box until she knocks it aside and can play with the poop. The worst part is when she takes it OUT of the bathroom onto the carpet! We are very frustrated. We can try putting her box in another box but considering how crafty she's been I'm not very confident that it would outsmart her antics : (

What if you tried burying some of her toys/balls in the litterbox before going to bed? Still gross, but not as bad as poop.

Wouldn't that just encourage her to play in the box more? We want to eliminate the behavior entirely

Yes, it probably would, but I figure that after four years of habitual poop playing, it might be worth moving onto mitigating methods rather than trying to eliminate the behavior entirely.

Erissa used to play "poop puck".
She even got into taking it out and trying to use her quick paws as hockey stick. The covered litter box became a target ( hockey net). "GOAL!!!!!"

It got so bad, I woke up one night thinking I had to go take a goalie mask of Casper's face. Fortunately, I figured that out about the time my sleepy feet hit the floor.

Erissa out grew this at about 7 years of age. Erissa basically had a really high IQ and would get easily bored.