LitterMaid?

Hi, I'm getting 2 new kittens on Saturday and I was wondering what everyone thought of the littermaid thing? Has anyone tried this or another automatic one? Let me know, I'd really like some advice on litterboxes. Thanks!

This is my experience with LitterMaid.

1- Noone should use them for a cat under the age of 10 months. Due to the cat's size the sensor might not be triggered and this has caused some accidental deaths by the kitten getting caught in the rake.

2- they are ok to use with females (they squat) NOT males due to the pee positions the males assume and quite frequetly spray and cover the electronic eye so they do not work properly or not at all

3- if your cat has loose stool or if you don't use the right kind of litter it cloggs up the rake so causing it from working propperly and you have a mess and a half on your hands.

In my opinion it's not worth the money and too much work - I'd rather scoop

We used to have one, but it was a HUGE pain to clean and always smelled! Took me longer to disassemble the thing to clean than it takes me to scoop and clean a regular litter box.

My cat likes to pee in the corner of the box and it ended up in the track the rake thing glides on, up in the top of the rake, down the side of the box....just everywhere. Also, the little containers it scoops the stuff into are NOT cheap!

We switched to flushable litter and everyone's a happy camper!

Stephanie

I think for the money it isnt worth it...

I HATE HATE HATE them. first my kitten was too scared to use it. And then when she started usung it the poop got stuck on the rakes and was far far worse than scopping once it has absorbed some litter.

I am a litter luddite !!

I love the new tidy scoop with the locking in litter... It is great to scoop...

Hi Gypsy,
I have a littermaid for our two cats and I really like it and the cats do great with it, but I didn't get it until my youngest kitty was a year old and was bigger.
You might want to wait until the kittens are older before getting one.

Good luck!
Julie

I had played with the idea of getting one, but after reading this, I'm not so sure!

Thanks for the FYI!

I have 9 cats. I admit that upfront. We use two mega littermaids and two homemade custom boxes ( rubbermaid tubs with doors cut in the long sides)
We clean everything every other day and check the littermaids daily for trouble. There was def. a learning curve but I find them very useful. I also bought them used off ebay so I didn't pay list price. I find I save on litter, over odor is low and the cats seem quite happy to use them.

Thanks for everyone's help, I think I'll wait until they get a little bit older...I don't want them to get injured by it.

I have a LitterMaid with 5 adult cats. It was a pain to empty the little container, so I had a table built for it. The table has a slot in it that sits over the top of a standard kitchen garbage can. Now the litter dumps into a garbage can instead of into one of the trays. With this modification, I love it! I still have regular problems with the LitterMaid jamming, but I don't have to worry about the dog going in for snacks and it's a breeze to empty the garbage can.

The LitterMaid is a bit noisy to me though. If you live in a very small place, you might get tired of hearing it. Although this does have a positive side, too -- I can hear when it jams.

I have never used a Littermaid with a young kit, and I don't know that I would.

However I have had 2 that I used with my adult cats.

I had the first generation Littermaid, which was ok, but I didn't think it was powerful enough (the motor) it was also a large pain to clean! It did not come apart well. After a year the motor slowed down and half the time it can't scoop the poop!

However, we just got the newer Littermaid Mega Elite. So far I think it's great.
We've had it for a month. The motor is more powerful, the box is bigger. You can take it apart very easily, the rake just slides out for easy cleaning, and it comes with an ionic air cleaner which turns on every time it scoops. As long as I keep my eye on it every 4 days and remove any litter my gang might have swept up into the sides it runs just fine.

So, it can help so that you don't have to scoop litter every day.
But it still does require regular cleaning and maintenance just like any litterbox.

We bought a litter maid automatic litter box almost a year ago for 85 bucks at walmart...and we love it....we have a regular litter box downstairs, but we have the littermaid upstairs....and with 2 cats its works just fine....IMO ...its worth the money