Biodegradable litter suggestions?

[Willowy]

I'm debating whether I should get garbage pickup for my rural property or if I should just toss everything in the burn pit. Problem with the burn pit is that if I throw all my clay litter in there, soon I'll have a burn pool because the clay will keep water from draining :tongue2:. And I don't really want to start my own clay deposit anyway. So I need suggestions on different burnable/biodegradable litters. The cheaper the better.

So far I plan to try:
corn cob horse litter
chicken crumbles
maybe pine horse pellets, but last time I tried pine I had an allergic reaction :/
maybe rabbit food, but again, the alfalfa makes me sneezy, plus some cats like to eat it and that's just too much fiber! :lol3:
see if Tractor Supply has some kind of paper-based livestock bedding


Any other suggestions? I haven't been paying attention to alternatives because I like clay litters, but if I can save by not getting garbage service that would be nice.

 

[gcat]

Out of the list the one that has been most frequently used (that I have heard of) is chicken crumbles. Someone else recently wrote a thread about using chicken crumbles as cat litter here. One of my friends uses chicken crumbles as biodegradable litter for her cats (I believe it's around $17 for a 50 lb. sack) and she says it clumps a little, but not as much as the clay litter and that it does cover some urine/feces odor. 

There's also World's Best Cat Litter, which is a pretty well-known and biodegradable litter (made of corn). It's pretty pricey however- $33 for a 28 lb bag (which is substantially more expensive than the chicken crumbles). However, there have been some really positive reviews about it on several websites (it clumps well, doesn't produce as much dust as clay litter, no tracking issues, etc.). The negative reviews express concerns about the smell (not all cats like the smell of corn litter, and a big one is that it doesn't eliminate odor well- however, I'm sure that members with direct experience with this litter can give you more advice). Also, I'm not sure if this is true, but I did read somewhere that there was a risk of aflatoxin (a mold that grows on wet corn) poisoning, however small. 

Good luck on finding the right litter- garbage service can get expensive. 

 

[Willowy]

Well, I went to TSC yesterday and looked at the options. It looks like they don't have any kind of paper bedding. I bought a bag of pine pellets and a bag of corn cob litter. I was going to get some chicken feed but it's "too expensive" (yes, it's cheaper than WBCL but more than the pine and corn cobs). Might try it later if nobody likes the ones I got. Hopefully the cats are agreeable, because we all know whose opinion counts the most! :lol3:

 

[gcat]

Well, I went to TSC yesterday and looked at the options. It looks like they don't have any kind of paper bedding. I bought a bag of pine pellets and a bag of corn cob litter. I was going to get some chicken feed but it's "too expensive" (yes, it's cheaper than WBCL but more than the pine and corn cobs). Might try it later if nobody likes the ones I got. Hopefully the cats are agreeable, because we all know whose opinion counts the most!

Hopefully they like one of them- I've heard positive things about each type. Our kitties can be so unpredictable. 

 

 

[Willowy]

I did 2 boxes of each, and so far they've all been peed in, no poop yet though :tongue2:. The pine pellets do smell really piney, not sure if that's going to bother me yet. The corn cob litter doesn't have a smell so that's nice, but that probably also means not much odor control :/. We'll see. The pine is super cheap, so I kinda want to prefer that, LOL, but so far I prefer the corn cobs.

Do stove pellets smell that piney? I might try stove pellets next.

 

[Willowy]

Update: I am veryvery happy with the corn cob litter. The pellets are small enough that the cats don't seem to mind, and it absorbs a LOT of pee and seems to have pretty good odor control. I do add some pine pellets to the corn cob to give it a pleasant but not obnoxious scent. And it biodegrades into dust super easily (like if they drop a pellet into the water bowl. . .but this is better than clay which turns into cement or mud ). Two thumbs up!

 

[pushylady]

Glad you found a good alternative!

 

[Anne]

I'd be careful with the pine pellets. I believe some types of pine are toxic to cats, so it's probably a good idea to research that before adding any to the litterbox, especially if the product isn't designated specifically for cats.