How often should I change my cat’s sand?

El sandbox It is a utensil essential for daily hygiene of our cats. We must ensure that the cleaning we perform is adequate, with the aim of preventing health problems and even behavioral problems that are related to lack of cleanliness. In this important aspect it is usual that doubts arise from the caretakers when choosing the sand, the sandbox itself, which is the best place to install it or how and how much to clean it.

You may wonder how often you change the silica sand or binder, the amount of sand recommended or the frequency of complete change of the sand, for this reason, in this article we will focus on explaininghow much should we change the sand of our cat. We will see the importance of maintaining the hygiene of sandbox and how to preserve it in the best conditions.

The importance of the sandbox for cats

From very small, the kittens learn to use the sandbox and, unless behavioral disorders or specific diseases, continue to use during all his life, therefore it is important that we dedicate time, before the cat comes home, to study where we will place it, how it will be and what sand we will use, as we will comment throughout the article. Whatever our choice is, it is essential that we keep the sand clean.

In addition, checking the sandbox daily will provide us with a very valuable information, because soon we will notice if our cat urinates more or less or has diarrhea, for example. There is also a parasitic disease, toxoplasmosis, in which the cat will eliminate certain forms of the parasite in its feces. If these remain in the environment more than 24 hours could cause infections, hence the importance of regular cleaning.

Likewise, keeping the sandpit clean favors the cat always use it, since some felines refuse to use it if they consider that the sand is very dirty. In the next section we will see how often we should change the cat’s sand, since it will depend on several factors.

The types of cat litter

To determine how often you should change the sand of your cat we have to take into account some factors such as the number of cats that we have and their sandboxes. The recommendation is to have the same amount of them as the number of cats plus one, and even with a single cat, it is advisable to offer a pair of sandboxes. In these cases it is common to see how they assign one for urine and another for feces, which also influences the interval of change of sand, since the emission of urine is always more spot that the sand, because it occupies more than the solid depositions.

The type of sand will also be determinant in the frequency of the change. In the market we will be able to find, basically, the following:

• Sanitary absorbent sand: is the one that we find in any supermarket and at a cheaper price. It is usually well accepted by cats but, as it does not have a binding effect, it stains more, the urine gets to seep into the sandbox, it is harder to clean and preserves odors. From this arena we will have to remove feces and urine daily, even more than once a day. There are perfumed versions.
• Binding sand: this type of sand, something more expensive than the previous one, has the great advantage of compacting the waste, so that cleaning is facilitated, since we can collect the urine in “balls”, with which the sandbox is kept more neat In the binder sand for cats odors are not eliminated and it also requires daily cleaning.
• Sand in pearls or crystalsComposed of silica, it is more expensive but has the advantage that it stains less, being very absorbent and compacting feces and urine, which, as we have said, facilitates cleaning. In addition, this white sand stains yellow on contact with urine, which also contributes to this ease of cleaning. The best thing is that it eliminates odors and, thus, if we extract the waste when it occurs, it can be a long time without having to change it, although it will also depend, as we have said, on the number of cats that use the sandbox. Some cats reject it.
• Ecological sand: is perhaps the most novel and can also be more expensive. It is composed of wood fibers and also has its binder effect as an advantage. Its odor can cause rejection in some cats and, in addition, weighing less can be stuck on the legs and hair.

What is the best cat litter? Based on these characteristics and our vital circumstances, we must choose the arena that best suits us. If our cat likes it and uses it without problems, we do not have to change it. On the other hand, if you do not accept the sand that we have chosen, we can replace it with another type.

How to change the type of cat’s sand? We can place, directly, a sandbox with the new sand, to see if it likes it, or we can replace the old one with the new one, in the same sandbox, always taking into account the degree of acceptance of our cat.

It is important to know that in the cleaning of the sand we will be able to distinguish two basic actions, which are the daily pickup of solid and liquid waste and the change of sand, what we can do as we will see in the next section and how often the cat will be determined and the type of sand chosen.

How often does cat litter change?

For what we have been explaining, we see that you can not give a single answer to how much we should change the sand of our cat, because several factors will affect its level of dirt. What we do recommend is collect every day the depositions.

Once this is done we will have a practically clean sand and then we can follow two methods as the following:

1. Every time we remove dirty sand we can fill with more clean sand. This is more usual to do when using sands Absorbent or binder, because they are completely changed more frequently, approximately from 1 to 3 times a week, by not preventing the emission of odors. It will also be a more appropriate method if we put a small amount of sand. How much sand does the cat get? On this subject it is recommended that the layer with which we fill the sandbox is enough so that the cat can bury its depositions, but we should not overdo it since, if the sandbox is opened, the cat with the legs could get a lot of sand out.
2. We can remove the depositions and leave the rest of the sand the time it takes clean, from 1 to 4 weeks, depending on the type we use, at which time we will throw it and fill in the sandbox again. This method is usually used with the silica sand, because it is usually used all or almost the entire package in a sandbox and it is not changed until after about 4 weeks, also depending on the number of cats that are using that bathroom.

In some cases, although we make regular sand changes, it can happen that it generates a bad smell. In those situations we recommend you visit our article to learn some tricks for the bad smell of the cat’s sand. In addition, you can also discover how to change the sandbox.

The complete cleaning of the sandbox

Once we have seen how often we should change the sand of our cat, we would have one last important step, which is cleaning the utensil where we deposit the sand, which can be an open or closed sandbox, a tupper or any similar plastic pot.

As we have said, the absorbent sand does not agglomerate, so the liquids pass through it until it reaches the sandbox itself, impregnating it with urine, even if we remove the sand. Therefore, every time we make a complete change it is good that we wash the sandbox with warm water and some soap. For this cleaning is controversial the use of cleaners such as bleach, because, although for some cats is an attractive smell that would encourage them to use the sandbox, to others repels them. We can test the sensitivity of our cat by bringing the bottle of bleach or some impregnated object to observe its reaction before using it in its sandbox.

Finally, sandboxes deteriorate with the passage of time and the effect of our cat’s scrapes and debris, which is why it is advisable to renew them when we appreciate signs of deterioration.

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