There are 2 types of cat litter, clumping and non-clumping. The main difference is seen when cleaning out the tray, as there tends to be less waste with clumping litter as all the urine and moisture is absorbed into the clump and then removed, whereas non-clumping litter leaves all the urine soaked granules in amongst the clean granules.
There are pros and cons to both, but one thing we do know is that cats are messy when they toilet! It’s not uncommon for cats to dig around and play in the litter tray, even kicking some of the litter out of the tray. That means all of the non-clumping urine soaked particles can be mixed up with the clean and therefore kicked out of the tray too. Whereas with clumping litter, all the moisture is absorbed into the clump, keeping your cats paws bacteria free when roaming around the house.
When cleaning out the tray, with clumping cat litter you can easily scoop out the clumps of urine, leaving clean litter behind. Whereas non-clumping is much harder to clean so you end up emptying the entire tray, which can be wasteful and expensive.
Cats are notoriously fussy, sometimes they don’t like using litter trays if they can still smell traces of urine or urine odour. Which is why you do need to clean out the clumps from your tray at least once a day.
Non-clumping litters appear to be much cheaper than clumping litters, which is why many people buy it. But it actually can be considerably more expensive in the long run, as you will need to empty the entire tray every few days. With this sort of thing you really do get what you pay for, so it often is better to invest a little more in a premium clumping cat litter as your cat will be happier and there will be considerably less waste!
At VanCatUK we only stock clumping cat litter, clumps form within 5-10 seconds and can be easily scooped out, leaving clean and dry litter behind. Due to the excellent absorption capacity you will never need to empty the entire tray, as all the moisture and bacteria has been absorbed and then removed. When topping up your tray, be sure to give it a really good mix so no clumps are left behind.
We find that 1 10KG bag of our litter, lasts 1 cat for 2 months!