How often should I change my cat's sand?

The sandbox is a tool essential for the daily hygiene of our felines.We must ensure that the cleaning we do is adequate, with the aim of preventing health problems and even behavioral problems that are related to the lack of cleaning.This very important aspect is common 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 often to clean it.

Maybe you wonder how often change the silica sand or binder, the recommended amount of sand or the frequency of complete sand change, for this reason, in this article of Animals and Pets Online we will focus on explaining how much we should change the sand of our cat .We will see the importance of maintaining the hygiene of a reindeer and how to preserve it in the best conditions.

The importance of the sandbox for cats

From a very young age, kittens learn to use the sandbox and, except for behavioral disorders or specific diseases, they will continue to use it throughout their lives , 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, it is essential that we keep the sand clean.

In addition, daily monitoring of the sandbox will provide us with very valuable information , as we will soon see 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 they remain in the environment for more than 24 hours they could produce contagions, hence the importance of habitual cleaning.

Likewise , keeping the sandbox clean favors the cat Always use, as some cats refuse to use it if they consider the sand to be very dirty.In the next section we will see how often we should change the cat's sand, as it will depend on several factors.

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 number of them than number of cats plus one and, even having a single cat, it is advisable to offer a couple of sandboxes.In these cases it is common to see how they allocate one for urine and another for feces, which also influences the interval of sand change, since the emission of urine always stains more than sand, since it occupies more than solid depositions.

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

• Sanitary absorbent sand : it is the one we find in any supermarket and at a cheaper price.It is usually well accepted by cats but, having no binder effect, it becomes more stained, urine arrives to seep into the sandbox, it is more difficult to clean and preserve bad odors.From this sand we will have to remove feces and urine daily, even more than once a day.There are scented versions.
• Agglomerating sand : this type of sand, something more expensive than the previous one, has the great advantage that it compacts the waste, so that cleaning is easier, since we can collect the urine in "pellets", so that the sandbox is kept more neat.In bad cat litter, bad odors are not eliminated and also requires daily cleaning.
• Sand in pearls or crystals : composed of silicon, 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.Also, this white sand is yellow on contact with urine, which also contributes to this ease of cleaning.The best thing is that it eliminates odors and, thus, if extr let us waste when they occur, it can take 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 Arena : It is perhaps the newest and can also be more expensive.It is made up of wood fibers and also has its binder effect.Its smell can produce rejection in some cats and, in addition, at least it can remain stuck on the legs and in the hair.

What is the best cat litter? Based on these characteristics and our vital circumstances, we must choose the sand that best it suits us.If our cat likes it and uses it without problems, we don't have to change it, but if it does not accept the sand we have chosen, we can replace it with another type.

How to change the type of sand of the cat? We can directly place a sandbox with the new sand, see if you like it, or we can replace the old one with the new one, in the same sandbox, always attending to 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 collection of solid and liquid waste and the sand change , which we can do as we will see in the next section and how often the cat will determine and the type of sand chosen.

How much does cat litter change?

From what we have been explaining, we see that you cannot give a unique answer to how often we should change the sand of our cat, since several factors will influence its level of dirt.What we recommend is collect the stool every day .

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

Every time we remove dirty sand we can fill with more clean sand.This is more common when using absobentes or binder arenas , since they are completely changed more frequently, approximately 1 to 3 times a the 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 is put to the cat? On this subject it is recommended that the layer with that we fill the sandbox is enough for the cat to bury his bowel movements, but he shouldn't We exceed you since, if the sandbox is open, the cat with the legs could take out a lot of sand outside.We can remove the depositions and leave the rest of the sand the time that it stays clean, from 1 to 4 weeks, depending on the type that we use, at which time we will throw it away and refill the sandbox.This method is usually used with the silica sand , since it is usually used all or almost the entire package in a sandbox and does not change 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 know some tricks for the bad smell of cat litter.Besides, you can also find out how to change the sandbox.

The complete cleaning of the sandbox

Once seen from time to time we must change the sand of our cat, we would be unultimo and important step, which is cleaning the utensil where we deposit the sand, which can be a open or closed sandbox, a tupper or any similar plastic pot.

As we have said, the absorbent sand does not agglomerate, so that the liquids pass through it until it reaches the sandbox itself, impregnating it with urine, even if let's 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 the use of cleaners such as bleach is controversial, since, Although for some cats it is an attractive smell that encourages them to use the sandbox, it repels others.We can test the sensitivity of our cat by bringing the bottle of bleach or some object impregnated to observe its reaction before use it in your sandbox.

Finally, sandboxes deteriorate over time and the effect of our cat's scratches and debris, so it is advisable to renew them when Let's appreciate signs of deterioration.

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