Cats messing

mishkanorman

i have 4 house cats that are driving us barmy :mad:, this morning I cleaned up 3 piles of poo from various places in the downstairs toilet where we keep their litter trays. There was also several piles in the litter tray too. We dont know what cat/s are doing it, the trays are emptied several times through the day, the areas where they are messing are bleached afterwards. They are pooing in difficult places so its not like they just didnt get there in time (my husband feels they are just "being bloody awkward") and this morning it was on the top of the un-opened litter bag so must have been quite tricky to get on !

any suggestions on how to stop this ? we have 2 large trays and are using the wood litter pellets - we originally thought it may be our long-haired cat having trouble with the litter but it seems to be more than 1 cat doing it.

help !

mishka

gunsandbanjos

I saw a programme recently about a lady with 2 house cats, one was weeing all over her house!
Turned out he was quite stressed, not getting enough of his own space.
She got them separate litter trays, separate food areas and a little den of his own out of the way and he seemed much happier and the weeing in the house stopped.

Pollycat

mishkanorman wrote: »

any suggestions on how to stop this ? we have 2 large trays and are using the wood litter pellets - we originally thought it may be our long-haired cat having trouble with the litter but it seems to be more than 1 cat doing it.

help !

mishka

My cat is an outdoor cat (his choice, not mine - he was a farm kitten and at almost 11 still retains some feral instincts) so doesn't have a cat litter tray.

When he was hit by a car and we had to keep him indoors he was a nightmare with his litter tray, he'd try to do it anywhere but there.

We were using the wood pellets and think that was the problem.

He goes to the cattery and is fine using his litter tray there which is the gritty type.

Maybe try a different type of litter?

BitterAndTwisted

Conventional wisdom has is that you need one litter-tray per cat plus an extra one, so by that calculation you are three trays short. No wonder your cats are messing: they're stressed. Plus, they're territorial so one or even two of your cats could be "guarding" the trays and preventing the others from using them.

Also,I believe that bleach is not good for cleaning up cat soiling because to a cat it smells like cat-wee so they will keep going back to the same spots ad nauseum. Biological laundry-detergent should work to remove the scent.

gunsandbanjos

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Conventional wisdom has is that you need one litter-tray per cat plus an extra one, so by that calculation you are three trays short. No wonder your cats are messing: they're stressed. Plus, they're territorial so one or even two of your cats could be "guarding" the trays and preventing the others from using them.

Exactly what i meant but you put it better than i did:)

mishkanorman

our cats are 14 years old this year, they have always been house cats and we have always used 2 litter trays (they arent litter trays as such, roughly twice the size of a standard one) so it wouldnt occur to us that its the number of trays we have !??? but i will invest in another 2 and some clay litter and see if that solves the problem !

as for the stress, the only stress they have is not being allowed to spend all day asleep on the sofa but as i have been more strict about that lately perhaps they are having a strop about it !

BitterAndTwisted

Four cats kept captive in a property would inevitably cause your babes stress. I'm astounded that you haven't encountered this problem before now. Please bear in mind that the additional trays need to be placed somewhere away from the other two and in places where the cats have some privacy from humans and the other cats.

That your two trays are in the same room, no matter how large they are could easily be guarded by only one cat. Which is most probably what is happening because you had three messes to clear up earlier.

Cats don't strop or behave bloody awkwardly, despite appearances, they just need to express their natural behaviours. Which can be difficult for them if they're house-cats when their natural tendency in the wild is to be secretive and mostly solitary.

I had four house-cats a long time ago and one of the things that made a big difference was to give them plenty of spaces to get away from the others. I put carpeted shelves upon the walls so they could perch up high to get some peace and keep a beady eye on everyone else. There were never any fights or inappropriate soiling

pinkcandyflossprincess

I have just read the cat detective and the other posters are spot on in what they are saying according to the author.
her basic approach to cats foulling in the home allways comes back to the litter tray problem unless it is a medical problem.
one tray per cat plus one is the advice she gave too... plus the width of tray and height should be considered too.
no cat should be sharing with another... they may have liked it at first ..my kittens use each others at the moment but attitudes change in cats just like people:o
another warning is dont put the trays in view of a window as they feel vunerable to outside cats, i know with a few cats its difficult having so many trays about but its better than scooping poo out of dark corners all day im sure:eek:
as others suggest make beds in high places or hidey holes that they like around the house., scratching posts are a must and also the plug in hormone stuff... plus clean the fouled areas with water and surgical spirit only then spray some of the hormone spray in these areas. (disinfectants interfer with the hormone stuff apparently!)