Eco-Friendly Living

With the feral cat recovery program we go through huge bags of it every two weeks....so I decided to try to find a way to reuse it.....since our garbage can was full of bags of it and very heavy!

I tell you, some people will do almost anything in desperation! First I sifted out all the solids with a screen.....and disposed of those in bags for the garbage....reducing the weight by about 90%. Then I found two 5 gallon buckets, dumped in the litter and filled the buckets with water, letting the excess run off and hopefully removing the ammonia from the litter. (I fully expected to get two buckets full of solid clay, but it didn't work that way!) I drained the buckets and then repeated the washing process. Finally, I spread the drained litter onto tarps to dry. (Tried using some old cookie sheets in the oven but it was too time consuming...remarkably, it wasn't smelly!) Once dry I put the litter back into the original bags and.......it worked! I was able to use each bag of litter twice...without odor or loss of absorbancy.

Now, this was a lot of work....and I really don't recommend it to anyone who has one cat or two...but it DID work. For eleven cats, it's worth the effort....MAYBE....but for less, it's gotta be cheaper and easier just to replace the litter with new. (Some people go waaaaaaaaaaaay too far in recycling....like me.

Hopefully, now that Halloween is past, I can place a bunch of the black kittens in homes but they strongly recommend that you not adopt out a black kitten during October......

Our old plan was to dig a deep hole and fill it with the used litter....but we didn't want the entire yard to end up being clay based. And with the feral cats still making this home base, we can't let the others out to use the outdoor "facilities".

What a topic! But, for those with multiple cats and limited income, it IS a workable plan.....thought I'd share it...

 

MARTi, CL (Crazy Lady) of Crafts and Co-CL of Crafter's Community ! CL for Eco-Friendly Living !Come and visit me!!

Be Green! It's good for the earth and your budget, too! 

MAKE ART, NOT WAR!

I like people so much I decided to be one .

 

(and I love them!)