DDIY: Don't Do it Yourself. Every now and then something comes along that actually does make life easier. Is this it? Can it save you from "digging for gold?" MGR
We have 3 cats and spent $200 on the Mega Deluxe LitterMaid Automatic Self Cleaning Litterbox, with the electronic arm that sweeps away the litter 10 minutes after the cat has used it. Brilliant. Except my female is terrified of it and refuses to use it. So I still have an old fashioned box for her in my studio and I am once again "digging for gold" each day. Damn. Lori
I'm on my second LitterMaid -- not because the first broke, but because the new one is slightly bigger. My cats took to it very well, the key to acclimation (in my experience) was leaving the old box next to it, but don't clean it. The cats eventually figured out that the new thing was a litter box, and a clean one to boot, so they switched on their own.
I bought a room divider yesterday (yes that one) to create some storage space, and also a little private space for the LitterMaid.
Thanks Tim, but I tried that. She was fine until the first time she saw that arm move and heard the sound. My two males coundn't care less. So the little princess gets her own box.
One of my friends has this - or perhaps an off-brand. The bladed scooping plow, however, tends to get hung up wither in the litter or in a dfect on the bottom of the pan, binding the motor with a groaning, loaded noise until it can generate enough torsion in the mechanism to jerk free - inevitably forming a sort of cat poop trebuchet.
I have friends whose cats have adapted easily to the litter maid, so I'd buy one when I get a cat.
Still it looks like something Batman's cat would have in the Bat Cave.
What about the "teach your cat to use the toilet" kits? Anybody have any experience with those?
Hey, my cat's apparently moonlighting as a litterbox model! This box wouldn't look nearly as nice without the complimentary Siamese. In fact, a Russian Blue would positively clash...
Everyone I know who has tried one of these has junked it after a while!
Cats are such strange little creatures, I'd be afraid to bring one of these home and have my cat start peeing and pooping all over the house.
Regular poster, here, trying not to embarass myself or my cat. Because my cat is quite elderly I monitor his health signs rather closely including his, uh... doings. Which is easy enough to do when I'm scooping anyway.
Had one of these. One cat was afraid of it and jumped off the balcony - took me 2 hours to find him. Anyway, my objection to litterboxes isn't so much the scooping as it is the cleaning out and putting new litter in and hauling the old litter down to the dumpster. With this, I still had the problem of emptying and cleaning out the box - which is even more difficult with all the electrical gear and the weight of the thing. Plus it jammed up all the time. So not worth it.
I have a littermaid but had to stop using it because my two cats started doing their business in the corners. The rake would contantly get stuck. Any ideas on how to remedy this problem?
I love the littermaids. Theyve changed my life, as well as my cats. But, then I'm a guy, and cleaning the litterbox manually was not something I was very keen on doing regularly. My 2 cats were never afraid of the littermaid, or if they were, they got over it. The only problem with the littermaid is that it really DOES matter the quality of the litter you put in. If its the cheap stuff it'll clump up around the scooping blade and shut down the works and then you just end up having to clean the litterbox out manually anyway. Oh, and the other thing I hate about the littermaid is that it NAGS you when there are problems during a scoop-session. It doesnt just try, fail, and stop. NO, it tries and fails, and tries and fails, and keeps on trying. I live in NYC, I can deal with noise, except the noise made by the littermaid as it tries for the 15th time to put the poop in the plastic box at 4 am on monday morning.
They have sold about 3 million of the LitterMaids so far and I think that it is a very good product. Quite often buyers will throw out a unit and buy another one when the problem could be fixed in less than a minute. The LitterMaid help desk is no help! And, of course, they want you to purchase new one. To find out how to fix your LitterMaid, purchase the LitterMaid Repair Manual that can be found at http://www.catboxking.com
I got a litter maid because I though it would make life easier since I have more than I cat. Since this Littermaid has been introduced in my family things have gone from bad to worse. I thought things would be easier but I spend more time cleaning this than the conventional pan. I don't know whether the pan I got was defective or are they are like this. I find it easier using the old fashioned pans. I would be willing to try again if I were to get another Littermaid.
We have two large cats so we have learned that 3 boxes are best. You cannot have multiple cats and only the one box. We've had the littermaid for over a year and it works but the photo sensors quit after just a few months so we have to flip it off and then on to get it to scoop. We recently bought a purrforma jumbo box to go with it and they have improved on all the littermaid shortcomings. It's louder but it moves slower, doesn't hang up and the "fling poo" and holds way more litter. The only downfall is that the storage container is smaller and needs to be emptied more often than the littermaid one.