Effective Kitten Litter Training Tips from Daventry Vets’ Nurses

June 21, 2024

Emptying your kitten’s litter box may not be the highlight of your day, but investing time in training your kitten to use it correctly can save you a lot of hassle down the line.Daventry Vets’ nursing team have compiled some invaluable advice on litter training your kitten effectively and instilling good habits for life. Read on for our nursing team’s expert tips:

Contact us for more kitten advice

Litter Box Choice and Care

When it comes to getting the set up right, Daventry Vets’ nursing team have this advice for new kitten owners in Northamptonshire.

First, choose a litter box that mimics a cat’s natural environment by considering factors like size, material, and accessibility. For example, selecting a larger litter box with low sides can resemble the open space that cats prefer for eliminating. Additionally, opting for unscented, clumping litter can replicate the texture and consistency of sand, which many cats prefer for covering their waste. Avoid covered litter boxes, which may make your kitten feel trapped. Don’t use scented liners your kitten won’t like them.

Place the litter box away from food and water bowls and keep it clean. Remove soiled clumps from the litter tray at least twice a day and wash it out at regularly. Cats are sensitive to odours, so a heavily soiled litter box may discourage your kitten from using it.

If you have more than one cat, our Daventry veterinary nurses advise that you should have one litter box per cat, plus an extra box. This means if you have two cats, they should ideally have three litter boxes, three cats should have four litter boxes, and so on. Having multiple litter boxes ensures that each cat has access to a clean and private space for elimination, which can help prevent territorial issues and encourage good litter box habits. The ideal is to have one tray per cat and one extra.

3 Easy-to-follow Litter Training Steps:

  1. Show your new kitten where their litter tray is as soon as they arrive – you may need to move this to an area your kitten feels comfortable in so keep an eye on them.
  2. Place your kitten in their litter box after an event i.e. after they have eaten, played and slept.
  3. Be persistent and patient to ensure good, lifelong habits. Litter training your kitten will not happen overnight but they will eventually learn to associate this time with going to the toilet and will take themselves to the litter box after each event.

Thanks for reading our article on litter training your kitten, we hope you found the advice from our Daventry nursing team helpful.

Help others by sharing our tips with friends and family who may be welcoming a new kitten into their home!

Contact us for more kitten advice

Strictly Necessary

These cookies are required for our website to operate and include items such as whether or not to display this pop-up box or your session when logging in to the website. These cookies cannot be disabled.

Performance

We use 3rd party services such as Google Analytics to measure the performance of our website. This helps us tailor the site content to our visitors needs.

Functional

From time to time, we may use cookies to store key pieces of information to make our site easier for you to use. Examples of this are remembering selected form options to speed up future uses of them. These cookies are not necessary for the site to work, but may enhance the browsing experience.

Targeting

We may use advertising services that include tracking beacons to allow us to target our visitors with specific adverts on other platforms such as search or social media. These cookies are not required but may improve the services we offer and promote.

Change Settings

Welcome. You can control how we use cookies and 3rd party services below

Change Settings Accept
Learn how we use cookies