Clumping cat litter for phosphate

quotes from where to buy green sand thread in Organic forum:

(ask Summer?)

I dont think you should put the used litter in the compost pile,it might be either the bacteria or amonia,which is nitrogen,but this is a good question.I have 3 cats,sooo,you like to try to, maybe put it to good use .Lets hear about this!!!

I will HAVE to experiment-- I would certainly have Less than the max amount, and I would like to make use of the free N and Phos. One of the two litter boxes is usually reserved for pee LOL.

I just spent half an hour searching the net for verification/information on clumping kitty litter after reading the discussion above. It seems that it often has some sodium bentonite clay, or calcium bentonite clay added as part of the clay, and a lot of silica dust, but no information on the basic clay body and phosphate amounts.

I use CalPhos, $10.00 for a 50 pound bag. Wish I could get clumping kitty litter that cheap!

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/973682/

http://www.planetnatural.com/cgi-bin/planetnatural/greensand-soil-amendment

Is that helpful?

This message was edited Apr 18, 2009 7:36 PM

Thanks for the links. I've been using Greensand for years, what I was trying to track down is corroboration of the statement about % of colloidal phosphates in clumping litter.

Greensand has been great to help break up my sticky clay soil, and in the last year I've added Azomite to the mix. Between the two, I get a healthy dose of micronutrients.

darius-- does the Calphos look like cat litter? Have you ever thought to see if it clumps? We could be on to something BIG...well medium...cut cat litter cost about half.

I thought some clumping had silica gel so not sure how I'd know the difference.

Sally, the CapPhos can be either granular or powdered. My first bags were granulated, don't know if I have any left to try clumping or not. The bags I just bought are powdered; that's all he had.

I HATE breathing the dust from the clumping litter. It doesn't have silica gel, just silica powder, bad for us all to breathe. Clumping litter has been reported by Vets as VERY bad for new kittens. Lots of deaths reported; they ingest it when grooming, and it clumps in their teeny-tiny intestines, blocking them, and death results.

Hmm--I suppose in view of that, the litter makers would be willing to divulge if there's silica in the product, and if not it would have to be colloidal phos
Thanks for your info.

For the health of my two cats, I recently switched from clumping clay litter to clumping corn litter. Their littermate (owned by my parents) started having respiratory problems thanks to clay litter, and his troubles vanished with wheat litter. I preemptively switched to keep my two furballs healthy, and found to my surprise that the corn litter seems to control odor better than the clay litter.


The details on the bag say the clumps of soiled corn litter are flushable. Well, being a bit of a compost geek, I'm seriously considering composting the stuff instead. I have two piles, so I'd designate one as the cat poo pile, which I'll never use on my veggies or berries. Heck, it might get used strictly on my lawn.

Any thoughts?

Sounds great to me. Ground up Corn stuff with nitrogen glue, what could be better? I assume all these clumping things can only clump so much and then just dissolve--that;s how they're flushable. c'mon they aren't concrete. Hm, I have today's pee ball, I'll go toss it in a bucket and tell ya what happens later.

Experiment one- One cat pee ball with about 2 parts water. It dissolves 99 percent and looks like clay . Guess that tells me I have clay litter. Left it sit on the deck for four days, no particular reason, just busy. Then poured a good shot on some alyssum. No burn, nothing bad.
I'm going to put the pee balls in a separate container, dissolve them and judiciously pour on garden, compost ..

sallyg ,keep us informed,i have 3 cats !!

I use the flushable wheat litter as well and have put that in compost before. The only problem is that it compacts a great deal when wet and becomes a stinking, anaerobic mess. Eventually does break down, though.

I hate to waste any organic material. I use The World's Best Cat Litter, which is made from corn. I hear all of the cautions against using cat litter in the garden, but I hate to waste it. The vast majority of the material goes out in the urine clumps, and urine contains a lot of nitrogen. I keep a separate waste pile into which I put weeds, squash vines, anything with fungal diseases, and my cat litter clumps. I will allow this to sit for a couple of years before I use it on my ornamental beds.

HylaBrook--that sounds like a good plan to me.
I also got a bag of corn cob litter, Natures Miracle. and one of pine pellet Feline Pine. Kitty likes them all. Pine pellets break down into sawdust when wet so you sift OUT the moist sawdust and keep the dry pellets. This corn one clumps too. Using these carbon ones would help balance your compost mix right away. I don't think I've harmed or burnt anything in the garden with any of my clay litter solutions; I do have lots of room to spread it around and just two cats using the box part time.