Greening Your Pet: Feline Pine Cat Litter Review
April 8, 2008 by Peggy
I’ve been using Feline Pine from Nature’s Earth for about five years now. Well, actually Choco has been using it. I’m just the litter box cleaner.
Feline Pine is compressed pellets of recycled pine. As the cat urinates, the pellets break down into sawdust. Scoop the poop daily with a slotted scooper that allows for most of the unused pellets to go back into the litter box. Then you flush the kitty poop.* Give the box a shake to settle the dust on the bottom and the pellets on top. Change litter when most of the pellets have been used up.
*Important note: If you live in a coastal area, dispose of cat feces in the trash rather than the toilet. Why? Cat feces is harming sea otters. Learn more at Feline Pine.
There are several reasons I like this litter:
•It’s natural. Really, it’s made of pine! (Pressurized to remove harmful wood oils.)
•100 percent recycled. No trees harmed.
•Smells good even after it gets deluged with cat pee.
•It’s biodegradable and renewable. (Unlike clay litter which does not decompose.)
•100 percent chemical free. No fragrance needed.
•There’s no horrible silica dust like with clay litter. That’s better for kitty and you.
•Size of pellets reduces chance of feline ingestion while grooming.
There’s really only one thing I don’t like about it:
Once it’s almost time for a litter change, the tracking is pretty bad. They make a special self-cleaning litter box to eliminate this problem, but Choco is at home in his existing litter box, which is more private.
What to try it? Feline Pine makes it easy with a free bag rebate for new users.
Have you used this or other green cat litters? What did you think?
(Image by Peggy Rowland. Yeah, that’s Choco snooping around the bag practicing his plastic fetish.)
Check out our coffee contest going on now.
A cheaper (yet identical) alternative is to use wood pellets intended for fuel. Exact same thing at about 1/4 the cost! I use it for my dogs (yes, they are litter box trained–I have 2 small dogs) and cat.
Hi FatSusie. Thanks for stopping by to comment. I’m wondering — do the wood pellets you mentioned break down at all? Feline Pine is treated to remove the oils in the wood.
Hi Peggy, and yes–they break down EXACTLY like Feline Pine (right down to the “tracking” issue close to changing time). When the season ends for fuel pellets, I switch over to Feline Pine, so I’ve used both and none of my pets has batted an eye at the switch. The fuel pellets sell for between $4 to $8 for a 40 lb bag, so I try to remember to stock up this time of year. Some hardware stores sell them, as do most places that sell the pellet stoves.
Thanks for the tip!
Equine Fresh works equally as well as Feline Pine and is processed in the same way, so is safe for the cats. Tractor Supply sells it (my local store is $6.99 for 40 pounds) and a local Southern States dealer sells it for 40-80 cents more per bag.
As a researcher I can tell you that pine pellets are indeed toxic to cats. Phenols in particular are poisonous to the cats neurlogical system. You cannot eliminate phenols from those pellets. The first sign of toxicity in facial tics and abnormal wisker and ear movements.
David, I was concerned about your comment and so I called Nature’s Earth (who makes Feline Pine), and the woman I spoke to reassured me that they have eliminated phenols from the pellets.
Abby:
If you can smell the pine then the phenols are still present.