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Average user rating:  | |
 I like it, but could live without it... | |
| I bought the Littermaid about three months ago, and so far I have had no mechanical problems. It tends to jam alot though, requiring me to go downstairs and manually scoop the litter and clean off the tines. I have a female that doesn't like to cover her poo, so she is usually the culprit in the jamming problem...the poo doesn't have a chance to harden in the litter and it sticks to the tines creating a shovel effect rather than the raking effect. If you have a cat that doesn't cover well, skip this product. It is loud! It wakes me up frequently, and the replacement waste bins for it are expensive ... and with three cats I change it every two days. It is very particular about litter. You have to get the really good kind for it to work to your satisfaction (no dampness or small clumps of waste left in the litter). Annoyingly, there are always wet pancakes of litter stuck on the bottom that the rakes can't reach. Overall, it really doesn't save much time. I have found that I have to completely change out my litter every three days or so, because the thing just jams up unless you have maximum clumping power going. The time spent unjamming, scraping the bottom, scraping stuck poo off the tines etc. is about equal to what it would take a person to care for a regular litter box. I would recommend it to anyone with a very picky cat who demands pristine litter all the time...you will get that with this machine maybe 50% of the time. More if you buy super expensive litter and have a cat who covers their poo very well. | |
 Not all that | |
| I purchased one of these set it up and... it cleaned maybe TWICE and quit working. It would start the cleaning cycle and begin to move then stopped and went back to start. There is no type of shield or cover for the track area so litter gets into the track and causes problems. At first I thought that was the problem, but after I cleaned it and tried again, it did even less than before. I even called the Litter Maid Company for help. I ended up returning it. Never could figure out why it quit working. Maybe I ended up getting a bad one. Who knows! But if you purchase it, keep your receipt just in case. I have known others to LOVE theirs. By the way, if you have dogs who love getting into the litter box, the cleaning doesn't start until 10 minutes after the cat leaves, if the cat comes back before the 10 minutes, the timer starts over. | |
 overall, worth the price | |
| I was very skeptical of how well my 14-year-old cat, Hobbes, would put up with a motorized cat box. To my surprise, he really (REALLY) seems to like it. I think it's because the sand is *clump-free* WHENEVER he goes in. I brought it home, put some sand in it... he checked it out for about 15 minutes (sniffing it, walking away, coming back), then went inside with a little hesitation and then walked away, and about an hour later, he actually used it. For the next 7 days, Hobbes did not use the old cat box at all, so we threw it away. From day 2, he has seemed completely comfortable when inside it. It has been 3 weeks and I am really happy that Hobbes likes it. Pros: 1) it's also a great source of entertainment for Hobbes... he will sit and watch it clean itself. 2) it doesn't smell like a cat box. Cons: 1) Do NOT fill too full, otherwise it gets STUCK. This is the biggest problem. As he buries, your cat may push the sand too much to the front and then the rake becomes stuck because the sand is too high there. If it's too high- the clumps can end up outside the box! Fill it BELOW the fill line. overall: my older cat is not affraid of it, really likes having a clump-free box, and is entertained by it. Aside from the overfilling problem, well worth the purchase. |
