Van Ness Sifting Cat Litter Box Review
If there is one chore that all cat owners dread it is the constant scooping of the litter boxes. And the more cats you have the more litter boxes you have to scoop. With 6 kids, full time work, 2 dogs and 7 cats, I'll be the first to admit that I am terrible about scooping the boxes daily. This results in having to spend more time hovering over the boxes to scoop them and changing litter. Definitely NOT my favorite chore! So when I saw these sifting litter boxes while I was at my good old Walmart I decided to pick up a couple to give them a try. Now at Walmart I paid $35 a piece so I only bought two. When looking into getting more I found that I could get the exact same ones through Amazon for $8.99 and a larger size for just $15.60.. That's what I get for making an impulse purchase.
Van Ness Odor Control Large Enclosed Cat Pan with Odor Door
Van Ness Odor Control Extra Large Enclosed Cat Pan with Odor Door
Now right off of the bat these litter boxes are super easy to set up. Simply stack the solid pans, pop the sifting pan in, add your favorite litter, put the top on and lock the 4 attached clips. However, within 5 minutes my cats had already managed to unsnap the flimsily attached door. After about 5 times of having to fish the door flaps out of the litter pans I said forget it and just did away with the door flaps.
Now the real time to test. I have two cats especially that love to try to dig to china and are constantly flinging litter out of the box before they do their business. Even with other covered litter pans I would often find a pile of cat litter outside of the entry to the pan. However with these pans because they do have a very deep base compared to even most litter boxes advertised as deep litter pans, I have yet to clean up any random litter piles at the opening so I am calling that a win!
Now almost as soon as I purchased these my home was hit with the flu. Tending to sick children with spiking fevers around the clock threw what little routine I had out of the window. The litter boxes took the brunt of the hit. I want to say it was 4 maybe 5 days of chaos and no sleep before it dawned on me that I hadn't scooped the boxes ( I know I am a terrible fur momma).
I set in to start cleaning all 9 boxes. The first one wasn't completely horrendous as it seems to only ever get used on occasion by one cat. The 2nd one was horrible and about 5 minutes in and 3/4 of the way through I couldn't take it anymore and decided that all of the basic boxes were just going to be dumped and fresh litter put in. After giving myself a few minutes to breathe I decided to check the status of the new covered litter boxes.
I had put the new sifting boxes in place of a couple of highly used favorite boxes so I was expecting the worst. I braced myself and took off the first lid. As expected it was disgusting. I felt terrible for my poor little fur babies. Then came the task of separating the sifter pan from the other two pans. Due to the completely smooth texture and the lack of separation between the layers it took me a minute to be able to get enough grip to be able to successfully lift it free without breaking a nail.
Once I was able to lift the sifter out of the pan I gave it a small shake to allow all the free litter to sift through without breaking the large clumps. Low and behold I had a full sifter pan full of yuck in less than a minute. I gently set the sifter pan on top of the clean litter to re adjust my disposal bag next to the edge of the litter pan to minimize mess as I was going to need two hands to dump this monstrosity. And Voila! The pan had been scooped in less than 2 minutes!
I set the empty sifter pan on top of the clean litter to get to work on separating the bottom two pans and now that I knew what I was doing it was easier to get that grip and they pulled right apart.I placed the empty sifter into the empty pan and dumped the free litter in taking note of how much smell was in the litter to note if I needed to completely change it immediately. Once dumped I also noted how little clumping there was on the bottom of the pan. I am guessing that the sifting pan created enough of a space to keep my diggers from basically urinating on the bottom of the pan. And the great thing is because the litter is now in the other pan I can properly wash and dry the now empty pan without rushing to get it back into place. I attached the lid and moved onto the other new sifting pan.
Now that I knew what I needed to do to separate the pans this one went a bit quicker. I got it sifted just as the previous one and replaced the cover. Then I set to dumping (and scraping) all of the other boxes and refilling them with litter. I then headed outside with the two empty pans from the sifting boxes and gave them a quick rinse with the hose and set them upside down to dry. I went to the store to grab a few items and when I got back I just wiped them down with one of hubby's shop rags to make sure there was no moisture left and popped them back under their mates and reattached the covers. Now I know that I have a clean litter box handy again.
Now I know that I put a bit more litter in these as the basin is soo deep which may have affected the ease of separation a bit but it was still an easy process. And it was definitely less painful than scooping the horrendous boxes. Dumping the sifting bin into my collection bin was a bit more awkward than with the scoop due to the bulky nature of the bin but I feel that that was cancelled out by how quickly the whole process was vs. traditional scooping. The added bonus of being able to have a clean litter pan each and every time definitely makes this a win for me!
In conclusion
Would I buy this again? YES I am ordering more from amazon as soon as I get done here!
Would I recommend this? If you have a busy household, multiple cats, problems crouching for periods of time to thoroughly scoop the litter, have messy cats or procrastinate when it comes to scooping the box I will highly recommend this product! However if you are a homebody who has plenty of time to follow right behind your kitty and scoop after every mess this may not be the box for you.
While every household is different and what I may find to be a small blessing may not work out for everyone, I still highly suggest that you give this litter box a try!
Van Ness Odor Control Large Enclosed Cat Pan with Odor Door
Van Ness Odor Control Extra Large Enclosed Cat Pan with Odor Door
Now right off of the bat these litter boxes are super easy to set up. Simply stack the solid pans, pop the sifting pan in, add your favorite litter, put the top on and lock the 4 attached clips. However, within 5 minutes my cats had already managed to unsnap the flimsily attached door. After about 5 times of having to fish the door flaps out of the litter pans I said forget it and just did away with the door flaps.
Now the real time to test. I have two cats especially that love to try to dig to china and are constantly flinging litter out of the box before they do their business. Even with other covered litter pans I would often find a pile of cat litter outside of the entry to the pan. However with these pans because they do have a very deep base compared to even most litter boxes advertised as deep litter pans, I have yet to clean up any random litter piles at the opening so I am calling that a win!
Now almost as soon as I purchased these my home was hit with the flu. Tending to sick children with spiking fevers around the clock threw what little routine I had out of the window. The litter boxes took the brunt of the hit. I want to say it was 4 maybe 5 days of chaos and no sleep before it dawned on me that I hadn't scooped the boxes ( I know I am a terrible fur momma).
I set in to start cleaning all 9 boxes. The first one wasn't completely horrendous as it seems to only ever get used on occasion by one cat. The 2nd one was horrible and about 5 minutes in and 3/4 of the way through I couldn't take it anymore and decided that all of the basic boxes were just going to be dumped and fresh litter put in. After giving myself a few minutes to breathe I decided to check the status of the new covered litter boxes.
I had put the new sifting boxes in place of a couple of highly used favorite boxes so I was expecting the worst. I braced myself and took off the first lid. As expected it was disgusting. I felt terrible for my poor little fur babies. Then came the task of separating the sifter pan from the other two pans. Due to the completely smooth texture and the lack of separation between the layers it took me a minute to be able to get enough grip to be able to successfully lift it free without breaking a nail.
Once I was able to lift the sifter out of the pan I gave it a small shake to allow all the free litter to sift through without breaking the large clumps. Low and behold I had a full sifter pan full of yuck in less than a minute. I gently set the sifter pan on top of the clean litter to re adjust my disposal bag next to the edge of the litter pan to minimize mess as I was going to need two hands to dump this monstrosity. And Voila! The pan had been scooped in less than 2 minutes!
I set the empty sifter pan on top of the clean litter to get to work on separating the bottom two pans and now that I knew what I was doing it was easier to get that grip and they pulled right apart.I placed the empty sifter into the empty pan and dumped the free litter in taking note of how much smell was in the litter to note if I needed to completely change it immediately. Once dumped I also noted how little clumping there was on the bottom of the pan. I am guessing that the sifting pan created enough of a space to keep my diggers from basically urinating on the bottom of the pan. And the great thing is because the litter is now in the other pan I can properly wash and dry the now empty pan without rushing to get it back into place. I attached the lid and moved onto the other new sifting pan.
Now that I knew what I needed to do to separate the pans this one went a bit quicker. I got it sifted just as the previous one and replaced the cover. Then I set to dumping (and scraping) all of the other boxes and refilling them with litter. I then headed outside with the two empty pans from the sifting boxes and gave them a quick rinse with the hose and set them upside down to dry. I went to the store to grab a few items and when I got back I just wiped them down with one of hubby's shop rags to make sure there was no moisture left and popped them back under their mates and reattached the covers. Now I know that I have a clean litter box handy again.
Now I know that I put a bit more litter in these as the basin is soo deep which may have affected the ease of separation a bit but it was still an easy process. And it was definitely less painful than scooping the horrendous boxes. Dumping the sifting bin into my collection bin was a bit more awkward than with the scoop due to the bulky nature of the bin but I feel that that was cancelled out by how quickly the whole process was vs. traditional scooping. The added bonus of being able to have a clean litter pan each and every time definitely makes this a win for me!
In conclusion
Would I buy this again? YES I am ordering more from amazon as soon as I get done here!
Would I recommend this? If you have a busy household, multiple cats, problems crouching for periods of time to thoroughly scoop the litter, have messy cats or procrastinate when it comes to scooping the box I will highly recommend this product! However if you are a homebody who has plenty of time to follow right behind your kitty and scoop after every mess this may not be the box for you.
While every household is different and what I may find to be a small blessing may not work out for everyone, I still highly suggest that you give this litter box a try!
Comments
Post a Comment