Cancer Posted November 18, 2008 Report Share Posted November 18, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Turns out the kitties had been treated with flea-zap the day we picked them up; it takes a day or two to kill all the vermin. They seem to be flea-free now, though we'll keep checking for the next few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted November 18, 2008 Report Share Posted November 18, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Got to watch that first step though.It's a doozy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveZilla Posted November 19, 2008 Report Share Posted November 19, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER It's a doozy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted November 19, 2008 Report Share Posted November 19, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER It certainly looks like it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted November 19, 2008 Report Share Posted November 19, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER And those things hurt if dropped on you from 5000' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted November 19, 2008 Report Share Posted November 19, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER You should see what it could do from 1,500 meters! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted November 19, 2008 Report Share Posted November 19, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Meh. 24 cm short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted November 19, 2008 Report Share Posted November 19, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER . . . That's pretty impressive, under the right circumstances. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted November 25, 2008 Report Share Posted November 25, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Booo' date=' fleas! [/quote'] Ear mites aren't much better. We're treating four ( ) cats for ear mites, and the cats are distinctly not happy about it. One of them scratched me pretty badly this morning, out of sheer grumpiness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted November 25, 2008 Report Share Posted November 25, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER What are you using to treat them? My wife uses baby oil swabbed into the ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Poison specifically made to kill ear mites, every other day, and baths once per week. In theory, anyway. In practice . . . well, you try to get a cat near running water one week after its last bath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Depends on the cat, but yea. I'm still getting over the trust issues from the ear meds about three months ago for one of our cats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Silleh kittehs. Bafs are nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted November 29, 2008 Report Share Posted November 29, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER A cat not used to baths can be ... unforgiving. A cat brought up with them may be more tolerant. We had one such for a while; the area was saturated with fleas, so Dad bathed the cat weekly. The cat didn't like it, but it was in the mundane annoyance class. He didn't fight, bolt, or yowl, just tried clandestinely to climb out of the sink during the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted November 29, 2008 Report Share Posted November 29, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Herc wriggles and miaows and fusses until it's clear we're not letting him get anywhere. Risu, our resident hellion, bears it all pretty well. But then, she was quite infested when we found her, and so has been bathed about every three months, on average, for her whole life. Our roommate's cats yowl and carry on. But then, they do that if you look at them sideways as you walk by. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted November 29, 2008 Report Share Posted November 29, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER We have not bathed any of our current cats, but Zane did jump into the bathtub once and swam around a bit. One of our past cats, Daisy, started doing a routine of hers. We had a shower that did not drain very well, and a ledge on the far side which had the shampoo bottles. After we finished our shower, she'd wade thru the chest deep (for her) water, lick the warmish water off the top of the bottles, wade back, walk thru the litter boxes and jump into bed where she would then go "EW! My feet are wet and stuck with litter!" And proceed to shake them at anyone in the bed. We were using a natural litter, but we bought a hand vacuum just to do the bed every evening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveZilla Posted November 30, 2008 Report Share Posted November 30, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Has anybody with cats tried any of the automatic catboxes on the market? Are any of them any good? I tried one from Wal-Mart (I'm sure it's sold elsewhere as well) for $99 and found the design so lacking I'd now compare it with what the cats put into it. I've seen another one that is hooked up to both a water supply and a drain (toilet or washing machine drain pipe), and uses a wash/sanitation fluid to clean the litter pellets. But that one costs IIRC around $300. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted November 30, 2008 Report Share Posted November 30, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Has anybody with cats tried any of the automatic catboxes on the market? Are any of them any good? I tried one from Wal-Mart (I'm sure it's sold elsewhere as well) for $99 and found the design so lacking I'd now compare it with what the cats put into it. I've seen another one that is hooked up to both a water supply and a drain (toilet or washing machine drain pipe), and uses a wash/sanitation fluid to clean the litter pellets. But that one costs IIRC around $300. I've seen the washing one as well. I don't know anyone who has one. Most of the people I know just use the manual labor version. Probably because most of us have anywhere from four - fifteen cats. One person has this ball thing that once the cat steps out, it rotates to remove the clumps. It works allright, but just one of the cats uses it. And they may have stopped dealing with it, because it was a pain to clean. The other person only had the one cat and it was a rake system, which seemed to work, but she only had the one cat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SatinKitty Posted November 30, 2008 Report Share Posted November 30, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER I have two cats and I tried the plastic litter with my last cat and I did not like it. I use scoopable and I scoop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted November 30, 2008 Report Share Posted November 30, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER We used to use the crystal litter, it worked pretty well, but it was round, so it rolled all over the place. We also used pine pellets that worked well. Now we use Worlds Best Cat Litter. Scoopable, flushable, and fairly low dust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted December 1, 2008 Report Share Posted December 1, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER My roommate has a Cat Genie. It works pretty well. We run it every time the cats complain that there's waste in the litterbox (or when we notice the smell). It takes a while to run, but it has yet to clog, we don't have to scoop it, and it cleans thoroughly. Only two cats are using it, though; the other two still use the clumping clay version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveZilla Posted December 1, 2008 Report Share Posted December 1, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER I have (but no longer use) the LitterMaid Basic (Model Number: LM500), having bought it after the accident that broke my leg. It's a rake system that requires clumping litter. I have grown to dislike the clumping cat litter because it invariable got tracked into my bed. But worse was that the gear-tracks on either side of this LitterMaid and the (flimsy plastic) rake invariable got heavily encrusted with the clumping litter. It was easy to disassemble to clean in the bathtub, but next to impossible to reassemble because of the way it was manufactured. At the time it was the only automatic cat box I was aware of, and the only one I had ever seen in any store (Wal-Mart). I didn't even know that LitterMaid made bigger and better ones. The LitterMaid Elite Mega has a removable steel rake, but looking at the picture it looks like it also suffers from the same flaw of having exposed gear tracks. I want an automatic catbox that is actually automatic in all respects (i.e., not needing me to clean it manually every week or so to prevent it from gumming up). The Infomercial for the Cat Genie caught my eye because it uses water and flushes the waste into the toilet/clotheswasher drain. Currrently I use Feline Pine and like that there is no clay dust and very little tracking -- but it's pellets do not work with the weak-@ss3d motor in the LitterMaid that I have. I have two cats now, having rescued the new one after it was abandoned by a neighbor. My new apartment will have hookups that I can use for my clotheswasher as well as a Cat Genie (if I buy one). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted December 1, 2008 Report Share Posted December 1, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER The current fostered momcat did something yesterday none of us expected. She opened a factory-sealed vacuum pack of sausages, and extracted one sausage intact. That's when my daughter caught her and we took the sausage away from her. I more or less expect poorly-disciplined cats (and until proven otherwise, all the fosters go in that bin) to get into foodstuffs left out, but this one was a surprise. The package was sealed and newly bought, so it shouldn't've smelled like food at all. The plastic is tougher than most such wrappings, too. Yet she obviously recognized it, methodically chewed a hole in one end, and then pulled out one of the sausages. The recognizing part is the one that surprises me the most. Clearly this is a cat that has seen vacuum packaging before and knows what to do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted December 1, 2008 Report Share Posted December 1, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER One of our cats is a bread fiend. We got some supplies from a grocery in Vegas which included several packs of Lady Fingers (my wife uses them for tiramisu) and we had everything in a box. Both my wife and I had trips then and left the box out. The cat sitter came to the house to find Lady Fingers scattered throughout the entire house. Elizabeth had opened the box, then pulled out five packs of Lady Fingers, opened those, and distributed them around the house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted December 3, 2008 Report Share Posted December 3, 2008 Re: Longest Running Thread EVER I have (but no longer use) the LitterMaid Basic (Model Number: LM500), having bought it after the accident that broke my leg. It's a rake system that requires clumping litter. I have grown to dislike the clumping cat litter because it invariable got tracked into my bed. But worse was that the gear-tracks on either side of this LitterMaid and the (flimsy plastic) rake invariable got heavily encrusted with the clumping litter. It was easy to disassemble to clean in the bathtub, but next to impossible to reassemble because of the way it was manufactured. At the time it was the only automatic cat box I was aware of, and the only one I had ever seen in any store (Wal-Mart). I didn't even know that LitterMaid made bigger and better ones. The LitterMaid Elite Mega has a removable steel rake, but looking at the picture it looks like it also suffers from the same flaw of having exposed gear tracks. I want an automatic catbox that is actually automatic in all respects (i.e., not needing me to clean it manually every week or so to prevent it from gumming up). The Infomercial for the Cat Genie caught my eye because it uses water and flushes the waste into the toilet/clotheswasher drain. Currrently I use Feline Pine and like that there is no clay dust and very little tracking -- but it's pellets do not work with the weak-@ss3d motor in the LitterMaid that I have. I have two cats now, having rescued the new one after it was abandoned by a neighbor. My new apartment will have hookups that I can use for my clotheswasher as well as a Cat Genie (if I buy one). The Cat Genie works best if you have room in your bathroom. It hooks quite nicely to the side of our toilet. Unfortunately, we only have one bathroom, and it's teeny. We're working on being able to put it in the basement, but the cats who use it most are scared to go all the way down there. But it does work. My roommate's biggest complaint is that the automatic cycle uses up twice the soap, and the stuff you need to replenish is on the expensive side. But if you can afford the up-front costs, it's an excellent investment. One warning: if you let solid waste sit for longer than 12 hours, it needs to be scooped by hand. But it does scoop easily, and the pellets can be flushed without clogging up your pipes. My biggest problems with the thing are the space it takes up in the bathroom, and the little pellets all over the floor. But clay pebbles would be way worse, and these can just be swept up and poured back in to be reused. I suppose I could do that, myself, but I'm sort of in denial that it's still in our eensy bathroom. EDIT: My roommate says to invest in the one that has a hood. The pellets stay in better, that way. It's $14 more. But the Cat Genie is used by two cats, and it seems well-suited to the task. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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