cleaning of a litter box

Question
I use the clumping cat litter that sticks to the bottom of the pan. Would is the best cleaner to use in cleaning cat litter boxes?

Answer
Paul,

This is a good question for which I do not have a good answer.

All clay based litters will, eventually, stain the bottom of the litter pan.  For 20 some years, we have used chlorine bleach (diluted 1:32) + a disinfectant called A33 to clean and disinfect our litter pans.

We have never used clumping litter but have heard it can become like concrete on the bottom of the litter pan. I do not know of anything short of a scraping tool (hammer & chisel?) to dislodge chunks from the bottom of the litter pan.

Although it took our cats some time to get used to it, we use hardwood pellets (usually found in farm stores as wood stove fuel).  However, should you use these, make sure there is no additive to the pellets to make them burn "better".  What we did was to mix some pellets with our clay litter and gradually put more pellets and less clay litter.  Our rule of thumb is one litter pan for every two cats (three cats would get 2 litter pans).  We, normally, change the litter three times a week and clean & disinfect the litter pans once a week (diarrhea can make this occur more often).  We do not use lots of litter, since we are disposing of it pretty frequently.  

If you decide to change your litter, be very careful and do it gradually as a change in litter can affect whether or not the cat will use its litter box, or not.

I am sorry I could not be of more help.

Best regards... Norm.