Litter box smells of ammonia

[kami333]

I was cleaning out the litter boxes today and they really reaked of ammonia. Is that a bad sign? I've been adding litter but I haven't replaced it in about a month (I use the clumping kind so I just remove the waste) and I hadn't cleaned it out in about 1.5week (I have two litter boxes and one cat so she uses both).

 

[MazerRackham]

Quit feeding your cat Windex!!!!

 

[Grey]

God, with all these parody threads I don't even know if the OP is being serious.

 

[Nikamichi]

OMG dude, those are the collective fumes of your cat's old urine!

:Q

 

[StageLeft]

Litter oftne smells of that. It's normal.

 

[kami333]

I'm serious.

Hopefully I just have some anerobic fermentation going on, then I just need to clean them out completely.

 

[kami333]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Litter oftne smells of that. It's normal.

But it reeked, like almost hurting my eyes reek. I'll just replace all the litter and see what happens I guess.

 

[paulney]

You need to change litter weekly even if it's clumping kind.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: kami333

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Litter oftne smells of that. It's normal.

But it reeked, like almost hurting my eyes reek. I'll just replace all the litter and see what happens I guess.

Change it more often

 

[gsaldivar]

Next time you change the litter, add a layer of baking soda before pouring in fresh litter.

 

[Descartes]

Seriously, change the liter more often. You can scoop it out for a while, but you're always going to get some bacterial odors over time. Some litters supposedly help with this, so you might look into that as well.

 

[Bryophyte]

Use cat pan liners too, if you aren't already doing it. Makes it ridiculously easy to change the litter when it's time.

 

[Azraele]

You need to clean the box (scrub it) and change out the litter.

 

[paulney]

My cat doesn't use the toilet any more since it became an outdoor cat. I suspect he's doing his things in a neighbors garden, since I never see any suspicious activity in ours. Life is easy

 

[Harvey]

Ammonia is a natural byproduct of decaying urine. You can try changing the cat litter more often or using an odor killing cat litter. You can also sprinkle it with baking soda to improve the odor reduction.

 

[brtspears2]

Liners, replace litter weekly, and Arm and Hammer for litter boxes works great for me. Of course assuming the cat doesn't break the damn liner.

 

[RedRooster]

Just think how clean the inside of your cat must be if he's whizing out pure ammonia!
Perfectly normal. In fact, I refuse to change our cat's litter it's so strong, that's the wife's job.

edit-oops, don't want to get in trouble for swearing.

 

[Kaervak]

Change the litter weekly, not monthly. And don't use a clay based litter. Get a sawdust or compressed newsprint based paper. No dust and takes out the odors better.

 

[slickcat]

also you might want to wash out the cat litter pan with pine sol that seems to take the smell away immediately. I would also do with the other posters suggested in putting a layer of baking soda down under the litter to soak up the extra urine.

 

[Azraele]

You need to dump the old litter and wash the pan with warm soapy water.

 

[Klixxer]

You shouldn't wait a month to change the litter, a week max.

Try just emptying it and pour chlorine in it, that will teach you a lesson.

 

[Encryptic]

Use some good clumping cat litter like Scoop Away and scoop the litter box regularly. I had the same problem you did with this crappy Tidy Cat litter I bought for a while, because the clumps just fell apart and I couldn't scoop them out, resulting in some serious ammonia odor. I switched to Scoop Away and haven't had a problem since.

I usually don't need to totally change the litter, but I scoop it out every couple of days and have no problems with the smell, even with 3 cats using the litter box regularly. I use Scoop Away Multi-Cat Formula, by the way and it has a nice scent to it which probably helps with the smell. A big bucket of the stuff usually lasts about a month and a half before the litter level starts getting low in the box, then I just refill it. Just make sure you do a good job of scooping everything out each time by digging through all of the litter down to the bottom to ensure you get everything.

 

[TwiceOver]

Feline Pine. Not really scoopable, but you won't smell urine anymore. 3 cats here and I can't smell their box at all. Cept of course when one drops a fresh loaf in there.

 

[Kipper]

Pee = has ammonia

 

[Kelemvor]

Usually if the cats are spraying the inside of the litter box so it's not getting absorbed by the litter you can get a VERY intense amoinia smell. It's just the urine though. Scrub it down and put more litter in so they can aim down.