Litter boxes in households with multiple cats

How do cats use litter boxes in multiple cat households

We will tell you some curious data…

The main reason for behavioral visits in cats is related to litter box use
About 10% of cats pees or poos out of the litter box at least once in their lifetime
This is the main behavioral reason for euthanasia

Understand why cats do this is key to avoid this behaviour!

A research done in USA tried to find what factors influenced the use of litter boxes in multiple cat households

Researchers evaluated multiple reasons that could lead to the cat not using the litter box:

was the litter box used before or not
the identity of the cat that used the litter box before
the odor of the litter box
the cleaniless of the litter box
having fake urine clumps or feces (made by the researchers with water and gelatin)

The conclusions were

If the cats could choose they would rather use a clean litter box versus a litter box previously used
the identity of the cat that previously used the litter box has no impact on the choice
The fact that there are fake urine clumps and fake feces is more upsetting than the real odor of feces or urine in the litter box

Conclusion:

To prevent this problem , in multiple cat households, the most importante thing is cleaning the litter box regularly to keep it free from urine clumps and feces promoting it’s correct use.

References

Ellis, J. J., McGowan, R. T. S., & Martin, F. (2017). Does previous use affect litter box appeal in multi-cat households?. Behavioural processes, 141, 284-290.