Hagen CatIt Litter box

As the owner of 3 indoor cats, I’ve tried and tested quite a few litter trays (not me personally, I hasten to add. No, that’s the job of Minou, Jellybean and Dudley). Being a total novice cat owner when I got Minou, I fell for Pets At Home’s ‘buy a kitten starter pack with a special shallow kitten litter tray!’ marketing, little realising that this was just a ploy to get me to spend money on items I’d only have to replace as the kitty grew. So, learn from my mistakes, just get your kitten a regular-sized litter tray as they’ll be able to hop into it easily enough and there’s no point in confusing them by moving them to a much more appropriately sized one after a few months. As it turned out, having been thrown out as a baby, Minou had rather missed out on the litter training that her mummy cat normally would have done with her. I had to do it in her stead and it turns out that I’m nowhere near as good at instructing kittens as I am at instructing children. To this day, Minou makes very little effort to cover up her poos, preferring instead to display her scatological excesses proudly, and she stands up to wee, occasionally slinging her bum over the side of the litter tray to make sure she gets it everywhere. Because of her toilet foibles, and because one of my other cats is a big heffalump of a Maine Coon (who will be much too big for ‘regular’ litter trays when he’s fully grown) I decided to get the biggest covered litter tray I could find, which turned out to be this one.

Firstly, a disclaimer

The litter tray I have looks a bit different from the one Ciao have in their catalogue, but I emailed them and they assured me that this is the same model and this was the right place to put it. As far as I can tell the only differences are the clips that join the bottom and top of the litter tray together.

What does it look like?

A HUMUNGOUS litter tray. It really is massive – so big that two normal sized cats could be in there at once and not bump into each other. That suits me perfectly but if you have one or two normal cats then this is probably going to be more than you need. Its size does make it a bit awkward to store; mine is currently sat beside the chest of drawers and I end up having to shift it every time I want to get to my clothes. Access is via a swinging, hinged door which contains a carbon filter. I took the door off (which was easily done) because Jellybean is too stupid to understand the principle behind it and gets stuck in there, repeatedly hitting himself in the face with the door and crying. Also, Maine Coons have incredibly long and fluffy tails and I thought if Dudley got it trapped it would freak him out and put him off using the litter tray. Lastly, whilst I understand that the whole point of covered trays is to reduce any whiffiness, I always think it must be unpleasant for the cats to do their wees and poos in what is, essentially, a tiny room with no ventilation so taking the door off allows a bit of fresh air to circulate.

Ease of cleaning

Because it’s so huge it takes quite a bit of litter to fill it – just under half of one of the large bags of Catsan. For two cats sharing this is fine, but it may not prove cost-effective to use this for just one cat and it’s worth bearing in mind that it becomes quite heavy when full of used litter. There is a lip under the door way which is supposed to provide an anchor for a bin bag but I always empty the litter straight into the outside bin so I’ve never had cause to use it. To enable easy cleaning the litter tray has a sturdy carrying handle and 4 sliding locks which enable it to come apart into two halves. This is easily done, even when I’ve been scrubbing the tray outside in the middle of winter and my hands are freezing cold I have no problems undoing or redoing the catches. Because of its size I usually bleach and scrub it outside under the hose, but if the weather’s really manky it can (just about) be manoeuvred far enough into a sink to be thoroughly cleaned.

Should I buy one?

This is a very good quality product and I’m pleased with it but at £25 it wasn't cheap, so unless you have large breed or messy cats I’d recommend you look for a smaller litter covered litter tray as this will likely be far too big for your requirements.