One of the main problems for cat owners is how to equip a toilet for their pet. What to put into the tray and whether to put in at all? Here's what our members of the forum think:
- I take pressed sawdust (Siberian cat "Forest", for example). You can change it every 3-4 days. There are many advantages: cheap, environmentally friendly, smell of wood, convenient to use, you can throw it down the toilet.
- Silica gels are distinguished by the fact that they retain 100% odor and can not be changed for 3-4 weeks, removing only solid waste. In addition, silica gel does not stick to the paws; due to the shape of the granules, it is poorly ejected from the tray. A five-liter package is enough for a month and a half.
- And we have been using Clean Paws for 4 years already, clumping. Like.
- Of the fillers, pine sawdust is the most popular. Cheap and generally no cat smell. I change the tray every two days. There is enough sawdust. They absorb and smell only of wood. I have a cat and four kittens used to wear them. And it doesn't smell.
- I am allergic to any, even slightly dusty fillers. Therefore, there are two options: either silica gel or wood pellets. Because the cats have arrived in the regiment, we will go broke on silica gel. Remains "Khvoinik". We use with a lattice. Only the filler on top of the grate, which makes the sawdust perfectly crumble down, from where it is removed (into the toilet).
- We used Pee-Pee Bend before, the smell started after a week. Now we use WC cats silica gel - there is no smell even after a month.
- And we keep it simple. A handful of sawdust under the wire rack. The cat's paws are always clean, there is no smell. We change it every 2-3 days, flushing the swollen sawdust down the toilet. What is on top in a big way is easy to collect with toilet paper and into the toilet. And most importantly, they cost a penny!
- I bought a 5 liter package of sawdust and am not overjoyed. I pour it evenly, and in a thin layer and do not remove it for several days, the sawdust increases three times, there is no smell and everything is absorbed. However, we remove solid waste immediately.
- I use a Siberian cat - super-clumping, in my opinion, it is better than PI-PI-Bent, absorbs odor better and lasts 5 liters for a month. package.
- Kittens often try to eat filler, so it is worth buying mineral filler without additives (there are special ones for kittens).
- We use KAT SANOM, the cat is very happy, there is no smell at all during the first 5-7 days, then we need to change it. When we bought a deeper pot, the cat began to dig much less and quieter. I am very pleased with kat san!
- I tried silica gel cat step, it could not stand it for a month. Two weeks maximum. He became all yellow and the cat refused to walk in it. From what I liked: a clumping cat; I didn’t like it: Siberian cat, but woody one has to be changed often
- I really like "Kotyara" - for 3-4 weeks it keeps quite decently (I pour out a full package of 3 liters at once). And I tried other silica gel - I did not like it
- I use wood filler - pressed sawdust. There is no smell from the tray, from morning to evening there is enough filler. I tried many fillers. The worst was - clumping with clay.
- After a long search for a suitable filler, I found the optimal scheme for my cats (I have two of them). Under the lattice I pour wood compressed (for example, whale), and on top of the lattice - Brava mineral for long-haired cats (although they are both short-haired, but the granules do not fall into the lattice). In general, the woody smell holds, but in Brava they dig and row. Everyone is happy.
I tried wood filler (I also noted all the above advantages for myself) and with clay (you can't throw it into the toilet), but in both cases, the kitten dumps a third of the contents over the side while burying and spreads it along the map ((I will try silica gel, although it is expensive of course ..
And we have two pots (with and without a grate). We use a Siberian cat. I don't like it very much. absorbs poorly, but at least it can be flushed down the toilet. And I clean the pots every day. We have a clean cat. If it's dirty, he'll shit on our bed :))
Pet owners generally spare no expense in providing adequate care and maintenance for their pets. Among the huge variety of products presented by pet stores, toilet fillers occupy an important place. The main parameters that make them necessary, especially for cat owners in an apartment, are environmental friendliness and harmlessness of products, the ability to absorb all odors, as well as affordable prices. What is a cat litter business?
Despite the variety of types of the filler itself, it is optimal to start the production of granular wood filler, where the diameter of the granules is approximately 5-8 millimeters. The advantage of the finished product is the absence of binding impurities when processing environmentally friendly wood, due to which moisture and odor are well absorbed. It is these pellet-granule fillers that they prefer to purchase for their cats.
To start implementing this business idea, you need a small room, with an area of \u200b\u200babout 45-50 sq. meters, special equipment, as well as sawdust, moisture content no more than 16%. Granules made from light coniferous wood have better absorbent properties compared to other fractions.
From the equipment you will need a pelletizer that can produce about 100-150 kg from sawdust per hour. finished products, the price of such a device starts from 140,000 rubles. However, there are also more powerful lines that can produce 600 kilograms per hour, but their cost is 5-6 times more than an average pelletizer.
You will also need a dryer, a crusher and a sieve, equipment for cooling, all this will cost about one million rubles.
It is necessary to pack finished products in paper or plastic bags of different sizes. The minimum weight for sale is 5 kilograms. Such a package will cost from 100 rubles. They must be issued with a color seal with the appropriate stamp. An alternative to such costs is the sale of pellets in transparent bags with stickers (Zip Lock), where the necessary data is located.
What can this business be combined with? Read - "", "" and "".
The sale of finished products should be primarily in pet stores, supermarkets and other specialized stores of goods for animals. The average price per kilogram of filler is 15 rubles. It should be remembered that one small outlet sells more than 100 kilograms per month. Moreover, it is important to take into account that it is unprofitable to supply batches of products less than 20 tons over long distances, which should be taken into account when organizing this business.
Do not forget that pellets are more and more widely used in everyday life. Boilers operating on pellets appeared, they are used for pitiful kebabs, gardeners fertilize the soil with them. All these niches are still free in most Russian regions.
In this regard, the production of wood fillers is the most promising for the development of their own business, because does not require significant financial investments and is highly profitable.
In any pet store today you can buy a wide variety of litters for the cat litter box. But not all pet holders are willing to pay a lot of money and are looking for one or another substitute for their pet.
In order to understand how you can replace cat litter, you first need to figure out what functions it performs.
- Absorption of unpleasant odors and moisture - the cat will stop walking in a damp litter box, and its owners naturally do not like toilet smells.
- Simplification of the pet care process.
- Promoting the animal's natural tendency to "bury" what is left in the tray - nature cannot be changed, all that remains is to help the pet.
Folk options - cat litter substitutes
Conventional lattice
You can also leave the tray empty by placing a wire rack on top. Moisture will drain from the grate to the bottom. One snag - such a toilet should be cleaned more often and thoroughly, otherwise the smells will be indescribable.
Newspapers, paper
A long-known folk way is to finely chop newsprint. Newspapers are always at hand and there will be no problems with filler.
Sand or earth
Natural river sand or soil from the street absorbs urine well, but the smell can only weaken.
Sawdust
One of the best substitutes is sawdust. They absorb odor with moisture quickly and hold for a long time.
Wood pellets, they are also pellets for heating boilers
Compressed wood pellets are not much different from store-bought fillers. The only difference is in the price. In fact, you have to pay two to three times more for the same thing, but in a beautiful package.
When choosing how to replace cat litter, you should consider a couple of points. First, except for the lattice, all options are "dirty". In all cases, particles will remain on the cat's paws, which he will shake off throughout the apartment. And the cleaning period - paper and sand will have to be changed almost every day, and sawdust and granules can be poured from above, and completely changed only once a week.
According to many experienced cat owners, wood litter for cat litter is by far the market leader in terms of price-quality-convenience ratio. Igor Stus, the owner of eight cats, shared his interesting facts about this type of filler and his experience of using it with our site.
- I have been using wood litter for a long time and am very pleased with them, although we have tried many different types. All shelters and overexposures I know also prefer wood filler. I was curious how and who came up with the idea to use sawdust in such an original way.
The history of sawdust, or "pellets"
A short search on the Internet led me to Germany as early as 1947. A sawmill manager named Rudolf Gunnerman came up with the idea of \u200b\u200bpressing sawdust in order to ... throw them away. The problem was that it was expensive to take the sawdust to the landfill - they are very voluminous and light.
Trucks had to make many trips, and loaders had to swing a shovel for a very long time, and, in the end, the cost of removing sawdust became very high. Rudolf Gunnermann began to press them to fit more into the body, and such briquettes or sawdust granules were called "pellets".
A few years later, after emigrating to the United States, Gunnerman proposed using his invention as fuel. And, by the way, this method is very effective: pressed sawdust gives more heat than wood, if calculated by weight, and burns out almost completely. In the 1970s, Gunnerman filed a patent for his invention, but when exactly pellets began to be used as wood litter for cat litter is unknown.
There is more forest in Russia than in any other country in the world. Of course, we have already thought of pressing sawdust - this is not Newton's binomial, but animal lovers in our country still use an imported invention, and this is because most of Russian wood litters for cats are made from waste or from deciduous wood, and imported - from conifers. The latter absorb and "hold" the smell much better.
How is wood litter for cats made now?
Modern pellet production is a high-tech process, in which sawdust pressing alone is not enough. They are sorted into different categories, ground to a state of dust, special mechanical devices are used for molding, cooled, dried. The production takes into account temperature, humidity, composition of raw materials.
But the ingredients of this "dish" remained the same - only natural wood, no chemical additives. That is why pellets are ideal for the hygienic needs of animals. In addition, “cat” wood litter remains one of the cheapest. The cost in pet stores, at least in Moscow, starts from 20 rubles per kilogram.
It is important not to confuse kilograms and liters here: despite pressing and granulating, pellets remain a very light and voluminous substance. And, most importantly, for cat's needs there is no point in buying more expensive, high-quality pellets - the absorbent properties do not differ very much, and three kilograms of wood litter in the tray absorb up to 12 liters of liquid.
For me personally, as a very lazy cat owner, pellets have a very important quality. After a portion of pellets has been used up by cats, it can simply be poured into the garbage bag completely, without sorting. The tray stays clean and dry and smells like sawdust.
Well, that is, of course, a matter of personal preference. Some people are allergic to wood filler, which may be due to the essential oils in the softwood sawdust used to make it.
But in any case, wood litter for cat litter is a very useful invention and a great alternative for those who prefer natural and pure products for themselves and their animals.
Igor Stus
What canned food is tastier for cats?
ATTENTION, RESEARCH! Together with your cat, you can participate in it! If you live in Moscow or the Moscow region and are ready to regularly observe how and how much your cat eats, and also do not forget to write down all this, they will bring you FREE KITS OF WET FEEDS.
Project for 3-4 months. The organizer is Petkorm LLC.
Sly marketers have long figured out that people spend crazy money on their pets.
Haircuts and clothes, veterinarians and even cosmetologists (!) Will not miss their chance to lighten the wallet of the owner of a cat or dog. And this is not to mention the breeders of thoroughbred animals, who even moreover spend huge sums on their charges.
However, most of the townspeople do not come to this, providing pets only what they really need. For example, the cat litter industry never lacks orders from retailers. In short, if you intend to organize your business, but do not know what to do for this, remember the needs of our smaller brothers.
What are the fillers?
Cat litter types are organic, gel, and clump. The latter two will probably not be of interest to an ordinary entrepreneur in our country, since raw materials and equipment for their production are expensive, and therefore the cost of the final product is such that demand for it will be only in large cities.
Characterization of organic species
Therefore, we would recommend setting up the production of cat litter from the simplest organic fillers, which include only environmentally friendly raw materials. The latter circumstance, by the way, automatically frees you from the mandatory certification of fillers.
They can be produced from sawdust, shavings or nutshells, as well as waste from corn processing. This raw material has an excellent ability to absorb moisture and odors, costs literally a penny, and is also completely safe for animal health.
The best raw materials
If you are just starting to expand your production, then it is best to use ready-made wood pellets. Their diameter is about 6-8 mm. Usually they are produced in huge quantities on the basis of wood processing enterprises, and pine and spruce wood is most often used as raw materials.
The fact is that it is this material that not only actively absorbs biological fluids, but also has a bacteriostatic and bactericidal effect. Among all the wood litters for cat litters, spruce is the most practical solution. Since the raw materials are cheap, the sales of such fillers are growing every year.
Cost and profitability
Oddly enough, but it is the production of litters for cat litters that has excellent profitability indicators, and also does not require a huge start-up capital. Most often, products are packaged in packages of five to ten kilograms, and the cost of one is about 120-200 rubles.
As we have already said, pellets are used for its production. You can buy them for about four rubles per kilogram. Thus, the initial profit will be at least 35 rubles from each kilogram of finished products. This is why making wood litter for cat litters has become so popular among even seasoned entrepreneurs in recent years.
In principle, by organizing the purchase of raw materials directly from its manufacturer, it is quite possible to achieve a profitability of 100-150%. If, however, to produce pellets, purchasing only sawdust or shavings at bargain prices, the profitability of the enterprise will become even greater.
Production technology
The production of litter for cat litters itself includes the following technological stages:
- Pre-drying of raw materials, which are then sent for crushing.
- Additional drying. At the exit, the raw material should have a moisture content of no more than 8-12%.
- Subsequent crushing of chips in a hammer mill.
- Moistening the resulting raw material with steam (for its subsequent better gluing).
- Pressing into molds and cooling of granules.
- Screening and packaging of finished products. By the way, bags for fillers can also be produced independently, since the cost of this process is low.
Equipment, its cost
Of course, for this you need the appropriate equipment. We recommend using the ready-made line OGM 1/5 at first. Sawdust, shavings and dry peat can be placed there as raw materials. The latter, by the way, makes the production of cat litters even cheaper.
The cost of this kind of line is about two million rubles. The most important element of the entire production is the granulator, but it will still not be possible to do without other equipment.
Let's consider all the components of the line separately:
- Chip shredder - costs about 180 thousand rubles.
- A dryer for raw materials (depending on capacity and volume) can cost from 400 thousand to 2.5 million rubles.
- The simplest granulator costs about 50 thousand, but the most reliable and functional models are sold within 1.5 million. In the OGM-1/5 considered by us, this constructive part costs about one million.
- A pellet cooler will cost 400 thousand.
Note that it is on the granulator that you should pay special attention. The fact is that such a line uses a rather large and cumbersome model. In principle, a more compact and lighter version can be purchased, which can be installed directly in the workshop of a wood processing enterprise. In addition, such equipment can be delivered to a furniture shop, simultaneously producing another type of product.
As for packing, it is best to take packages of 5, 10, 15 and 30 liters. We have already mentioned that you can produce them yourself.
The cost of equipment for this is about 150-200 thousand rubles. If you order packaging from third-party manufacturers, and even with the requirement to print your company logo on it, then this will ultimately cost much more.
In principle, a small production of wood fillers can successfully use the simplest Zip Lock bags (within a couple of rubles apiece). In this case, it is much cheaper to order labels with the company logo from a third-party printing company.
Sales, certification issues, etc.
The main advantage of the production of fillers is the fact that there is no need to rent a large room for this. Basically, all the cat litter production equipment can be easily placed on 50 square meters. There is also no need for any special storage conditions.
As we already noted at the very beginning of the article, products of this type are not subject to mandatory certification. It can be sold both in specialized pet stores and in outlets with everyday goods. If we talk about wholesale prices, then on average they are 15 rubles per kg.
Additional production options
But that's not all the benefits! The fact is that wood pellets for fillers can be used in a completely different capacity. So, if you use larger presses to form them, then they can be packaged and sold as fuel for barbecues and fireplaces.
On the contrary, if you crush sawdust (necessarily deciduous) to the finest possible consistency, then the granules are well dispersed among gardeners as an excellent tool for improving the mechanical properties of the soil.
Generally speaking, in large cities, these issues need to be thought out in advance, since competition can be quite intense, and therefore other types of products will help keep profit.