I am now a true believer.  A month or so ago we finally located the fml
mentioned wood stove pellets to try as litter.  I cannot praise this product
enough.  The ferrets after an initial digging session took to it readily,
and we recently began switching the cats over to it with success.  We notice
virtually no smell, and it lasts longer than we thought it would - for us
comparable to clay litters.  My husband scoops it daily pretty successfully,
hauling out most of the "sawdust" (it breaks down when wet) with no problems
if all the sawdust is not gotten - no smell, no dustiness.  It does not get
tracked thruout the house as does clay litter.  There are no additives or
vaporous oils to worry about.  It is cheap, cheap, cheap.  Currently we are
paying $3.50 for a 40lb.  bag (some folks in other regions are finding it
for even less).  We initially had a hard time locating it in our lower
midwestern area because we were looking at the huge home supply stores.  I
finally quit being a dunderhead and looked up fireplace stores.  Not all of
them carried it, but a few did with small price variances.  It is wise to
stock up before the warmer months as the stores supplies dwindle during this
time and they don't necessarily stock back up till the approach of the next
cold season, although they seem to have some on hand.  I'm reluctant to
mention to them what I'm buying it for (I think they thought it was pretty
funny that I was buying 2 bags for springtime!) in case they discover that
they have a new market that they can charge a lot more in!
 
Now I have to admit to how stubborn I was being.  We used clay litters and
thought we were having no ill health effects from the dust, etc.  Well it
was immediately noticeable upon the switch to wood pellets that the ferrets
were sneezing and scratching much, much, much less.  Lesson learned.
 
VINYL FLOORING: We are also big fans of this for cage flooring as are
others.  I wanted to let you know of our engineering successes with it.  We
have a very large multi-level cage on a wheel tray for our 3 (3 ft.  high x
2.5 ft.  wide x 4 ft.long) which of course they mostly just sleep in.
Anyway, a cleaning nightmare (even with 2 large doors) especially for my
6'4" husband who can't crawl into it as easily as I can.  We tired of trying
to line it with various other things and went to the aforementioned huge
home supply store and got a roll of remnant sheet flooring (not the
individual squares) for around $10.00.  Lucked out that it was a nice
pattern that matched the colors of the room the cage is in - it costs more
if it's not a remnant, and even had some left over.  In stead of just laying
it flat we lipped it several inches up the sides of the cage in most areas
(as much as 8" around litter boxes) and secured it with tie wraps and twist
ties.  Also used corners from plastic jugs (milk, etc.) to secure the
overlapped corners in the cage - tied this down also.  Used small ovals cut
from jugs between vinyl and ties to cut down on tearing (especially from
curious claws), but this has not seemed too necessary so far.  Cleaning the
cage is very simple now - just wipe down the vinyl (mostly for butt wipes).
Virtually nothing makes its way out of the cage (even more so since we're
using wood pellets).  High aim in the litter box doesn't plaster itself to
the cage, just to the easily wipeable vinyl.  The vinyl is soft gray on the
back so it doesn't look bad from the outside (the ties color coordinate!),
and it's easily and cheaply replaceable when uncleanable parts of it get too
dirty (like edges) although it looks like it will last a long, long time.
We used to have to disassemble the cage and take it outside to hose down
every few weeks, now we're thinking once a year for this - and I don't think
I'll mind undoing the vinyl for hosing and putting it back in because of the
overall time savings.  The height of the vinyl around food areas (lower than
around litter boxes) has not been a problem for water bottle placement for
my guys.  The only hard parts to clean are the flexible, corrugated,
perforated drainage tubes we use for multi-level access and these are
secured with reuseable tie wraps so it's not that hard.
 
Hope this is helpful.  Will post about some great litterboxes, and our
solution for drippy water bottles in a shorter post.
 
sc ellis-blackwell
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[Posted in FML issue 1914]