Homemade cat litter works well for everyday use.  It’s cheap, keeps most cats happy and is effective. It also works well if you need to collect urine for diabetic monitoring or other reasons.

Your pet cat only needs to scratch something after peeing to feel the job has been done properly. This means that if you don’t want to use commercial litters then plastic homemade litter is a viable option.

Further, if you have suddenly found yourself in the business of collecting feline number ones, you have many options as to the material you can use when creating a tidy cat litter..

Elsewhere, I have also included domestic soil as a litter base which is terrific, especially if Fluffy is an outside cat.

Collecting cat urine – the plastic way

Of course, we know that plastic is a very real and present danger to our environment. For that reason, we don;t advocate this method as anything other than a single urine collection method. It is not a full-time litter substitute.

As this article is particularly designed for collecting urine these are some of the great alternatives you can use.  And they are Free!  No CATch -:)

Remember: You will only need 1ml for testing, and since most cats will pee 10 – 30 mls at a time, no matter which system you use, you may want some absorbent material for her to step onto as well so the extra urine does not get splashed about!

Styrofoam beads

Beads are a bit trickier to use than traditional methods because the urine sometimes gets on the cat’s feet and then they ‘track’ it around the house.

As a solution, put paper or a towel next to the tray so they can dry their feet before traveling around the house.

Plastic pieces

Plastic is easy to find and use.  Many vets actually save plastic caps from needles exactly for this purpose!

Other Homemade Litter Options

  • Cut up plastic drinking straws
  • Fine aquarium gravel (check that is not powdery or porous). Rinse first and thoroughly dry on paper towels if necessary or the rinse water will dilute the urine sample!
  • Glass beads
  • Dried (but not salted!) pumpkin seeds
  • Ordinary sand will work – the sample needs the urine to be retrieved though (as for the paper method) – pressing the dipstick into the sand will reveal glucose (diabetes) and blood, but not much use for anything else.

But the cat just needs to pee!

Ahhh – well there are some wonderful, Feline Friendly, natural, homemade cat litter options for you to use.