How Many Litter Boxes Do You Need for Your Cats?

With the number of litter boxes, the general advice that I see repeated over and over again is one more litter than the number of cats.

But where does this rule come from? Although not bad advice it feels a little arbitrary to me.

When we only had two cats (Lina and Kilala), for eight years we only had two litter boxes for them and never had any issues.

To determine how many litter boxes you really need, there are other factors to consider.

In general, having more cats will lead to more litter boxes. But that may not be the case in all situations.

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Are your cats okay with sharing the boxes?

My cat Buster seems to like to have a litter box that the other cats are not using. Or he needed to have super fresh litter.

Also, some cats prefer not to pee and poo in the same box.

So, depending on the number of cats you have, and how how particular they are, you may need 2 boxes per cat (or more).

How often are you able (and willing) to scoop those boxes?

Are you or others in your household, able to scoop the boxes more than once a day? Or perhaps, right after the box was used?

Scooping more often (or completely replacing the litter, if using non clumping), may mean that you can have less boxes.

I’ve visited a cat sanctuary that had 40 cats and they didn’t have 41 litter boxes! Volunteers were on a strict scooping schedule.

Do you have a cat that likes to ambush at the litter box?

Are litter box ambushes a problem with your cats?

Adding more litter boxes in areas throughout your home can reduce the chances of a cat feeling trapped in the litter box area.

The size of your home

If your home is large or has multiple levels, you may want to make things easy for the cats and have litter boxes on each level.

Think about how annoying it would feel to you, if you were on the 3rd level of a town house and how to go down 4 flights of stairs to the basement, every time you needed to use the bathroom.

Please be considerate of your cats.

The litter box size

If you choose bigger litter boxes, you may be able to have less litter boxes (as long as the cats are okay with sharing, as mentioned above).

We have litters of varying sizes. The largest box that we have is pictured below (image is an affiliate link).

It’s great because it has a spot to hold the litter box scooper. But the size makes it more difficult to completely swap out and clean.

Petmate Giant Litter Pan for Cat Buy on Amazon

We have other boxes of various sizes, all uncovered.

I’ve heard of people that use a kiddie pool as their litter box. I haven’t convinced my husband yet for us to try this, but there are DIY instructions here.

Related Posts:

• Paws Happy Life vs. Boxiecat cat litter review
• Tidy Cats Lightweight litter review
• Cat Litter Box Problem Guide