house trained but want to use litter tray

[KatharineDG]

Hi, we moved house 4 weeks ago, my cats have just started to go outside...fine...but they are coming in to use their trays??? In the old house they never used trays apart from the odd emergencies. Any tips or ideas why they are doing this?

[booktigger]

Quite often, cats will use trays as they don't feel comfortable doing it outside, as they are quite exposed when toileting outside - are there more cats in your new area?

[KatharineDG]

Yes there are couple of cats, but there's lots of places for them to go, shall I put the trays outside, or just stop using them altogether?

[Mollycat]

No best to keep the trays, you can cut down to just one if they start to almost always go outside but it's really not recommended to have none available at all even if cats are free to come and go. They haven't had time yet to really establish their territory anyway, give them a chance.

[KatharineDG]

They've just been out, hopefully they have done their business! I think they were used to digging in next doors garden, there's not a lot of gardens here, but plenty of open space..fingers crossed

[KatharineDG]

update, one of them has just been out for 10 minutes, come back in and done a massive poo in his tray....

[Kay]

can you dig an outdoor pit for them, as near the house exit point as possible? I had a cat who hated using a tray, and I lifted a patio slab for him, dug it out and filled it with compost - I dug it over every week and removed any obvious poo bundles

an alternative to compost is builder's sand, which most cats love and poo is easier to spot of course

[KatharineDG]

Thats a good idea, but there's no where really to do this, there is a wood across the road at the front of the house which they haven't been to yet, so fingers crossed. They've been out this morning, came in and used tray, but only for wee, fingers crossed no poo yet!