Pregnant women run the risk of contracting a disease known as toxoplasmosis, which in turn can harm or even kill their unborn child. One of the main causes of this is coming in contact with cat poopie. In my relationship, and from what I hear in many others too, I have made it clear that I don't want anything to do with cleaning up after the cats. I’ll feed and pet, but I didn’t want the cats to begin with. My wife found a “buy one get one” sale at the local shelter and couldn’t resist the urge to get 2 cats…ARGH Not only that, but she “rescued” a kitten from the streets out of the goodness of her heart. The only time in our relation I have ever cleaned up the litter box is when she was pregnant with our children, for fear she might touch the dreaded poopie and kill the children. Oops, well, back to the idea.
My idea is to have a detachable chamber built into the base of the litter pan. After about a day or two of continuous use (or how ever long it take to fill up, my cats seem to have over active colons though) just step on a pedal and the top part (which holds the litter) slants to let the litter slide into the bottom compartment.

Once the litter and it’s debris is in the bottom chamber just lift the empty top part off, set aside, and just take the bottom part off to the trash bin. The bottom part could be dispensable or could be made to hold pre-sized plastic bags that can be tied off and thrown away.
-- barnzenen, Jul 22 2003

self cleaning litter trays http://bizrate.lyco...%20Box,rf--wgg.html
[pjd, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]

whole lot more crap like this over at Home: Pet: Waste http://www.halfbake...0cat_20litter_20box
sorry, barnze, didn't mean that quite in that way. ;) [po, Oct 04 2004]

i have seen such a gadget a few years ago, (may have been on the popular BBC science program "tomorrow's world") ... will do some googlification .. see link.
-- pjd, Jul 22 2003


This is eminently sensible. So much so that I suspect it is baked. A cat authority here says there is something called "Littermate" that had an automatic rake which removes poop chunks, sweeping them into the poop repository.

BTW, wouldn't "Toxo" be a great cat name?
-- bungston, Jul 22 2003


and call the other cat "Plasmosis."
-- bristolz, Jul 22 2003


I saw the self cleaning litter box but was always afraid the cat's tail would get stuck in it and I'd have a big bloody mess to cleanup ... wife in a shock, bleeding cat, amputated tail, bathroom with blood and litter everywhere. I just thought mine was a little simpler.
-- barnzenen, Jul 22 2003


Toxoplasmosis is a bacterial infection that anyone can get, not just pregnant women. It is generally non-problematic, and if you have had cats for a while you have probably already had it without knowing. It just happens to be very hazardous to unborn children.
-- DeathNinja, Jul 22 2003



random, halfbakery