Coffeee grounds as cat litter

[chrisgreaves]

I have begun an experiment with unscented clumping litter in a vertical tower vermicomposter.

I have two bustling coffee shops right across the street.

My mind turns to the use of coffee grounds as a kitty litter, and so I solicit opinions. It seems to me that cat faces & urine embedded in coffee grounds has to be better for the worms than clumping clay.

I'm not sure about the cat; paws could bec0ome dis-coloured?

The apartment would adopt a strong smell of coffee, I have no doubt.

[Jay Blair]

As coffee grounds are disposed of wet after steeping with boiling water, the coffee grounds could establish mold growth that could cause the cats respritory and urinary infections from close exposure during litter box use.

Also if you are feeding your worms on used cat litter remember cat wastes are extremely high in heavy metal residuals and the urines are some of the highest in ammonia levels.

Cat wastes should be anerobically precomposted for two heatings as opposed to one for other animal wastes before introducing worms to them. Also due to the high residual toxin levels associated with cat wastes even after vermicomposting it is usually advised not to use high concentrations of cat waste based compost on food crops.

[tt]

Clay
worms like. My site is at teh landfill and is clay. In my trenchs where i winter the worms are clay lined. Anyway this fall i was harvesting and found that the worms were embedded in the clay and doing well.
As far as coffee it may be worth looking at but I would make sure that it was dryed properly so that mold would not be a problem. When coffee is dryed there is usally no mold problems. Could still discolor cats paws unless you have brown cats

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Jay Blair]

Chris,
While researching cat repellents to protect gardens for a participant of a homesteading forum I admin, I found that coffee grounds are as effective a cat repellent as as orange peels or cayenne pepper.

With coffee grounds in the litter box, you may find them relieving themselves elsewhere in your house.

[priswell]

We use wood stove pellets for our cat litter. We have a standard sized cat litter box, and one quart of stove pellets looks pretty meagre at first, but as it's used, it fluffs up and nearly fills the box. The wood pellets definitely keep the smell down, and time between catbox changes can stretch much farther than with clay litter.

And yes, we compost it. Cat poop/urine has to go somewhere, anyway.