If you’ve been on CatTok (that’s Cat TikTok), you know about pine litter. But do you know everything there is to know? Is it worth the cost? Is it safe for your cat companion(s)? Are you making the right choice!?
Stop stressing. We’ve got a list of pros and cons just for you.
Table of Contents
Pros
- All Natural Ingredients
- Super Easy Clean-up
- Less (to No!) Smells
- Affordability and Accessibility
Cons
- Potential Health Issues if Improperly Used
- Harder for Cats to Cover Messes
- Pine Smells
- Cat or Human Allergies
Bonus
- How Often Should You Clean Pine Pellet Litter? (With an Example Schedule!)
Pine Litter Benefits
1. All Natural Ingredients
Our cats are our babies. Their health matters to us!
Many health-conscious owners transition to pine litter to avoid the pitfalls of its artificial counterpart. These range from damage to the environment, the potentially carcinogenic dust, and toxic ingredients that cling to a cat’s fur and paws. Even if you’re careful, cats like being clean. They’ll licking away what’s stuck on them and ingest the powder you tried so hard to fight off.
Unfortunately, their gut is made for digesting meat, not clay. If your cat eats clumping litter, their body fluids cause it to mass together, potentially leading to impactions in their digestive tract. Clumping litter also often contains bentonite, but the consequences of bentonite toxicosis can be dire, including the need for whole blood transfusions.
While your pet shouldn’t eat pine pellets for the same reasons they shouldn’t eat any litter, exposure to the pine material is less likely to irritate their bodies overall. You may know pine’s phenol if you’re well-versed in plants and trees toxic to cats. Pine is harmful in its natural state, but the phenol that poses an issue is burned off when the wood is processed and formed into pellets.
Pine doesn’t need as many additives to get the same job done, so it’s a natural (and effective) option for eco-friendly owners and their pets.
2. Super Easy Clean-up
Pine pellets, when wet, disintegrate. You’ll need a sifting tray to use the natural litter as intended, but this works in your favor—with the right prep in the bottom tray, you can make clean-up as easy as picking up and dumping a liner.
You can also quickly locate solid waste to remove. It’s easy to dump old pellets you’re looking to refresh, too, either by lifting the whole box and emptying it or with the scoop, as the pellets tend to be large enough not to fall through without a good jostling.
Which leads us to…
3. Less (to No!) Smells
Even unscented pine pellets are powerful deodorizers; they don’t need an additive to make them tolerable to the human nose. If you like the smell of wood, you’ll enjoy the smell of pine litter.
With a siftable system, the urine-saturated powder will fall into the lower tray. Then, your cat should cover everything up with solid pellets as they dig around. Less exposure equals fewer smells! (Yay!)
A tip for the extra-sensitive noses: sprinkling baking soda into the pellets and the receiving tray’s liner helps keep the smell of cat by-products at bay.
4. Affordability and Accessibility
Wood-based pellets are easy to locate and cheap, believe it or not!
Big chains like Walmart®, Target®, Petco®, or PetSmart® carry brands like Feline Pine should you need something immediately. For more cost-effective bags, livestock stores like Tractor Supply offer larger quantities for lining stalls.
With a $10 bill and some change, you could get a 20-pound bag of pellets from Target or a 40-pound bag from Tractor Supply.
For non-pine comparisons, a 40-pound bag of Tidy Cat’s clumping litter costs over $20.
An equine-friendly store is a wallet-friendly option at around half the cost per pound.
If you’re worried about the difference, unscented pine is unscented pine, and stall pellets are suitable for use in your cat’s litter box. Just ensure they’ve been kiln-dried to keep away pesky bugs and phenol (which can cause system toxicosis)—and double-check the ingredients so you’re getting an additive-free product.
Online carriers such as Chewy also have unscented pine litter available for purchase, allowing you to add to your cat’s existing monthly delivery. No need to worry about running low!
Liners, too, can be found affordably and in bulk online. The larger sizes can be cut to fit your box’s tray for additional longevity. Or you can measure before ordering if you’re not a fan of trial-and-error.
(From experience, though… the thicker the pad, the better.)
Pine Litter Problems
1. Potential Health Issues if Improperly Used
Pine pellets turn to dust and therefore stand to cause the same issues as artificial litter. (Take it from someone who learned this the hard way.)
If you swap to pine litter and use a closed litter system, your cat may suffer from a respiratory infection or irritated eyes. This warning includes sifting trays, where the dust may fall through but then dries to a light powder. In addition, the introduction of movement, from urinating, scratching, or a door’s swinging, can cause the dust to become airborne.
This Safety Data Sheet goes over the hazards of Feline Pine™ Original Cat Litter, including skin, eye, and respiratory irritants for humans. However, cats can suffer the same reactions and develop similar infections. Ingestion should be hastily rectified with a vet visit—vomiting, inability to defecate, and other symptoms can worsen fast.
An OPEN, sifting litterbox is a must when using pine litter, as it ensures the dust falls through and cannot be excessively inhaled. It also reduces exposure to a cat’s sensitive eyes, lowering the risk of conjunctivitis.
If you make the switch, monitor your cat closely and ensure they aren’t playing with the pellets. This lively swatting can lead to nibbles, and you don’t want your cat to swallow the pine inadvertently.
2. Harder for Cats to Cover Their Messes
Cats are full of individual personalities and, as such, have their own preferences.
One of the downsides of pellet litter is that it doesn’t clump like your cat may be used to or may want it to. Solid waste can be hard for your cat to cover with the larger grain litter, leading to them scraping into the wee hours of the night. Thus, transitioning from a clumping litter to a pellet litter may be hard for your cat to accept.
Even with the gradual introduction of mixing old and new litter formats, or letting the old box get uncomfortably dirty while introducing the cleaner pine litter system option, your cat might think the pellets are simply too uncomfortable for their paw pads. This outright rejection could lead to messes around the house.
In that case, your hands may be tied. Think about it—walking on mulch or fine sand, which would you prefer?
3. Pine Smells
What you love, your cat may hate.
While pine may act as a natural deodorizer to you, your cat’s nose may find it too strong to tolerate. It could be a preference, but it could also be a more instinctual reaction. Their olfactory system is closely connected to the stress response portion of their brain, so what they might “not like” the smell of can be outright stressful to them.
If using pine is too upsetting, they’ll have to find somewhere else to do their business. Most often, this “somewhere else” is a less-than-favorable spot… and usually not one you find immediately.
In cases like this, you might offer another box with your previous litter as a last resort. Alternatives that don’t smell so strongly might prove beneficial to explore.
4. Cat (or Human) Allergies
If you’ve got a severe allergy to pine, you may want to reconsider swapping, as your cat will inevitably carry the pine particles in their fur. I’m willing to bet your cat isn’t intending to sabotage your health, just like you aren’t trying to sabotage theirs!
As it also forms dust, it can be hard to escape. When pouring or cleaning, you risk additional exposure to the particles in the air. In summary: there is no escape. If you’re reacting—an itchy throat, eyes, rashes, or otherwise—discontinue and get rid of it! No amount of money is worth the risk.
Cats show their allergies in similar ways, according to CVA Animal Hospital. Sneezing, red or teary eyes, and excessive self-scratching despite preventative measures can signal pine is inappropriate for your situation. Monitor your cat when changing your cat’s current circumstances, from food to litter to medicine. Follow up with your vet as needed.
If you or your cat can’t handle pine, no harm, no foul. There are other, similarly health-conscious options, like corn or coconut.
How Often Should You Clean Pine Pellet Litter?
Cleaning frequently further reduces the litter-box smell and dust.
If you want to keep your cat happy and healthy, you should scoop solids daily and remove the tray with the liner around three times a week. Of course, how often you clean truly depends on your cat or cats (for example, how many cats and how big they are) and the box’s size—your goal is to reduce the accumulation of pine dust overall and give your cats room to work.
Here’s a sample schedule for a one-cat Purine Breeze XL system:
- Scoop Solids: Daily
- Empty Tray and Replace Liner: Tuesday, Thursday (2 times a week)
- Sanitizing with cat-friendly cleaner: At least every other week, 2-3 times a month
When sanitizing, include the sifter section, handheld scooper, separated tray, and mat. Putting the whole thing through a thorough scrub-down removes all the particles, scents, and bacteria from your system’s plastic; no bad stuff, no bad smells.
If you notice a persistent smell, like if your kitty is on a new medicine, new food, stressed, or otherwise, you should clean more (and check in with your vet to ensure everything is okay).
For those worried about a deep-cleaned litter system, you can save a bit of the old batch of litter to add to the new to reintroduce their own smell.
That process is also dependent on your cat. If you’re lucky, yours will see the familiar pellet shape and pine scent and know what to do.
Pet Parent Pointers 
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