Carnia Lynx Litter – A Dust-Free Blessing or Pure Shit?

I have owned indoor cats for some four years or so by now, starting with a tortoiseshell mutt that was getting harassed by the other outdoor cats at my parents’ farm, and then moving on to ragdolls. In this time, I’ve primarily used two kinds of litter, with a third coming into play for my ferret’s litter boxes (since clumping litter is out of the question for him) and for the cats’ show cages (since clay-based litter can stain white paws and both my girls have white paw markings). I relatively recently made the switch from EverClean Multicat (with the occasional venture into other varieties of EverClean) to Carnia Lynx, a Swedish cat food manufacturer that also markets litter, and due to having very limited experience with other litters, most of this review will be something of a compare-and-contrast between EverClean and Carnia.

When evaluating clumping litters, the most important factors for most people seem to be clumping ability, odor absorption, and the “mileage” you can get out of a set amount. To a lesser extent, price will probably also factor in. Since I suffer from asthma, primarily reacting to particles in the air (I do not have a dust allergy, but dust acts as a very strong mechanical irritant to my respiratory system), and I keep my cats’ litterbox in my bedroom out of necessity, the amount of dust generated when cleaning or refilling the litterbox is another strong argument for me, which may not matter as much to other owners.

The first point, clumping ability, is something of a matter of taste. I like clumping litters, and both Carnia and EverClean do clump well, however Carnia can be a bit more difficult to clean out of the litterbox as the clumps have something of a tendency to be softer and fall apart unless they dry out completely. It’s possible this would be less of an issue in a single-cat household, and it’s something that definitely gets better with a thicker layer of sand in the litterbox, but since both my cats have picked the exact same spot in the litterbox to empty their bladder in, that spot doesn’t really ever dry out completely, and I end up with a section of wet half-clumped sand that can be a bit awkward to scoop out.

If the wet section of sand reaches the surface of the sand (my cats do periodically drink a lot!) this can also affect odor absorption, which in my experience is about on par with EverClean, possibly slightly slower-acting. However, I have one intact and one spayed female, and my breeder, who has an intact male, says the stronger smell of male cat urine isn’t absorbed to her satisfaction, so this seems to be partly a matter of judgment and partly a matter of the biology of your individual cat(s).

Sand “mileage” also seems to be about on par between the two brands of litter; it’s possible EverClean can hold slightly more moisture per weight unit of litter, and it does seem like “half-used” Carnia litter loses some of its ability to absorb both odor and moisture whereas I’ve never experienced anything similar with EverClean, so from that point of view Carnia may have a slight disadvantage. As mentioned above Carnia’s litter also seems to need to be slightly deeper for optimal effectiveness. Both litters are beat out by the non-clumping quartz crystal litter I use for my ferret and at cat shows in this regard, though, and I’ve not really seen a noticeable increase in how much litter my two cats go through so I’d say once again the two products in my experience are about even with EverClean having a slight edge.

Where Carnia’s litter shines is in price (at least compared to EverClean – it’s not that cheap), and dust levels. I’d been a loyal, satisfied user of EverClean litter for about two years when I noticed a significant increase in dust levels kicked up when refilling the litterbox. From being tolerable as long as I replaced the hood of the litterbox immediately and left the room for about 15 minutes, I went to needing to stay out of my own bedroom up to three hours after cleaning the litterbox, something that isn’t really workable for someone who does most of her work on the computer (located in said bedroom). After reading the claim that Carnia’s litter was 99.9% dust-free or something similar, I decided to give it a chance, and my respiratory system sure enjoys the change – I can now clean the litterbox and stay in the room if I need to.

Overall, the above makes Carnia Lynx litter right for me. Whether it’s right for you is up to you to decide. (I’d use the crystal litter for the cats, too, if not for the risk that prolonged use of such a large-grain litter can create calluses on the cats’ pads.)