However both Kage (4) & Thai-ger (.5) like electronic toys and I'm afraid
that they will think this is one and somehow break it.

units which makes me think they are not so reliable.
Any help is welcome
thanks >

When my daughter brought her 3 cats to live with me (in other words, the
cats are mine now), she gave me her littermaid. I hated it. It was noisey,
would get stuck, the tines would load up and not drop the 'stuff' into the
container. There are only a few types of litter you can use with it (they
call them premium litters), and are more expensive. I have also heard of
them shorting out and catching fire, with at least one cat losing her life
to the fire. I disconnected it, and it is sitting on the side until I can
decide what to do with it.

Patti

I have 4 LM's for my 6 cats.  They are rarely any
trouble if you keep up with emptying the bins and keeping the
litter level *between* the two fill lines.  They don't work
well if kept at the "Full" line.

They are less trouble, but they are not care-free.

I also have been using Arm&Hammer scoop litter in them.  It
clumps better so I use less litter.  Less odor, too.

LT

I had a large littermaid and got rid of it.  It worked great for my cat
that had small pees but for my cat that peed in the corner and had large
pees it just made a mess and the tines would be a mess.  If you have
cats that are under 10 pounds and make reasonable size pees - as opposed
to baseballs and they pee in the center of the box, something my Tony
will never do, then you have a good chance of it working.  It also helps
if you don't have cats that dig to China leaving open spots and deeps
spots for the rake to go through.  Tony was also good at that.  He and I
had numerous discussions about his use of this new litterbox to make it
easier on Meowmy, but they didn't work, so I got rid of the of the
littermaid litter box and went back to regular scooping.  My other cat
at the time complied nicely.  But it was not meant to be.

Bridget

I got rid of mine because with three massive pee-ers the tines were always
gunked up and I couldn't keep up with the tiny receptacle.  This was
several years ago so model was probably not exactly the same but still
similar.  

However, my sister came up with an idea that made ONE LitterMaid work for
her.  She elevated the device with a bunch of something, I think it was
magazines or maybe a stack of two by fours?  Well, I only saw it once -
she lives out of state.  Anyway, the cat had "steps" to get up to it and
the area where the receptable should be was replaced with a larger
container --- wide enough to catch everything and deep enough to make
emptying be necessary less often.  Wish I had thought of this it would
have been more helpful with three big pee-ers. (though the tines would
still be gunky) - I think they got gunky because with bigger clumps of
urine that's a lot of resistance on the tines as it's being shoved across
the tray - hence more of it would get stuck into or onto the tines than a
light weight clump?
Michelle